Congress has more power now than they are supposed to so why do they need this? All the sweet talk is getting old and the natives are already restless so why keep trying to make laws you know will fuel the natives campfires? Beats me but as far as I am concerned the lawmakers can take a few years off and we probably wouldn’t even know they were gone.

This Bill says – “(a) Conditions for Compelled Disclosure- In any matter arising under Federal law, a Federal entity may not compel a covered person to provide testimony or produce any document related to information obtained or created by such covered person as part of engaging in journalism, unless a court determines by a preponderance of the evidence, after providing notice and an opportunity to be heard to such covered person—“ and was created to protect the reality that the US Communist leader Obama does not qualify to be US President since – “No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President.” As far as I know he is not a natural born citizen.

These United States president Obama is not a journalist so this bill does not apply to him.

It’s almost am automatic indication that if the term ‘free’ is in the name of legislation it’s actually anti-freedom.

Just another bill presented to cover someones ass. Perhaps a whole lot of asses.

The people this bill is designed to protect are the ones that the PUBLIC who is in a sense hiring … HAS EVERY RIGHT TO SEE THEIR CREDENTIALS.

See how far you get in refusing to WILLINGLY provide that data to a would be employer.

Just more whats good for the goose is NOT GOOD FOR THE GANDER … policy the government wants to foist on THEIR EMPLOYERS.

If a politician needs to hide behind HR 985, then we would be better off having that politician hiding in the masses at the unemployment line.

So much for “Transparent”.

come on, 6 commentators and not a single one of you read or understands the language of the bill?!?!? wtf!!!! what kind of website is this? why are you people wasting your time on a site like this when you can’t take the 10 minutes to actually read the bill? there’s plenty of other places on the world wide web where you are not only allowed but encouraged to flagellate yourself and demonstrate your ignorance to the whole wide world. go find one. but if you choose to remain here, please remember that just because you have the right to speak does not mean you have t to exercise it.

this is a media shield bill that is designed to confer protections to journalists, not politicians. i would advise that you read the “covered persons” section of the bill to see who qualifies for the protections asserted. these protections would serve journalists — journalists who investigate corrupt officials. they would not protect public servants wishing to hide information.

Free ! when we die .

It seems like a horde of political Neanderthals have stumbled onto this bill for no apparent reason.

Wow! What’s next?

I would hate to have a reporter write something false about me and then NOT have to disclose where that information came from. Disclosing the source of information would keep checks and balances on professional journalism. But, nowadays it is more like ‘tabloid’ news without confirmation of the facts, just inuendos. I don’t think we need to protect the journalist. Is this about the Judith Miller case? Miller was jailed by an out of control special prosecutor for an investigation that ultimately revealed nothing illegal happened. The outing of Plame was done by Richard Armitage from State who was never prosecuted because no crime was committed. Plame was not a qualifying covert operative and her outing was not a crime. Journalists don’t require this type of protection every day. It’s incredibly rare to see a newspaper use an unnamed source. Why do we need this bill?

This bill would add more power to an already out of control, over-powered congress, to limit news they deem unacceptable to the liberal agenda. I cannot believe how our congress is moving so drastically to usurp our rights. This is part of the ‘fairness doctrine’ re-release. It’s nothing but plain tripe and wrong to try to introduce such a dictatorial bill into our ever-disappearing free republic.

The word that comes to my mind as I read this bill is “toothless”. What is the point of protections for journalists that only apply to big corporate media (who may not want to risk taking on some controversial stories), and only when it doesn’t annoy the government or any corporation with deep enough pockets to sue claiming their trade secrets have been revealed?

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll973.xml

Didn’t this pass in ’07? Did it run out?