The shield

In 1972, a group of men broke into the offices of the Democratic National Committee in an attempt to bug phones and steal information about the ongoing campaign for the November election. We know now that the men who broke into those offices in the Watergate Hotel did so at the behest of Richard Nixon’s campaign and because of that knowledge, Nixon was nearly impeached but resigned before Congress could do so.\nAlmost everyone knows that the source who provided journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein with confirmations of their reporting was a then-anonymous man known as “Deep Throat.” A couple of years ago, it was revealed that “Deep Throat” was former FBI Associate Director Mark Felt. Felt had to talk to Woodward under the cloak of confidentiality – they agreed that Felt’s identity would not be revealed to the general public – because otherwise he would have been in danger of losing his job.\nIt wouldn’t be quite so simple today.\nMore recently, a stigma has developed against using anonymous sources, partly because of a few scandals involving journalists making up stories and partly because of increasing government propensity to prosecute and jail reporters who refuse to name their secret sources’ identities.\nHowever, Congress is moving toward making a law that would help to fix the latter issue, and presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain is on board.\nThe proposed “shield law” would prevent reporters who refuse to reveal sources from being thrown in jail. The law has bipartisan support, but it is facing a Bush veto.\nMcCain’s support of the law is sort of a welcome surprise. One would think that in the midst of a presidential campaign, McCain would steer clear of a moderately controversial issue like this, especially to avoid coming in against an incumbent president who somehow still has ardent support from the Republican base McCain is trying to rally.\nThe use of confidential sources, though, is necessary in journalism and necessary in a free country. Without the ability to gather information from authorities without disclosing their identities, journalists wouldn’t be able to report on corruption in government, which is one of the reasons the free press exists in the first place. Without “Deep Throat,” Nixon would have served his ill-gotten second term to its end. Without similar reporting from the San Francisco Chronicle’s Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, baseball’s secret steroid problem would have stayed just that.\nSome think that the tool is a weapon used to attack national security. McCain has a more accurate view, though.\n“It is, frankly, a license to do harm, perhaps serious harm. But it also a license to do good – to disclose injustice and unlawfulness and inequities, and to encourage their swift correction,” he told The Washington Post.\nMcCain’s understanding of what makes us free is very different from many of his Republican colleagues. If he keeps this up, a McCain presidency might not be as much of a disaster as the one that preceded it.