U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White, a Bush appointee, has promised to throw Fainaru-Wada and Williams in prison for up to 18 months unless their appeals are successful to overthrow a previous court ruling. Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, speaking on behalf of the administration at the Senate hearing, worried that passing the shield law would weaken Justice's ability to obtain information that threatens national security.
We've come to expect little of this administration as it pertains to individual liberties, but this seems over the top even for the Bushies. Forcing journalists to give up information pertinent to national security (steroids in baseball?) is one thing; this is petty, capricious and, one might hope, counterintuitive to a party that prides itself on guarding the power of the people.
Fainaru-Wada and Williams going to jail poses a much larger threat to national security than the administration's ham-handed efforts to gather information.
Bush needs to step into this thing now and call off the Justice dogs, if for nothing else than freedom's sake.
This article originally appeared in The Express-Times of Easton.
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