Analysis: In an exclusive interview with Breitbart.com Senator John Cornyn rips Senator Chuck Schumer’s media ‘Shield Law’ and declares it will be defeated. Significantly, the First Amendment begins, “Congress shall make no law..” but that doesn’t stop Marxist Democrats like Schumer.
The number two Republican in the Senate lambasted the media “shield law” proposed.
“This is a bad idea and one whose time has not come,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), the Senate minority whip, told Breitbart News in the interview. “Believe me, we will not be rolled over.”
Schumer’s “Free Flow of Information Act” passed the Senate Judiciary Committee in September, and he recently said he already has the 60 votes needed to pass the bill on the floor. “We’ll get a few more Republicans, not many more, but we have the 60 votes,” Schumer told reporters in New York last week.
He’s bluffing, Cornyn retorts.
“If he had the votes to pass it, it already would have been passed,” Cornyn says, adding, “This isn’t about passing legislation, this is about distracting the public’s attention and changing the subject from the failed policies of this administration. I think you could put this in that same category.”
Schumer’s proposal would exempt a “covered journalist” from subpoenas and other legal requirements to expose their confidential sources in leak investigations and other areas. Other lawmakers have proposed similar ideas in the past, but the effort gained new momentum after a series of revelations about controversial tactics the Justice Department was using to target journalists.
For instance, the Department of Justice secretly monitored Fox News reporter James Rosen in the course of a leak investigation, even claiming in a court filing he was a subject of investigation himself. In another instance, the government had secretly monitored numerous phone lines used by the Associated Press, including one in the U.S. Capitol.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY)
Cornyn says Schumer’s proposal is fatally flawed and may be an unworkable idea altogether.
Tulsa Today’s analysis; even the effort is a betrayal of Senator Schumer sworn oath to “protect and defend the Constitution” and cause for him to be removed from office with his comrade President Barack Obama. The First Amendment is very specific:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceable to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
“They want to pick and choose which journalists are covered,” the Texan Republican told Breitbart News. “In other words, if you’re a blogger they might not cover you, but if you work for the New York Times they might. Given the changes in the way we get information and the way we consume news, that really smacks to me in essence of government licensing who’s an official ‘journalist’ for the purposes of a shield law and who’s not. If there is one thing I can glean from the First Amendment, it is that government should not be in the business of licensing the news media.”
Senator John Cornyn (R-TX)
In practice, defining who is considered a “journalist” and protected under the law from having to disclose confidential sources is a thorny legal problem. On the one hand, the law’s drafters don’t want to provide blanket immunity to everyone. But anointing a government-approved class of scribes cuts against the nature of journalism, which almost by definition is frequently critical of the government.
“It’s totally inconsistent with the notion of a free press and the First Amendment,” Cornyn said.