There already exists a mechanism by which a journalist can assert a constitutional privilege. It is called the 5th Amendment, the right to not incriminate yourself.
The important element of the 5th Amendment is that it is *not* up to a judge, or jury, or prosecutor, police, intelligence agency, bureaucrat, etc., to determine what *you* as a citizen consider to be “incriminating evidence.”
It amounts to “I’m not going to testify because I don’t want to.” And they can offer immunity from prosecution all they want and you can still refuse, and you don’t have to say why.
Right now they are trying to muddy up the *traditional* privileged communications, of which there were three: physician-patient, which was a Common Law practice that has effectively ended with the HIPA Act (HIPAA); clergy privilege, which is Common Law, accepted as part of the 1st Amendment freedom of religion, and by statute, and the courts hate and want to end; and between spouses, which they also want to end, or at least subvert.
Journalists and informants are not part of this. So when the courts have extended “reporter’s privilege”, it should not be confused with traditional privilege.
“Reporter’s privilege is a qualified (limited) First Amendment right many jurisdictions by statutory law or judicial decision have given to journalists in protecting their confidential sources from discovery.”
That is, they have no constitutional protection, just what the courts have created for them, out of whole cloth (like the “right of privacy” the courts created in Roe v. Wade).
Therefore, by trying to “clarify” reporter’s privilege, what the senate is essentially trying to do is *remove* the strong 5th Amendment protections, substituting weak, statutory protections *based* on the 1st Amendment, and *exclude* all but “government approved” reporters and journalists from having protection.
In other words, it’s a fraud to strip rights from citizens.
Well-stated. Thank you for that.