I Know Why the Government Went after Pro-Life Investigative Journalists

Last week, a Texas grand jury indicted activists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt for allegedly using fake IDs and attempting to buy fetal tissue. Both of the Center for Medical Progress, the pair concealed their identities while attempting to frame/highlight the willingness of Planned Parenthood employees to sell fetal tissue...

....a breathtaking example of government hypocrisy. The situation facing CMP is evidence of the upside-down understanding of right and wrong in our culture.....

....why, as citizen journalists, Daleiden and Merritt are not protected by the same laws that have shielded countless of their fellow reporters down through the years. Undercover journalism is nothing new. To the contrary, it has been used time and time again to expose criminal activity, and it is widely accepted as a journalistic practice.

For instance, in an effort to expose racial discrimination with regard to housing and hiring practices, civil rights agencies have often hired undercover "testers" to pose as job or housing applicants. Identities are therefore falsified with an eye toward bringing to justice those who are breaking the law.

And we can't ignore the numerous investigative news programs that feature undercover work by journalists.

“...why, as citizen journalists, Daleiden and Merritt are not protected by the same laws that have shielded countless of their fellow reporters down through the years.”

There is no distinction of “journalist”. We don’t register them and you don’t have to be employed. A journalist can be literally anyone who says they are one. These two are as protected by the 1st amendment as Peter Jennings would be. If he could do it, so can they.

Thank you for referencing that article SoFloFreeper. Please bear in mind that the following critique is directed at the article and not at you.

Note that the Supreme Court had clarified in United States v. Cruikshank that, because of the Founding States division of federal and state government powers, that citizens do not necessarily have the same protections with the states as they do with the federal Constitution.

” 2. There is in our political system a government of each of the several States, and a Government of the United States. Each is distinct from the others, and has citizens of its own who owe it allegiance, and whose rights, within its jurisdiction, it must protect. The same person may be at the same time a citizen of the United States and a citizen of a State, but his rights of citizenship under one of those governments will be different from those he has under the other.
3. The Government of the United States, although it is, within the scope of its powers, supreme and beyond the States, can neither grant nor secure to its citizens rights or privileges which are not expressly or by implication placed under its jurisdiction. All that cannot be so granted or secured are left to the exclusive protection of the States.” - United States v. Cruikshank, 1875

So differences in state versus federal powers is probably one reason why certain rights are not consistently protected.

Otherwise, there is not enough information given in this example to narrow where possible errors in breaking certain laws may be.

Corrections, insights welcome.

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