[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 55 (Wednesday, April 1, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E844]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION ACT OF 2009

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                        HON. SHEILA JACKSON LEE

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, March 31, 2009

  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, thank you for allowing me to 
rise in support of this bill. I would also like to thank Chairman 
Conyers for helping to bring this bill, H.R. 985, Free Flow of 
Information Act of 2009, to the floor. I also would like to thank the 
author of this bill, Representative Boucher for this thoughtful 
legislation.
  This bill is popularly known as the ``press shield law.'' I urge my 
colleagues to support it.
  H.R. 985, protects the public's right to know by protecting the 
identities of reporters' confidential sources. The bill is identical to 
the one that passed the House in the 110th Congress by an overwhelming 
bipartisan vote of 398 to 21.
  H.R. 985 creates a balancing test that would determine when the 
federal government may compel journalists to disclose information that 
they have gathered. This balancing test protects journalists from being 
compelled to disclose information that the government may obtain 
through other available means. The bill gives substantial protection to 
journalists' confidential sources, allowing compelled disclosure where 
doing so would protect national security or serve the public interest.
  This legislation is necessary because it responds to a real and on-
going problem. Since 2001, five journalists have been sentenced or 
jailed for refusing to reveal their confidential sources in federal 
court. Two reporters were sentenced to 18 months in prison and one 
reporter faced up to $5,000 a day in fines.
  A 2006 study estimated that in that year alone, 67 federal subpoenas 
sought confidential material from reporters. Of those, 41 subpoenas 
sought the name confidential sources.

  This bill establishes reasonable and well-balanced grounds for when a 
reporter can be compelled to testify about confidential sources. 
Reporters would not receive protection if information is needed to 
prevent or investigate an act of terrorism or other significant harm to 
national security, to prevent death or substantial bodily harm, to 
investigate a leak of properly classified information or private health 
or financial information, and to furnish eyewitness observation of a 
crime.
  Forty-nine states and the District of Columbia have various statutes 
or judicial decisions that protect reporters from being compelled to 
testify or disclose sources and information in court. H.R. 985 would 
set national standards similar to those that are in effect in the 
states.
  This bill has relevance to Texas. One of my constituents, Vanessa 
Legget, served maximum jail time in case. She was not the defendant--
she was a reporter whose first amendment right was under siege.
  I worked extensively on this issue. Ms. Leggett spent four years 
researching the 1997 murder of Doris Angleton for a book she was 
writing. When she refused to give in to threats and intimidation by an 
overzealous prosecution seeking her work product she was found in 
contempt and jailed.
  Because of this injustice, I wrote letters to then-Attorney General 
John Ashcroft requesting that Leggett be permitted to assert her 
journalist privilege. I also requested that she be freed from 
incarceration. Despite my ardent efforts, Leggett remained jailed. The 
facts and outcome in this case were absurd. Surely, the law could not 
have intended for the result that transpired in the Leggett case. The 
present bill if enacted would address such anomalies.
  When a federal grand jury was convened to investigate the possibility 
of filing federal murder charges against Houstonian Robert Angleton, 
the city braced itself for a media frenzy. In 1998, Robert Angleton had 
been acquitted in state court of murdering his wife, a well-known 
Houstonian, Doris Angleton, who was found shot to death on April 16, 
1997, in her River Oaks home. The state court had been a media circus.

  However, the person who received the most attention was not directly 
involved in the murder. Vanessa Leggett, a part-time college instructor 
and aspiring true crime writer, stole the limelight when she refused to 
turn over to the federal grand jury information that she had gathered 
during her four-year investigation. On July 19, 2001, Leggett was held 
in civil contempt under 28 U.S.C. sec. 1826 as a recalcitrant witness. 
She went to jail the next day and was not released until January 4, 
2002, when the grand jury ended its Angleton investigation without 
handing down a single indictment.
  Leggett was incarcerated longer than any reporter in U.S. history up 
to that time for refusing to disclose research collected in the course 
of newsgathering. Texas is one of the states that had and presently has 
no shield law. Leggett was forced to serve the maximum term for 
contempt of court, which was the shorter of either the duration of the 
grand jury investigation or eighteen months.
  But the most disconcerting aspect of the Leggett case is that no 
court in Texas adequately investigated the actions of the U.S. 
Department of Justice or balanced the interests of the First Amendment 
against the government's need for Leggett's research. Indeed, there may 
have been no need for her information at all. On January 8, 2002, four 
days after Leggett's release, the U.S. attorney empanelled another 
grand jury to investigate Robert Angleton. It was able to hand down an 
indictment in sixteen days without subpoenaing Leggett or her records.
  This bill is sound. The bill will address the situation that was 
present in the Leggett case. It adds balance and protection to 
journalists in the course of their vocation. I urge my colleagues to 
support this bill.

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