Tuesday, August 8, 2006

(08-08) 18:26 PDT SACRAMENTO, (AP) --

Journalists should be allowed to keep their sources secret before federal authorities and the courts, according to a resolution approved unanimously Tuesday by a state Senate panel.

The five-member Senate Judiciary Committee voted to urge Congress to enact a federal shield law, which advocates say would bolster California's statute shielding journalists from prosecution.

"Without federal protections, it renders meaningless California's protections of journalists because they can be hauled into federal court," the bill's author, Assemblywoman Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, said in an interview.

California has one of the nation's most protective statutes to shield journalists from prosecutors' inquiries. The law — which was enacted in 1935 and incorporated into the state Constitution in 1980 — generally allows journalists to refuse to disclose a news source or unpublished information.

The state statute does not apply to federal investigations. The absence of a federal law has landed at least one California journalist in jail this year.

Joshua Wolf, a freelance video journalist and blogger, was jailed last week for refusing to hand over unaired footage from a July 2005 protest in San Francisco in which a police car was damaged. Federal authorities joined the investigation because the cruiser was partially paid for with federal money.

Federal authorities also are trying to compel two San Francisco Chronicle reporters to reveal who leaked grand jury testimony of Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi and other participants in the federal government's ongoing steroids investigation.

Chronicle reporters Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada have challenged a subpoena ordering them to divulge who leaked them transcripts from the secret grand jury proceedings.

Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia have enacted shield laws that give journalists protections regarding confidential or unpublished information. Courts in 18 states have established varying confidentiality privileges for journalists, according to the bill.

A limited shield law for journalists is under consideration in Congress, but it faces many hurdles with little time left in the session. The Bush administration also has signaled its opposition.

Shield law supporters say a journalist's promise of confidentiality to a source often is the only way the public can learn about waste, fraud and abuse in government and the private sector.

The Assembly approved Evans' bill in August 2005.