Sure, as long as you amend the Constitution to say so.

I can't imagine how her proposed law would be effective. For one thing, we're all protected by free speech.

What you write on your blog, Amy, is free speech, whether you're a paid journalist or not.

If someone were to sue you for libel, they have a difficult row to hoe. They have to prove 1) you're lying; 2) you know you're lying; and 3) that your deliberate lies have caused them hardship (usually financial).

If she manages to mitigate freedom of the press, she will not have mitigated freedom of speech.

For another, tabloid writers who come up with stories about Bat Boy are paid journalists. Even if Feinstein's proposed law were to take effect, there's little it would do to curb the type of reporting that she finds so troubling. In fact, these journalists would probably take her proposed amendment as her painting a bull's eye on her back.

For another, this would essentially kill off any effort to make a new news outlet. Say I tried to start up my own news network and because I'm starting up, I can't afford to pay myself. In order to attract advertisers, I need to do a few newscasts (at my own expense) to prove myself to advertisers and convince them that it will be worth it to buy air time on my show. So, because I'm not paid, because I don't have advertisers (yet), I am not protected.

Finally, as MarkD points out, this would require an Amendment. To overrule an amendment, you need another one. That's not easy to do to say the least.

And yet the most galling to me is that, rather than fix things, the GOP is fighting to take over this very system that the Democrats have that seeks to control people's lives.

Pardon me while I go have my pirate detailed.

An journalism extension to what they did with taxes and health care. Make everyone a criminal and the government decides who to prosecute.

There are some non-obvious issues surrounding this sort of thing that have been present for a long time. Back in the day, if you were an ordinary citizen who knew of some details of a crime, you could be compelled to testify and review what you know and who you learned it from. Yet, if you were a reporter in the same situation, you could claim immunity. The theory, I think, was that if you were an ordinary citizen, you were unlikely to be privy to the details of a crime unless you were involved in it. So it made a little bit of sense, but it was always problematic even back in the day. Was some guy who printed a broadsheet on a hand-cranked mimeograph in his garage a "reporter"? I don't think the question was ever answered.

However, let's leave no doubt about what the intentions are here and now. It pisses off a lot of people in power that ordinary citizens have access to information that hasn't been filtered by a gatekeeper. And it pisses off the established media organizations that they're having to compete. Journalism has been a good-ol-boy club for decades now; local and regional outlets avoid stepping on each other's territory, and national outlets have confined themselves to genteel "pool" reporting where everyone gets the same information. Competition, such as it is, has been based on the celebrity value of reporters (or, more likely, news readers) rather than the quality of the reporting. The media outlets would very much like to use the government to shield them from competition. Those two things are what this is all about.

Wow, the more I hear about Feinstein the more I say wow! (how does she keep getting re-elected BTW?)

How on earth can anyone think that her definition is a good one?

Forget the whole blogger/internet for a minute. Go back to the old "everything was on paper" days, would someone who uncovered something about their local school board or local city council not be protected if they printed up flyers without naming their source?

It's amazing that this is trying to protect what's essentially a dying industry (print, at least), and those who survive are usually heavily influenced by the government to report a certain way. Just ick.

I see it more as an attempt to control the traditional press.
First make a legal distinction between real press and fake press. The "real press" will love this idea at first.
Next get into licensing of the real press.
Next put real teeth on distinction. High penalty for presenting oneself as press when not licensed.
Make removal of license a purely political, bureaucratic process.
Now you have control of the traditional press.

Who will print things against the gov't if it risks loosing their license. What media source, will risk all their reporters licenses, by running a story.

Well, I don't know who this other Patrick is, but I did not post the comment two posts above this one that is signed "Patrick."

If this is a newcomer named "Patrick," I would appreciate him calling himself something different.

I did post the second post in this thread signed "Patrick." That was me.

Charles: Wow, the more I hear about Feinstein the more I say wow! (how does she keep getting re-elected BTW?)

She ran against Orly Taitz last time. If you can't win an election against Orly, you should be deported to Moldova.

Considering how many mainstream news stories I've seen lifted directly from Reddit, Digg, Fark, and FB in the past few months I'm not even sure "real" journalists do any journalism.

Haven't we suffered under HRH Feinstein's nonsense long enough?

This is the same wealthy, politically-powerful person who went to the Sheriff of San Francisco and got a concealed weapons permit for herself but insists that the average citizen shouldn't be allowed the same level of protection.

The same Senator who steered the lucrative high-speed rail contract to her husband's company.

The same Senator who pushes Hope and Change and blithely signs off on the many, many affronts to liberty President Obama has undertaken.

I suppose we shouldn't be surprised at this, her latest outrage.

Patrick (the original) - Thanks, I just looked up Orly Taitz - OMG, she is hysterical!

I guess, sometimes, we have to view politics as theater of the absurd (or we would go insane).

Orly is the most toxic emission from the former Soviet Union since Chernobyl.

I don't see how anyone could even sit through any campaign speech she ever made. She makes my ears bleed.

Step 1: limit media protection to "paid" or "professional" journalists working for "real" news organizations

Step 2: declare that organizations philosophically aligned with your political opponents are not "real" news organizations

Step 3: arrest anyone working for Fox News, Limbaugh, Hannity, or other "non-news" organizations disseminating criticisms of your policies or expressing viewpoints with which your disagree - after all, they're not "real" journalists...the law says so

Step 4: use the remaining "real" news organizations - now frightened into compliance - to disseminate your propaganda telling the people how happy they are

Back in the day, if you were an ordinary citizen who knew of some details of a crime, you could be compelled to testify and review what you know and who you learned it from. -- Cousin Dave at August 15, 2013 6:45 AM

The ordinary citizen has always had a Fifth Amendment protection on self incrimination and a Sixth Amendment protection of legal counsel.

The ordinary citizen has always had a ... Sixth Amendment protection of legal counsel.

Unless he couldn't afford one. And not at all stages of the investigation.

It took Gideon v. Wainwright (1963) to give people who could not afford an attorney one at state expense during their trial; Massiah v. United States (1964) to prevent the state from eliciting testimony after filing charges; and Miranda v. Arizona (1966) to give people the right to an attorney during police questioning.

Unless he couldn't afford one. And not at all stages of the investigation. -- Conan the Grammarian at August 15, 2013 5:12 PM

I agree with you in principle and reality.

And if you look at the timeline of the American Bar Association[1] and the ABA pre-eminence and the Juris Doctorate diploma[2] you see a union imposing itself on the legal system. But the Sixth Amendment was on the books from the beginning.

There is a reason I carry a pocket Constitution in my backpack at all times.

[1] -- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Bar_Association
[2] -- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juris_Doctor#Creation_of_the_Juris_Doctor

Joe J sees the light . . .

"I see it more as an attempt to control the traditional press.
First make a legal distinction between real press and fake press. The "real press" will love this idea at first.
Next get into licensing of the real press.
Next put real teeth on distinction. High penalty for presenting oneself as press when not licensed.
Make removal of license a purely political, bureaucratic process.
Now you have control of the traditional press.

Who will print things against the gov't if it risks loosing their license. What media source, will risk all their reporters licenses, by running a story."

The government has no say over who is a journalist or practices journalism, and if they ever get that power it's all over for truth and liberty. It's all about control of access and content. Credentialling of the press, by the government and private organizations that control so called "sporting events" and media events put on by business, is only about controling what journalists report.

I worked for a number of years with a French press agency (strictly as a freelancer), and their biggest worry was making sure their government press cards (which also gave them tax breaks) didn't get taken away, as they would be out of business. I'd go to some event with them in France and get denied access because I didn't have a government-issued press ID, and it would take a 45 minute lecture for them to understand that, being an American, if I say I'm a journalist and act as a journalist, I AM A JOURNALIST. I don't need to work for anyone or be on assigment by anyone or "approved" by anyone. I did have proof to back me up if I needed it, but I'd only bring that out to calm their fear.

The "working" press are a sorry lot who trade truth and ethics for access, and the higher up the press food-chain they are the more controllable they are. What needs to be protected above all in the bottom of the press food-chain, the little individual (broke and unassociated with anyone) journalist who might uncover truth -- that means every person in the country. "Congress Shall Make No Law."

The White House Correspondent's Dinner makes me puke.

"Forget the whole blogger/internet for a minute. Go back to the old 'everything was on paper' days, would someone who uncovered something about their local school board or local city council not be protected if they printed up flyers without naming their source?"

As I understand it, under a lot of the state shield laws, they would not. They would not meet the legal definition of a "professional journalist".

Further, individuals and small outlets are a lot more economically vulnerable to SLAPP lawsuits. (A SLAPP lawsuit is a libel/slander lawsuit that the plaintiff does not expect to win -- the idea is to blackmail the defendant with the threat of tying them up in court and incurring legal costs.) Some states have anti-SLAPP provisions, but I don't know how well they work.

Glenn Reynolds:

"Personally, I think a journalist is someone who’s doing journalism, whether they get paid for it or not.
[...]
Journalism is indeed an activity, not a profession, and though we often refer to institutionalized media as “the press,” we should remember that James Madison talked about freedom of the press as “freedom in the use of the press” — that is, the freedom to publish, not simply freedom for media organizations."

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/who_journalist_rESYLOSs6nC3aawgkBImzL

Actually let them write the law with a journalism "badge" requirement.

The Institute for Justice, Freedom Works and the rest will have a lawsuit filed by the time the ink dries when Obama signs it.

That is effectively prior restraint, and under the strict scrutiny ruling makes it unconstitutional. So it will be struck down by the first judge that sees the case and affirmed by the appeals court. SCOTUS will never have to rule.

It's a shame that it would even have to be done.

I can't imagine how her proposed law would be effective. For one thing, we're all protected by free speech.

Hmmmmm, I wonder if anyone ever made that comparison to the TSA and the fourth amendment.

Nothing Patrick? Nothing at all?