Press Privacy

A new law protects newsrooms

After injuries to police officers during a 1971 demonstration at Stanford University, police armed only with a warrant walked into the offices of the Stanford Daily and began a search. Their objective: unpublished photographs that they hoped would help them identify the assailants. The student newspaper sued local officials over the intrusion and took its fight all the way to the Supreme Court, where it lost in 1978. While rejecting the students' pleas, the court suggested that Congress could spare other publications similar encroachments by enacting a statute limiting unannounced searches. Congress did just that, and last week President Carter signed the bill into law.

In the future, any law enforcement official seeking materials from a publication must issue a subpoena specifying the items sought. If the request seems unreasonable to the subpoenaed party, it may go to court to challenge the move. These safeguards, however, do not exist in certain situations outlined in the new law. For example, if a reporter is actually a suspect, then police may arrive unannounced.

As the proposal journeyed through Congress, the main dispute was whether it would protect innocent third parties other than the press. The statute does apply to authors and scholars, but after protest from the Justice Department, congressional backers agreed to exclude all others, including lawyers and psychiatrists. Instead, the statute directs the Attorney General to give federal law enforcement officials guidelines that will guarantee such persons some measure of privacy.

Since the Stanford incident, 18 newsroom searches are known to have been made across the country, causing journalists to fear that confidential sources would shy away from talking with them. The new law not only should ease that concern but also marks the press's second major legal victory this year. In July the Supreme Court ruled that criminal trials could not be closed to reporters.

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