Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed the Free Flow of Information Act, a journalist shield law that would protect professional journalists from prosecution should they refuse to reveal sources.  Ars Technica has a good analysis of the Act and its implications for the blogging world: at first glance, it appears that professional bloggers will also be covered by this shield which will finally make a step in the right direction to affording online media the same rights and freedoms as traditional media.

This shield is long overdue and is already in place in 30 states, but this will cover federal  investigations rather than just state-level.  However, the Bush administration sees this as a ‘get out of jail free’ card for leaking government secrets…sounds like a valid concern at first, but I bet they would have loved a shield law a few years ago so they could  have avoided the whole Scooter Libby mess.  It’s about time we started making shields that work rather than throwing our money into a black hole for a test that is considered successful if it gets within a mile of the target.