A shield law known as the PRESS Act that would give journalists greater federal protections failed to pass the Senate on Tuesday evening after it was blocked by Senator Tom Cotton.
Shield laws protect journalists from being forced by the government to disclose information such as the identities of sources. The PRESS Act would also limit the seizure of journalists’ data without their knowledge.
Nearly every U.S. state and the District of Columbia has either a shield law or court recognition of qualified privilege for sources, but no federal law is in place.
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives unanimously passed the PRESS Act in January.
But an attempt to pass the bill in the Senate via unanimous consent failed Tuesday evening after being blocked by Cotton. Any single senator has the power to halt a bill put forward by a unanimous consent request.
In a speech, Cotton, a Republican, said he was blocking the bill over national security concerns.
“Passage of this bill would turn the United States Senate into the active accomplice of deep-state leakers, traitors and criminals, along with the America-hating and fame-hungry journalists who help them out,” Cotton said.
“Contrary to what members of the press may think, a press badge doesn’t make you better than the rest of America,” Cotton later added.
The PRESS Act makes exceptions for terrorism and other emergencies.
Democratic Senator Ron Wyden made a rebuttal after Cotton’s speech.
“I understand that we don’t have unanimous consent today. I think it’s unfortunate. I think America would be stronger and freer if we were passing this legislation today. But we’ll be back,” Wyden said.
“This is about as important as it gets. Free speech is fundamental to what makes our country so special,” Wyden said later.
Press freedom groups expressed disappointment over the bill’s failure to pass.
“This is a commonsense bill with broad bipartisan support,” Gabe Rottman, policy director at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, told VOA. “It’s time to get it across the finish line.”
After President-elect Donald Trump won election to the White House in November, several press freedom groups said they were making a final push to get the bill through Congress and signed into law before President Joe Biden left office.
Trump has previously threatened to jail journalists if they don’t reveal sources in stories he believes have national security implications.
And last month, he called on Republicans to “kill this bill” in a post on Truth Social.
Now, the only way that the PRESS Act could pass the Senate is either by attaching it to a year-end spending bill or bringing it up for a stand-alone vote, according to the Freedom of the Press Foundation, or FPF.
“We need more than speeches about the PRESS Act’s importance. We need action. Senate Democrats had all year to move this bipartisan bill, and now time is running out,” FPF’s advocacy director Seth Stern said in a statement.
“Hopefully, today was a preview of more meaningful action to come,” Stern said.
The PRESS Act’s failure comes on the same day that a Justice Department report revealed that federal prosecutors ignored Justice Department rules when they seized journalists’ phone records as part of a media leak investigation during the Trump administration.
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