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by mmanfrin 4712 days ago
Playing devils-advocate here, but this isn't really new -- the fourth estate flourished because of journalists who vowed to go to prison rather than reveal sources, and it became a game of chicken that Journalists won in that era. Now it's the Government that has decided not to blink and the weakened resolve of news organizations has made it easy for them to trample over hard-won gains of decades past.

There, to my knowledge, have never been codified protections for journalists -- just standards.

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"There, to my knowledge, have never been codified protections for journalists -- just standards."

I didn't believe this so I decided to take to Google...turns out there doesn't appear to be any formal laws. There is section 8 of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (http://www.iachr.org/declaration.htm) but that means nothing.