Seeking The Limit Of Free Speech

Journalists tend to believe that they can interview people so that they can have all the facts for their story.

What criminal would bare his soul to a police officer? But he or she would be willing to admit certain things to a probing journalist, confident that they would remain anonymous.

Maybe that's true most of the time.

Journalists Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre spent countless hours interviewing members of the Irish Republican Army as part of an oral history project organized by Boston College. Now the Police Service of Northern Ireland would like those tapes, please, and Eric Holder has gone after them.

Boston College is in court, trying to quash subpoenas issued by Mr. Holder's crew.

The argument is simple. There is freedom of the press in the States, and that freedom extends to a journalist's right to keep his sources a secret. No matter if the source describes criminal activity. It's up to the cops to find the bad guys. They can't force a journalist to do the tracking for them.

In addition, the university argues that the attempts by the U.S. Government to seize the tapes would infringe on academic freedom and the ability of a professor to conduct research.

Just because the PSNI thinks that maybe, just maybe, there's some little nugget of information about an IRA-ordered murder, the thinking goes, all such rights and freedoms should be tossed out the window because the IRA won't talk to the PSNI like they talked to Mr. McIntyre and Mr. Moloney.

The journalists have now filed their own suit, claiming that this PSNI fishing expedition violates the terms of the Belfast Agreement. This new front utilizes a different legal tactic, a second strategy.

Behind all the legal jargon is a basic question. How far can a journalist go to prepare a story without being roped into the prosecution of the crime he's writing about?

It's looking like Eric Holder would like to locate the limits of freedom of the press, and get on England's good side at the same time. His department is pursuing the tapes with some vigor.

Not such a surprise. President Obama's Irish ancestors were Protestant interlopers on Irish soil. Not exactly the stuff of which an IRA supporter is made.