Cornyn's Stand for Government Transparency

National Security is an issue I’ve never really looked into until now. I found an editorial from our own Austin American Statesman entitled Cornyn’s Stand for government transparency. Personally, I thought it was very interesting, I never knew the dangers reporters and journalists put themselves in when reporting anonymous information. Apparently the government is known to use threats of subpoenas and jail time in order to find out who initially leaked the information. That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it? I guess it gets the point across, they want to know who “betrayed” them and they will do just about anything in their power to find out. Quite a scare-tactic if you ask me.


The author’s intended audience looks to be the general public, but more specifically voters and people who actually have a say in what goes on in our government. He’s looking for support of what he calls a “shield” to reporters, and he’s got mine. I think he did a great job explaining in simple terms what is going on and arguing his point. I agree that the public should know what’s really happening in our government, whether it’s “classified” or not. That’s what builds trust, and with no trust where do we even begin with relying on and believing in our government? We have a right to know what goes on in our country, and reporters should have the right, along with this shield the author speaks of, to disclose any valuable information without having to state their sources as long as they are positive it is credible. Although it does bring up the question of credibility to the public, again comes the issue of trust. Most policies will not allow a story to be leaked without being 100% credible, and I believe that if a story was leaked and later found to be untrue, they would correct themselves right away. They can’t afford to be giving the public false information. I’m really interested to see what affect Cornyn has on this policy, only time will tell!