The web is abuzz currently with stories about bloggers’ desire to protect sources. That idea is being confused with a person (be they a blogger or not) to speak freely and share their opinions about what is going on in the world around them. The First Amendment gives Americans the right to speak without fear of reprisal. However, that right is not without limitation.
In the famous 1919 United States Supreme Court case, Schenck versus the United States, the court ruled that one may not unnecessarily shout fire in a crowded theater, because panic could ensue causing injury to people. Today we have trouble identifying with that concept because theaters have well marked exits, state of the art sprinkler systems and warning systems, and seldom do we use pyrotechnics with cloth curtains that lack flame retardant treatments. We no longer understand what the language of that case says. It really is simple, you cannot always say what you want without repercussion.
You can say what you want — but you may be accountable for it. If you choose to obtain confidential information and then turn around and leak it via your blog, or in any other format to be fair, when you knew or should have known it was protected by such an agreement, and that causes injury to the party who owned the information — a suit is likely to follow.
Now this concept of free speech should be clearly separated from the idea of having to divulge the source of your information. The only way to have an anonymous source is if you do not know who told you the information. If you get information from a truly unknown source, how do you know if it is reliable. If you do not know it is reliable, but choose to publish it in any event as truth, and it turns out to be false, well you took a risk. But you do have the right to say what you want, even though you may be held accountable. But you do not typically have the right to protect your source. Sure there are some state laws that offer protection, but if we learned anything from Watergate, it should be that you pay the price if you do not divulge your source. If what the person is doing is uncovering illegal or immoral activity then integrity requires them to act on it in any event. By doing so anonymously, they hope to cleanse themselves of the issue without taking the proper stand. If what they are doing is leaking trade secrets, then they already lack integrity. If you use sources in your blogging and make a mistake, expect to share your sources or pay the consequences.
