Here's how things could go bump on deadline. Under the act, a reporter can't be wiretapped as long as he isn't an "agent of a foreign power." But if in covering a story, a reporter calls someone who fits the definition -a foreign student or a foreign political organization -then the reporter's e-mail addresses and phone numbers can be monitored, unbeknownst to him. The content of e-mails or conversations is still off limits, but you don't have to be paranoid to imagine the implications for investigative journalism.
I'm not a fan of conspiracy theories and don't believe for a second that Bush officials sat down and said, "Let's screw the press and the American people and kill freedom as we know it. We'll call it the Patriot Act!"
However, the Patriot Act was passed hurriedly six weeks after the terrorist attacks, and government's natural impulse in times of crisis is to close records. As government's natural enemy, the media's job to make sure government fails in that endeavor. Not because we have an insatiable appetite for mongering, as some perceive, but because -another quick reminder -all other freedoms derive from freedom of the press.
Unfortunately, that connection seems to have slipped America's mind. For good reason, many view the media as a prurient pest, promiscuous and unreliable. Jayson Blair needs no introduction. Scott Petersen's trial has become the summer blockbuster, according to an Associated Press story that reported 28 TV cameras at a recent hearing.
The same story noted that CNN's Larry King has discussed the case on 23 shows and Fox's Greta Van Susteren has interviewed panelists about the story 42 times. It is little wonder that few outside journalism have noticed or protested the federal government's incursions into the once-sacrosanct, quintessentially American territory of a free press.
Today's challenge, it seems, is not only to preserve public access to information, but to restore public respect for the media. Scott Peterson's trial, we can live without, but freedom of information is something else.