Title
AN ACT SHIELDING JOURNALISTS FROM DISCLOSING CERTAIN INFORMATION IN GOVERNMENT PROCEEDINGS
Body
BE IT ENACTED BY THE CHEROKEE NATION:
Section 1. Title and Codification
This act shall be referred as the “Free Press Protection and Journalist Shield Act of 2012” and codified under Title ____ Section ______ of the Cherokee Nation Code Annotated (CNCA).
Section 2. Purpose
The purpose of this Act is to affirm the independence of a free press in the Cherokee Nation by providing protection of journalistic sources and information from disclosure in any Cherokee Nation proceeding.
Section 3. Legislative History
Cherokee Nation Constitution Article III, Section 4: “The Council shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press, or the right of the People to peaceably assemble, or to petition the Nation for a redress of grievances.”
Section 4. Definitions
For the Purposes of this Act:
1. "Cherokee Nation proceeding" includes any proceeding or investigation before or by any judicial, legislative, executive or administrative body within the Cherokee Nation;
2. "Medium of communication" includes any newspaper, other periodical, book, pamphlet, website, podcast, news service, wire service, news or feature syndicate, broadcast station or network, cable television system, video, live stream, or other record;
3. "Information" includes any written, oral or pictorial news or any digital or tangible record;
4. "Published information" means any information disseminated to the public by the person from whom disclosure is sought;
5. "Unpublished information" includes information not disseminated to the public by the person from whom disclosure is sought, whether or not related information has been disseminated, and includes, but is not limited to, all notes, outtakes, photographs, video clips or other data of any type not itself disseminated to the public through a medium of communication, whether or not pub...
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