Shield Law Drew Crompton

"I just can't comment on the Shield Law," Drew Crompton, general counsel to Senate Republicans, said to a group of reporters in the Capitol newsroom, adding, "and I wouldn't want to with this body because you get a little testy on the Shield Law."

(Wallace McKelvey)

The grand jury investigating Attorney General Kathleen Kane has recommended significant changes to the law that protects reporters and their sources, but those changes would face a difficult path through the General Assembly.

In a report dated Jan. 16, the grand jury recommended an exception to the state's "Shield Law" in cases of leaks from grand juries as well as giving the grand jury the right to compel reporters to testify if their sources have already waived confidentiality.

Pennsylvania, like most states, has a "Shield Law" which protects journalists from being compelled to reveal confidential sources. Earlier this month, it was reported that two Inquirer journalists had been subpoenaed in an effort to determine who leaked information to them from the Kane case. Those journalists reportedly invoked that law.

Several lawmakers reached Thursday, shortly after the grand jury's recommendations was released, declined to comment on the record but said such a measure would prove unpopular.

"That conversation I haven't had with the individual senators that I work for," said Drew Crompton, general counsel for the Senate Republican majority.

"I just can't comment on the Shield Law," he said to a group of reporters in the Capitol newsroom, adding, "and I wouldn't want to with this body because you get a little testy on the Shield Law."

Bruce Ledewitz, a Duquesne University law professor and constitutional law expert, said he doesn't think there would be any real interest in changing the law.

"I think the Legislature and the people of Pennsylvania, generally, would rather trade a few leaks from a grand jury, if it comes to that, than the wholesale going after of sources and of journalists for failing to turn the source over," he said.

The state already has the power to investigate leaks internally, Ledewitz said.

"If the government wants to keep its information private, you put the onus on the government to stop its own people from leaking to the press," he said.