I don't think the question is if should we have a shield law. I think the question is what kind of shield law we should have. Yes, I'd like to see a federal shield law, but if and only if it provides genuine safeguards and doesn't green-light prosecutors and judges and litigants from going after the press and getting things to which they should not be entitled. It's not a simple kind of litmus test.

Secrecy doesn't attach to particular parties; it attaches to power. All of the bull work is in place for whomever succeeds. That's my concern.

There's no faster way or surer way to consolidate power and disenfranchise critics than to operate in secret. So this plays squarely into the promotion of the unitary executive. That's one factor.

The mechanics vary from place to place and from office to office. The handling of SBUs can be different in the same agency just across the hall, one from another. There are virtually no standards.

It will be important to restore those provisions, those disclose provisions, those release provisions so that presidents are indeed held accountable and their information and papers are made public.

The press is going to have to learn anew that it's possible to work in an environment that is not so toxic and to readopt those kinds of techniques. The relationship between the press and the Clinton White House during the later period was not a healthy one. There was a lot of hostility and a lot of suspicion. This administration has done systematically what no other administration had done. They came in with a corporate mentality, an ability to stay on script that was without parallel.

You have tens, hundreds of thousands of people in government, and just as many among contractors, who feel totally comfortable writing at the top of the document "internal use only," "official use only," and a million other synonyms, all of which amount to "none of your business" to the public.