The White House has told Congress that it opposes federal shield legislation that would protect reporters from being imprisoned if they refuse to disclose confidential sources who leak material about national security, and has proposed changes to weaken that provision of the bill, the New York Times reports. The administration's proposals are being criticized by press groups and at least two Democratic senators who have supported the legislation, Arlen Specter (Pa.) and Charles Schumer (N.Y.). "The White House's opposition to the fundamental essence of this bill is an unexpected and significant setback," Schumer says. "It will make it hard to pass this legislation."

The proposed law again failed to win approval from the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, "after senators from both parties said the current version could damage national security," the Associated Press reports.

Writing on AOL's Digital City, Carly Milne says "usually it's universally accepted that having the cojones to stand on a soapbox and really, creatively say what you're feeling is one requirement," before giving shout-outs to AAN and six alt-weeklies.

Attorney General Eric Holder has laid out out new procedures that will "provide greater accountability and ensure the state secrets privilege is invoked only when necessary and in the narrowest way possible." Open government advocates like OMB Watch and Sen. Patrick Leahy have "expressed cautious optimism" about the policy, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press reports. Secrecy News also has a mixed reaction, saying the policy "includes procedural and substantive changes to current practice," but "it reserves decisions over the exercise of the privilege to the executive branch, and it appears to have garbled its treatment of judicial review."

Saying there is "a lot of power in organizing and curating this world," The New York Times Company senior VP of digital operations Martin Nisenholtz told OMMA conference attendees yesterday that Times has built a search product that aggregates Twitter commentary from both editors and readers for its popular fashion-themed blog The Moment and it plans on building many more. "If you go out and search Twitter, it doesn't work very well," he said. "It's very literal."