By David Carr, New York Times, Sept. 29/30, 2013

[....] what appeared to be a low point in a long campaign to rein in reporters and chill their sources may turn out to be a very big blessing in disguise.

Chastened by the outcry, the Justice Department revisited its ancient guidelines — now many decades old and codified when there was no such thing as e-mail — and made meaningful reforms. Sounding for all the world like a stalwart defender of press freedom, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said, “The Department of Justice is firmly committed to ensuring our nation’s security, and protecting the American people, while at the same time safeguarding the freedom of the press.”

The new guidelines default toward providing advance notice to news organizations when investigators pursue news-gathering materials, except when notification would threaten continuing investigations. And the guidelines no longer let investigators portray reporters as engaged in a criminal act, in an effort to bypass restrictions in the Privacy Protection Act.

Even more improbably, the administration has put its weight behind enacting a federal shield law [....]