法律(主要是普通法)通常会确立一些特权,以保护一些特别的社会关系,如律师与其客户、教士与其信徒、医生与其病人等等。他们之间的“信息通报”,不属于证据获取的范围。所以,律师、教士以及医生对他们所取得的有关信息(以下简称“取材来源”),有不明示的义务。那末新闻记者和杂志记者对他们从披露信息者那里获得的取材是否有同样的隐匿的义务呢?而这种隐匿是否有宪法依据呢?在一个资讯化社会里,这是一个不容忽视而又尚未解决的问题。 Laws (mostly common law) usually establish certain privileges to protect particular social relations such as lawyers and their clients, priests and their followers, doctors and their patients and so on. The “communication” between them does not fall within the scope of obtaining evidence. Therefore, lawyers, priests and doctors have no explicit obligation to them about the information they have obtained (hereinafter referred to as “source of origin”). Is journalists and journalists having the same obligation of concealment for the material they obtain from disclosing the information? Is there any constitutional basis for such concealment? In an information society, this is an issue that can not be ignored and yet to be ignored solved problem.