(Editor’s Note: The following guest editorial was penned by the National Newspaper Association, and we are publishing it as a show of support for its contents and seek your help. Sen. Jeff Flake is an influential member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and so far he has not declared his support for the bill. The next vote is planned for Sept. 12.)

Community newspapers like ours do not cover the National Security Agency, subject of so much controversy of late about gathering citizens’ communications data. We don’t nourish leaks within the State Department, like a recent Fox News reporter covering North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. We don’t follow the administration’s drone policy or Yemeni jihadists, as national journalists do.

So maybe we are not as likely to have our telephone records seized by the FBI without our knowledge as the Associated Press was when records were taken without its knowledge.

But we are concerned.

Anytime a government can be its own judge, jury and executioner, our constitution is in jeopardy. That is what happened when the U.S. Department of Justice took over the AP’s phone records. It alone decided that there was just cause. It alone determined not to notify the AP before going to the telephone companies for the records. It alone reviewed its decisions, pronounced the judgment and executed it.

This is not the way justice is supposed to work in our country for any citizen. But when the heavy hand of an investigating government falls upon the news organizations that keep information flowing to the public, the victims are not just the journalists. The public is also harmed.

The Justice Department, under pressure of public outcry, has revised its guidelines to make it harder for criminal justice agencies to seize records like that. That was a good idea. But it had guidelines before that were supposed to empower only the attorney general to subpoena journalists’ information, and it chose to sidestep them. Clearly, self-governance by those in power is not sufficient. And why would it be? Our freedoms rest upon checks and balances.

There is no question that when journalists are covering matters touching on national security, care must be taken. Reputable news organizations consult the intelligence community before breaking new stories and take seriously any cautions that harm to an operation may occur. Stories are often held until the operation is on safe ground. But the government agencies would like to control the message entirely at times. Fair enough.

But don’t let them be the sole arbiters. This is why America has courts.

Both the U.S. House and the Senate are considering the Free Flow of Information Act this fall. The bills, S. 987 and HR 1962, would provide journalists an additional measure of legal protection from fishing expeditions by prosecutors or litigants in civil cases. Most importantly, they would reinstitute the independent judiciary as decision makers on these close questions when journalists want to tell an important story to the public and the government wants to stop them. The journalists won’t always win that battle. Maybe they shouldn’t. But government should not win it by fiat.

Let’s restore constitutional balance. If you agree, contact your members of Congress and ask them to support these bills.