On the Latest Ruling in Plame Probe

[paineinthearse]

I'm posting as a new thread because this article is not so much about Miller as it is about a reporter's right (or lack of) to keep sources confidential.

---------------------------------------------

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/shoptalk_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000800586

On the Latest Ruling in Plame Probe

Does Judith Miller of The New York Times have a much weaker legal case than her colleagues for protecting her sources in the Valerie Plame/CIA case? Several other reporters, newspaper executives, and attorneys involved in the case, which entered a new chapter today, think so.

By William E. Jackson Jr.

(February 15, 2005) -- It has been described as the greatest confrontation between the press and the government in a generation. What happens when the journalistic principle of protecting confidential sources clashes with the public interest in prosecuting a crime? The legal drama surrounding the Valerie Plame/CIA probe took another step toward its final act today when a three-judge panel of a federal appeals court ruled that Judith Miller of The New York Times and Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper enjoyed “no First Amendment privilege protecting the information sought” by prosecutors.

While the decision is appealed to the full Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Judge Thomas F. Hogan could still send Cooper and Miller to jail at any time for contempt. But while the two reporters are now inextricably linked, the latter has much the weaker case, to such an extent that some other reporters and attorneys who have also been involved in the probe question the legal handling of the joint Cooper/Miller case.

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. Attorney in Chicago, was appointed in December 2003 to conduct a criminal investigation under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. For many months, journalists from several big-gun news organizations were swept up in a probe that had been precipitated by a July 14, 2003, Robert Novak column revealing the identity of CIA undercover officer, Valerie Plame.

Novak cited as his sources two high-level government officials, widely believed to be located in the Executive Office of the President. Several other journalists, including Walter Pincus of The Washington Post, also reported that they received the same information from administration officials.

more...




----------------------------------------------------------------------

William E. Jackson Jr. ([e-mail]) has written often for E&P on the Plame case. He was an arms-control official in the Carter Administration.