Confidentiality: Plame vs. Watergate

[Ready4Change]

I get the need for reporters to protect their sources.

However, I see one big, glaring difference between Plamegate and Watergate.

In Watergate, Deep Throat committed no crime. The information he leaked led to solving a crime. Jailing Woodwards and Bernstein would have made no sense, as no evidence existed to suggest they or Deep Throat were criminals.

In Plamegate, the leak was itself the crime. Jailing Novak, Cooper and Miller would make sense, as they were parties to the criminal act and, by protecting the leakers identity, are aiding and abetting a criminal.

I believe the confidentiality protection is invalidated by the fact that providing the information was the crime in the first place. Otherwise all criminals would be reporters and would claim this as a defense against testifying against each other.

Thoughts?