Posted on 10/10/2004 4:05:37 PM PDT by Former Military Chick
The reporters being subpoenaed or sent to jail for refusing to reveal their sources to the special prosecutor investigating White House leaks of the name of an undercover CIA agent are all friends of mine. Or at least they were until this column. I do not want them to go to jail.
The problem is this. Should it be illegal for a government official to reveal the identity of an undercover CIA agent? Most reasonable people, including most reporters, would probably say yes. Lives can be at stake. But for all practical purposes, such a law, which in fact we have, is unenforceable if a government official chooses to reveal the agent's identity to a journalist and the journalist can ignore a subpoena to testify.
One of the farcical aspects of this investigation, which has cost millions of dollars, is that there is no mystery. At least a half-dozen prominent people know the answer for sure. Just reading between the lines of newspaper stories from far away, it seems evident who one of the leakers is.
"It seems evident" is a good enough standard for most purposes. But not for a criminal prosecution. For that you need evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. And if the crime consists of a private conversation between two people, you need at least one of them to 'fess up. The government official is protected against self-incrimination by the Fifth Amendment. If the journalist has an absolute right and an absolute duty to shield the identity of a source, both sides of the conversation are immune, and prosecution is impossible.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Kinsley and Tad Devine were separated at their birthing at the Sneer Institute. Kinsley is a snide, holier-than-thou nerd.
I think that the source is a democrat because if it were a republican source, the NY Times would have outed the source without a fight.
I seriously doubt that Valerie Plame was anything more
than a low-level operative. Her so-called husband's
protestations leave me cold. This guy was an acting
ambassador who made a big deal of this revelation. I fail
to be impressed by any of this.
I thought her cover was blown by Cuba & another less than friendly country, long before anything about her was published in the US.
All things being equal, the agents should be protected for their own safety. The reporter is not the criminal, the official that leaked to the reporter should be jailed for his offense.
I dunno, I think once one of our agents has been outted by any bad guys, we should stop trying to pretend & move the individual to a job where cover no longer matters.
Supposedly, her being outted may have put some overseas operatives at risk. I'd be hard put to justify leaving anyone in the field anywhere, who would be put at risk by a simple phone call between some of our enemies.
I think Plame blabbed about her job to Wilson, either the first time they met or the first time they were gonna hit the sack together. Her own behaviour was risky, so I can only hope she didn't have a position where people could be put at risk by knowledge of her job getting out.
I started reading this and suddenly noticed the name Kinsley. I promptly stopped, I have no idea what "the
rest of the story is"/
Journalistic ethics is whatever happens to keep a journalist in a job or out of jail at any particular moment.
I don't think it has been conceded that Plame was a covert operative, within the meaning of the Criminal Code Statute which pertains.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.