Miller Clarifies Security Clearance Issue

ap on Yahoo ^ | 10/20/05 | David B. Caruso - ap

[NormsRevenge]

NEW YORK - New York Times reporter Judith Miller has addressed an issue that raised eyebrows in the journalism community: her statement that she had "clearance to see secret information" while covering the invasion of Iraq.

In a first-person piece last weekend, Miller wrote that because of that status, "I was not permitted to discuss with editors some of the more sensitive information about Iraq."

The statement led some to charge that the Times had allowed Miller to become compromised by the military.

But Miller told the paper for a story published Thursday that her "clearance" was akin to the routine nondisclosure form for all reporters "embedded" with military units, which she signed when she was deployed with the 75th Exploitation Task Force. The unit's job was to find weapons of mass destruction.

Miller said she also agreed to additional ground rules permitting her to discuss some secret information only with two of the paper's top editors.

One of her attorneys, Floyd Abrams, told The Associated Press that while Miller's security status didn't rise to the level of having official clearance, it was still unusual.

"Although the form she signed was similar to that signed by other journalists, her selection to be exposed to highly classified information was approved at a significantly higher level than is generally done, and this was because she was routinely exposed to secret information," he said.

The Defense Department has declined to comment on Miller's security status. A New York Times spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment, and Miller did not return a message left by the AP on her cell phone.

Former CBS national security correspondent Bill Lynch wrote in a letter to an online journalism forum that giving a reporter security clearance would come "as close as one can get to government licensing of journalists."

"The New York Times (if it knew) should never have allowed her to become so compromised," he wrote.

Times reporter Adam Liptak said in a speech to the New York City Bar Association this week that if Miller had indeed received official security clearance, "that's an impossible position for her to be in."

"We should not be making deals with the government that don't allow us to publish what we know," he said.

[McGavin999]

"We should not be making deals with the government that don't allow us to publish what we know," he said.

Who the he!! do they think they are? No wonder people can't stand them anymore.

[SirJohnBarleycorn]

The proposed Federal Shield Law, a/k/a "The Dan Rather Protection Act," needs to be defeated at all costs.

The shield law, combined with the existing exemption from defamation law for reporting about public figures, would basically place even the most vicious agenda-driven propaganda falsehoods beyond the reach of our legal system.

The liberals already believe they're superior to other people, and are trying desperately to get that status enshrined in law.

[coloradan]

Every single article she has ever written or worked on should be scrubbed for disclosure of then-classified info, and she should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for every instance. This should clarify what "secret" means.