Posted on 12/12/2004 7:38:28 PM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
Activist federal judges in the District of Columbia and Providence, R.I., have already thrown two chilling strikes at journalists for refusing to betray their sources. In San Francisco, a third strike against reporters' ability to gather the news may be on the way.
This sudden wave of judicial repression, unless checked quickly by higher courts or by Congressional action, will make it much easier for the government to deny a citizen's right to know about wrongdoing by every miscreant from corrupt officials to sports heroes.
One year ago, baseball's leading slugger, Barry Bonds, was called before a federal grand jury in the Northern District of California investigating steroid use by athletes to enhance performance. He admitted using a "clear substance" he said he thought was a muscle rub provided by his trainer, who has since been indicted.
The secret Bonds testimony, along with admission of steroid use by Jason Giambi, the Yankee, was reported by The San Francisco Chronicle.
As a result, baseball fans are dismayed and infuriated; the Senate Commerce chairman, John McCain, threatens legislation unless the "national pastime" cleans up its act; Major League Baseball's see-no-evil officials belatedly promise to deal with the worst scandal since the Black Sox of a century ago; even the players' union may consent to more than one drug test per season.
What will happen, now that this stunning news has finally been brought before the public? No, not retribution for the wrongdoers or even an asterisk next to records broken of unhyped athletes of the past.
Such justice is secondary to the new vogue of leak-plumbing that has seized the federal judiciary. Inspired by the sentences for contempt imposed in D.C. on Judith Miller of The Times and Matthew Cooper of Time, and on Jim Taricani, the TV reporter in Rhode Island, a judge in San Francisco is urging the Justice Department to conduct an investigation of who brought the evidence of steroid abuse into public view one year after the explosive testimony was taken.
If the new plumbing pattern is followed, Chronicle reporters will be threatened with jail for contempt unless they reveal who provided the transcripts of grand jury testimony (which the paper had the First Amendment right, and journalistic obligation, to print). I cannot imagine the newspaper burning its source.
Stipulated, as lawyers say, that grand jury testimony is secret, protecting the privacy of reluctant witnesses. If the source violated an oath, that was wrong. But it is the publication's obligation to the public to publish what it considers newsworthy - and not to assist the government in punishing the provider of that news.
Counters the court cohort of coercion: isn't every citizen obliged to give sworn testimony to help the government enforce the law?
The answer is no. Government may not compel a man to testify against his wife, nor doctor against patient, nor priest against penitent, nor lawyer against client. The law has extended this "privilege" to psychologists and social workers, on the theory that society is ill served by erosion of trust within relationships dependent on such trust. Certainly the public interest in the robust and uninhibited flow of information should continue to protect confidential relations between source and journalist (as more than 30 states now do through "shield" laws).
Here's the rub: no privilege is absolute. Constitutional rights sometimes conflict. Extreme example: Everybody - spouses, doctors, lawyers, clergy, journalists, bartenders - must break any confidence to prevent a murder. We are expected to use common sense in balancing our right to remain silent with our obligation to bear witness.
That good sense is being swept away today by leak-happy prosecutors and activist judges. This trend toward the jailing of journalists for protecting the free flow of news is an abuse-of-power abomination. If higher courts can't control the plumbing fashionable below, it's up to Congress to enact a federal shield law.
Liberals may now be fearful of opposing mindless media hatred, but why are principled conservatives not aroused by imperial judges? The founders ensured freedom of the Fourth Estate as a check against the powers of all three branches of central government. Most states are doing their part. Pass that federal shield law before a judiciary on steroids throws Strike 3.
Need one say it? Our goverment is operating so far outside its charter...
"Liberals may now be fearful of opposing mindless media hatred, but why are principled conservatives not aroused by imperial judges?"
What the hey? It's the conservatives who've been complaining about the judiciary for the last 35 years. It's the liberals who've been patting them on the back. Maybe the NYT ought to check into a drug rehabilitation center.
I just can't seem to work myself up about the rights of newspaper reporters. A New York Times reporter basically gets paid a huge salary and all his expenses to tell lies.
In what regard are newspaper reporters better than anyone else? What have they done to deserve special privileges?
Hey Dan Rather, what say you?
The cr@p that the NYT claims is "news" isn't worth the paper it's printed on. The Plame flap did NOT have news as its basis. It's just more "gotcha" "journalism", at best.
Let the "journalists" rot in jail for a while.
I can't believe you of all people would waste your time and column space to pontificate about a "constitutional" protection for journalists that does not exist under the U.S. Constitution and has no basis in law.
Sincerely,
Alberta's Child
If we remove the clunky and awkward references to political scandals past, the author makes an excellent point; the real question is what allows the government to keep secrets?
The truth is a river that courses downstream, where allowed it is above ground and fully in sight; where obstacles impinge and barriers arise, the river takes the path of least resistance and slips silently but surely underneath; farther down the path it is lifted by the bedrock of reason and the water rushes to the surface again for all to see; what is of consequence here is whether the court is erecting barriers or crushing bedrock.
This must be some new use of the word "secret" with which I'm not familiar.
IOW, how about prosecuting those who "leak" what they're not supposed to? I don't know about you guys, but I'm sick of all this leaking.
Mumbo jumbo. What kind of "obligation" do you have to do exactly what you want to do??? The First Amendment protects the press (whether it be a newspaper or a book publisher) from any requirement to print any particular truth; most truths never reach the newspaper and even fewer reach books.No, the newspaper prints whatever truth it wants and, truth be told, more than a few whoppers as well. But if the newspaper announces that it has obtained information which no one was legally entitled to give it, that should be just too bad for the source - or for the newspaper, if it is foolish enough to subject itself to geometrically increasing fines until it is bankrupted.
Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate
And they did so by protecting freedom of the press, that is freedom to publish. They did not establish a class of persons to whom the law does not apply. So called "journalists" have no more rights to protect their sources, which often meaning hiding them from those they lie about, than you or I.
They have no right to be the sole judges of the reliability of those sources. Of course sometimes they can't identify them, because they don't exist, they were made up by the "journalists".
Media bias bump.
Each of the examples he cites are some kind of personal/medical/religious RELATIONSHIP, just what
kind of situation justifies a reporter having that status?
Then why didn't any of them claim the Alien & Sedition Acts were unconstitutional? Because all the Founding Fathers knew those acts were acceptable to the Constitution. The 1st Amendment relied on the British definition of Free Speech, which is to say, speech is free unless a stuffy rich person doesn't like it.
If the FF saw the 4th Estate as a check against the 3 branches of government, they must have felt it could do it's job checking without a lot of constitutional protection...
Is it just me, or are journalists extraordinarily self-important, interjecting themselves into the founding fathers' designs for the Constitution.... bleaah
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.