"Among the strange wrinkles in this case is that Mr. Novak, who first published Ms. Plame's name, seems to be in no jeopardy, while Mr. Cooper faces jail time stemming from an article he wrote exposing the administration's seamy motive of retaliating against Ms. Plame's husband for criticizing Iraq policy..."
Perhaps because Novak talked and Cooper did not?
Its funny the legacy media is taking a dim view of reporters' being punished for breaking the law. This is the same media that wants to shut up the blogs and a la CFR, determine what is and isn't news. Seems to me they still don't get their monopoly is gone, period.
"That same appellate hearing also explored another legal avenue the court could take to stop the two journalists from becoming the only people punished for the Bush administration's abuse of power in leaking the name of a covert C.I.A. operative."
Okay, President Bush's folks leaked the name of one operative who is mad about it. Why was nobody punished when Jimmy Carter openly released the names of all CIA operatives, which got many of them killed?
"On Dec. 9, a television reporter in Providence, R.I., Jim Taricani, was sentenced to six months of house arrest for refusing to reveal who gave him an F.B.I. videotape showing a local official taking a bribe. Mr. Taricani did nothing illegal."
Nothing illegal? Receiving stolen property is an illegal act. I doubt the FBI had given permission for this tape, evidence, to be released. How did a FBI tape get to the press? The government has the obligation to track down security leaks.
Members of the press have no more right to commit, or be a party to the commission, of crime then anyone else.
This notion that journalists are an elite group immune to the laws that govern we plebs is one the press must be disabused of post haste.
...the Bush administration's abuse of power in leaking...
...so carefully worded...
These folks want special protections because they are "journalists". Well folks, you might have had a claim and reason at one time, but now most of the "journalists" are agenda driven political hacks. Sorry, you have Jason Blaired and Dan Rathered yourselves right out of business.
Learn to live with the same protections and choices the rest of us do. You do have the equal protection clause (says nothing about journalist special protection) and the right to choose to disobey a judge. Just be prepared to accept the consequences.
The worry now is that a three-judge federal appellate panel in Washington will take an equally cramped view of reporters' rights and affirm sentences of up to 18 months in prison that a lower court imposed in October on Judith Miller of The New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine. At issue is the pair's principled refusal to disclose their sources in connection with the investigation that the United States attorney and special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is leading into the leaking of the name of a covert C.I.A. officer, Valerie Plame, to the columnist Robert Novak.
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It was the press that DEMANDED Bush appoint someone to investigate who outed their liberal spy friends. Big hypocrites.
If they sent up Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich for life, it would make my day.
Now how can there be government accountability when they refuse to name their source? Besides, we all know that if this information came from the BUSH administration they would have talked by now.
They should be sent to Al-Jazeera to serve ten year internships with their masters!
Random Freepers (and yes, DU'ers too) posting messages have no less of a right to be called 'journalists' than the people graduating from Columbia J-school. NYT: the internet has destroyed the whole concept of 'journalism' as you knew it. Get with the program.