Posted on 02/15/2005 7:35:47 AM PST by KidGlock
Edited on 02/15/2005 8:17:37 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld a ruling against two reporters who could go to jail for refusing to divulge their sources to investigators probing the leak of an undercover CIA officer's name to the media.
The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sided with prosecutors in their attempt to compel Time magazine's Matthew Cooper and The New York Times' Judith Miller to testify before a federal grand jury about their confidential sources. "We agree with the District Court that there is no First Amendment privilege protecting the information sought," Judge David B. Sentelle said in the ruling, which was unanimous.
In October, Judge Thomas F. Hogan held the reporters in contempt, rejecting their argument that the First Amendment shielded them from revealing their sources. Both reporters face up to 18 months in jail if they continue to refuse to cooperate.
The special prosecutor in the case, Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, is investigating whether a crime was committed when someone leaked the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame. Her name was published in a 2003 column by Robert Novak, who cited two senior Bush administration officials as his sources.
The column appeared after Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, wrote a newspaper opinion piece criticizing President Bush's claim that Iraq had sought uranium in Niger. The CIA had asked Wilson to check out the uranium claim. Wilson has said he believes his wife's name was leaked as retaliation for his critical comments. Disclosure of an undercover intelligence officer's identity can be a federal crime if prosecutors can show the leak was intentional and the person who released that information knew of the officer's secret status.
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On the Net:
U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
Circuit:
http://www.cadc.uscourts.govinternetinternet.nsf
The X-Files wing of the dims party now has him linked to this case, havent heard anything to back it up yet though..
I'll only trust the media more than the government when I start seeing journalists go to prison (for life, if necessary) in order to protect their "unnamed sources."
If a journalist does not have to reveal his or her sources in a court of law, then the entire system of securing testimony under oath collapses.
I'm with you. They did not expect this to go this far, figuring that W was beatable (historically he was) and they would again assume control of the DOJ. A terrible case of misunderestimation. Hehehehe...
I'm with you on that one. The list of reporters is longer than the Plame story and I've read elsewhere that other issues were being looked at by the GJ....
It's perjury-innoculation.
Finally hearing MSNBC reporting.
Ah, Pete Williams says a "unanimous court of appeals" decision.
Pete Williams is usually more accurate than the summation he just gave as background for the Plame/Wilson/Novak saga. Suffice to say he was a little careless in stating what happened and how it happened.
"The X-Files wing of the dims party now has him linked to this case, havent heard anything to back it up yet though.."
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There was a thread about this about a year ago.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1093819/posts
There is a talon article. Jeff Gannon, who is a fellow freeper, comments on the issue. It looks like some of the people who criticized Gannon are no longer members though, but of course I don't know if it's related. It was before I got here ;)
And here is a recent interview he did with editorandpublisher
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000799182
I just got this googling and the interview is a good read.
No surprise. This 'scandal' was to hurt W, nothing more. Now it is out of the MSM's control. Hehehehe....
Remember the Clinton guy ( Josh somebody, I think?) who testified to a congressional committee that he lied to his diary?
I can't wait for Joe Wilson to get his just rewards for outting his wife.
This whole case bothered me from the get-go. I'd like to find out who the leaker was because of the fact that they used this story to get Bush.
This whole case took a very strange turn when the columnist who first posted the story (Robert Novak) was only involved in the investigation in a small way, while those who were running with the story after his original story (the NY Times reporter, for example) became targets of the investigation. What was that all about?
Mark your calendar - we may finally, for once, get some morsel of truth out of an MSM journo.
You know whoever Judith Miller is protecting is certainly not a Bushie.....
Other statements from Fitzgerald (the prosecutor) indicate they have other information going to what they know these reporters will testify to.
dunno, which is why I'd like to hear more.
Journalists should be required to abide the same laws as everyone else. I don't have any protection from naming sources if ordered by the courts and nether do you. Why should journalists have the 'right' to disobey court orders of disclosure?
Do you want "unnamed sources" to be able to give disinformation to reporters in an effort to bring down a sitting President?
I'll take that risk. To absolutely allow the government to control the press is something I'd rather not risk.
If such a "journalistic immunity" were ever enshrined in law, then any person could avoid testifying in any legal matter simply by posting a story on the internet about the case in question and calling himself a journalist.
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