Posted on 03/23/2005 2:19:24 PM PST by cyncooper
Time Magazine's White House correspondent Matt Cooper said he is still trying to find the right words to explain to his six-year-old son that "daddy might not be coming home for a while."
In a talk at the Law School Tuesday evening, Cooper explained the details of a case that could land him behind bars. Last month a federal appeals court upheld a ruling that Cooper could face time in prison for refusing to reveal the name of a confidential government source who leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame in 2003. Judith Miller of The New York Times is also being prosecuted for refusing to comply with subpoenas, and the controversy surrounding the case has sparked a debate about the nature of journalistic privilege in regard to the confidentiality of sources, Cooper said.
~snip~
Cooper said he may face sentencing this week unless he obtains a stay. When asked about the prospect of serving prison time, Cooper said he would rather go to prison than break the confidentiality of his source.
~snip~
Cooper said he found the case proceedings and how it has been enshrouded in secrecy to be almost comic.
"Lots of the evidence of the case … is being kept sealed by the courts," Cooper said. "It's one of the ironies of this case that Judith Miller and I are being denied this information even though we've shown that we're pretty good for keeping secrets."
(Excerpt) Read more at yaledailynews.com ...
"I think the government official is someone like Thielmann or Plame's former boss, Alan Foley."
Thanks for posting. I'd say you're likely correct.
For those who don't know, right around the time Joe Wilson emerged in public (what a coincidence, right?) as having gone to Niger and accused the Bush administration of outright lying when they should have known better thanks to his "investigation", Capitol Hill Blue published a story that dovetailed with those charges.
Capitol Hill Blue had never garnered much MSM notice, but they managed to get picked up a bit before a freeper, in Buckhead fashion (freeper fashion!), exposed the source for CHB's article as fake.
There is more to this story than meets the eye.....the feds are on to something bigger.
I don't necessarily disagree that there is a right to know, I just feel that any journalist who allows fear of government penalties to make them reveal their source is breaching a confidence he/she agreed to in the first place.
Regardless of the issue, a journalist who accepts and uses data on the grounds of anonymity has an obligation to respect that no matter the personal cost. If that isn't acceptable, they shouldn't use it. Basic journalistic ethics....alhthough that often seems like an oxymoron now....
Interesting - I never knew that. If he planned to sue the name despite the CIA person, then A: Could he have gained it from another source and B: did he tell the CIA informant?
My comment is more on the matter of sources/confidentaility in general. Not being an American I have no horse in this race and haven't followed this particular case too closely.
I just hold a deeply belief that a journo worthy of the name will accept imprisonment, etc as a risk of using confidential sources.
"Judge Sentelle ponders whether the privilege shouldn't cover bloggers in their pajamas, and if not, why not."
Very interesting. I don't see how one could, in a manner consistent with intellectual honesty and the First Amendment, give this "privilege" to one class of people and not another. What is the distinction between "reporters" and the rest of us? That they earn a living from journalism (cf. the DE statute cited by Sentelle)? What about reporters who are independently wealthy? What about reporters who are disfavored by the establishment media? The "reporter" criterion means the editors of the MSM get to choose who gets the privilege.
BTW, my earlier point about doctors and lawyers was that while they do get qualified privileges against testifying regarding client/patient communications, the fact that they are heavily regulated by the state allows society to constrain the privilege to (mostly) legitimate uses. Because of the First Amendment, the state CAN'T regulate reporters, so there would be no corresponding restraint on abuses of a reporter's "privilege."
The most offensive aspect of this whole situation, though, is the idea that a reporter (or anyone else) has greater rights under the First Amendment than any other citizen who takes it upon him/herself to communicate (i.e., report) information to the public (yes, that includes 'bloggers and even occasional posters to bulletin boards like FR). A similar arrogance can be found in the MSM's insistence on McCain-Feingold restrictions for everyone except themselves (a poisonous view that has most recently surfaced at the FEC).
"I just hold a deeply belief that a journo worthy of the name will accept imprisonment, etc as a risk of using confidential sources."
The problem is that the reporters in these cases are NOT willing to accept that risk and instead are trying to assert that they have special privileges not available to other citizens. In other words, they want to have their cake and eat it, too.
The "source" issue here is different than what we call whistleblowing - the leak itself is a crime, revealing the name of a CIA agent. Who leaked it to Novak is the criminal, Novak is a jerk.
Basically 2 or more people were running their mouths off with "in" reporters. The other reporters have carped they shouldn't be dragged in because they didn't print the name first.
In the USA there was all sorts of media clamor to root out the person(s) who leaked the name. they're having scond thoughts now.
that's a fair sentiment. I've read a recent article where a jouro prof suggested one of the reporters not to fight this one. Because the leaked information didn't serve any greater good, but what many assumed was a motive of intra-government revenge.
The real motive probably is - there is none - it was just gossipiness.
for a morning read
I'm pondering a comment Wilson makes in his book. Wilson states that after he published his 7/26/2003 NYT article but before Novak published his article exposing Plame, a friend of his (Wilson's) told him that Novak had said to him privately:
“Wilson’s an [expletive deleted]. The CIA sent him. His wife, Valerie, works for the CIA. She’s a weapons of mass destruction specialist. She sent him."
Wilson's statement implies he had a friend who was in close contact with Novak before Novak wrote his article. If this person existed and is not another fabrication of Wilson's, who are they, and could they have played any role in leaking the information about Plame to Novak?
Wilson states that after he published his 7/26/2003 NYT article
Date s/b "7/6/2003"--typing too late at night here. . .
JULY 4, 2003 : (PARTY AT THE WILSON'S HOUSE INCLUDES REPORTER)
[* My note: Now, Pincus of the Washington Post mentioned this gathering but the wording he used for some of it implied that there were reporters there- which he didn't name. ]
JULY 5, 2003 Tuesday : (REPRESENTATIVE WAXMAN WRITES LETTER CONCERNING NIGER FLAP) Rep. Henry Waxman of California, the top Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, wrote to Bush on Tuesday outlining a letter he received from the International Atomic Energy Agency regarding the forged Niger documents. The letter "raises new questions about why the administration withheld the evidence from the IAEA for over six crucial weeks in December and January and - even then - failed to share the conclusions of U.S. intelligence officials that the evidence was bogus."
Democrats seeking their party's presidential nomination, including Sens. Bob Graham of Florida and John Kerry of Massachusetts and Reps. Richard Gephardt of Missouri and Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, also called for further investigation. - "Bush Defends Use of Iraq Intelligence," By TOM RAUM, ASSOCIATED PRESS, July 09, 2003 Sat via Las Vegas SUN main page
[* My note: Why would some unknown person in the IAEA contact Henry Waxman of all people, and not, say, the President? Rumsfeld? Condi Rice? The US UN ambassador? The Senate intelligence committee?]
JULY 6, 2003 : (NY TIMES : WILSON'S OP ED IS PUBLISHED)
See #74
That is a very interesting timeline, piasa.
Marking.
...very interesting...
Rep. Henry Waxman of California, the top Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, wrote to Bush on Tuesday outlining a letter he received from the International Atomic Energy Agency regarding the forged Niger documents. The letter "raises new questions about why the administration withheld the evidence from the IAEA for over six crucial weeks in December and January and - even then - failed to share the conclusions of U.S. intelligence officials that the evidence was bogus."
~snip~
Then we learned in short order after Wilson's op-ed that the CIA headquarters did not even have the forged documents until February 2003 (after the above "crucial weeks" cited) and obviously we immediately informed the IAEA of our findings of forgery:
FBI looking into forged Iraq-Niger documents
July 16, 2003
excerpt:
Government officials say CIA headquarters received the documents in February 2003, in which President Bush claimed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein sought to buy uranium from Africa.
~snip~
SNIP
1977 Jack O'Dell becomes Chair of the Pacifica Foundation.
SNIP
1979 Pacifica, the League of Women Voters, and congressman Henry Waxman (D, CA) challenge the constitutionality of the prohibition on editorializing by non-commercial broadcasters.
Government officials say CIA headquarters received the documents in February 2003, which was after the January State of the Union address in which President Bush claimed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein sought to buy uranium from Africa.
That brings another thing to mind- the CIA did not get the docs until Feb 2003 as you pointed out- but when did the State Dept get those docs? Apparently state had them earlier, as early as October 2002 as the docs were allegedly handed over to our embassy by the reporter then.
[Or maybe that's just what we're being fed since if they were handed over then it would be easier to sell the idea that the NIE's reference to uranium in Africa related to the forgeries and not to the earlier intelligence from human sources and the UK. ]
Would these documents have gone through Greg Thielman before going up any farther? I don't know anything of State's organization. Thielman was the Director of the Strategic, Proliferation and Military Issues Office**** in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research so would such docs go to him before reaching Powell? Was he choking the flow of intel?
Newsweek commented regarding him: "A recently retired State Department intelligence analyst directly involved in assessing the Iraqi threat, Greg Thielmann,... "
[****... where the WashPo reporter Walter Pincus' wife Ann works as well so I understand]
I'm wondering if Thielman resigned as "regularly scheduled retirement" or if he left somewhat prematurely? If the latter, what might he have done to force his retirement?
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