Fitzgerald again seeks names of NY Times sources

Reuters/Yahoo ^ | 2-13-06 | Christine Kearney

[STARWISE]

Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was back in court seeking information about the New York Times' anonymous sources on Monday, this time appealing his setback in a lower court.

Fitzgerald is best known for being the special prosecutor whose investigation led to the indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Former Times reporter Judith Miller spent 85 days in jail in that case last year for resisting Fitzgerald's request to reveal her sources, and the two have been pitted against each other once again in a free-speech battle over journalists' rights to keep their sources secret from prosecutors' probes.

The case argued in a New York courtroom on Monday started when Fitzgerald was in the U.S. Attorney's Chicago office, before he was appointed special counsel over the leak of a CIA operative's name. The two cases are not directly related, though both involve reporting by Miller, and others, when she was still at the Times.

Fitzgerald is seeking phone records relating to newspaper articles on government probes into Islamic charities during the fall of 2001, shortly after the September 11 attacks. The government wants to uncover the identities of government sources who might have given information to the reporters.

U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet ruled in February 2005 the phone records were protected from disclosure by a reporter's privilege under the First Amendment of the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

Back then, Times' lawyer Floyd Abrams called Sweet's decision "a major vindication for First Amendment interests," and now Fitzgerald is seeking to overturn that ruling.

[piasa]

The IAP group out of Richardson, TX relates to the INFOCOM internet provider case. Infocom was based right across the street from IAP and they shared employees and at least one corporate officer.

Infocom ran HLF's website. HLF in turn hosted CAIR, Islamic Society of North America aka ISNA, The Muslim Students' Association of the US and Canada aka MSA, and the Islamic Circle of North America aka ICNA- the ICNA is a front for Jamaat-i-Islami.

[piasa]

When INFOCOM was shut down the relatives of the people involved in that company formed another company called SYNAPTIX CORP, which hosted the website for Alsunnah Magazine, a mag published out of Birmingham, UK by the Centre for Islamic Studies, a registered "charity" in the UK. The mag is banned in Saudi Arabia because it advocates the overthrow of the Saudi government; it is a vile publication that also solicits suicide attacks on US troops in Iraq and Israeli troops.

[mware]

Didn't Miller tip off some Islamic foundation about pending raids, maybe this is what he's looking for?

Yeap, this is that other case that Fritz subpoenaed her on and she is trying to block the subpoena