Posted on 02/15/2006 6:09:56 PM PST by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I agree. He should have been the bloodhound we wanted going after the Clintons, instead, we got lame brain Kenneth Starr.
What is left to investigate?
A 1st amendt. right to feel safe while committing treason? Yup, that's the way it reads to me.
Is this the case that Judith Miller get Fitzie's approval to not call her when they signed their agreement?
If he really wants to get this information from the NYT he needs to convert to Islam and get a "peaceful" group like Hamas to demonstrate on his behalf.
I can help the investigation by supplying Fitzgerald's real name. It's Mud.
How much grand standing can you possibly milk out of this non issue?
Didn't Miller tip off some Islamic foundation about pending
raids, maybe this is what he's looking for?
yes this is that case
yep
It's kind of funny how the LSM which was salivating about nailing Bush on the Joe Wilson nothing is now in Defcom 5 over the monster they created.
Yes .. that is what these hearings have been about. He's appealing the judge's decision that the reporters can keep their sources confidential.
Well freedom of the press has not been hindered, but they may be responsible after the fact for what they printed, even prior restraint (injunctions) are available in cases that pose a threat to national security....Freedom of the Press and Freedom of speech are not absolutes.
In 2005 Judge Robert Sweet, a federal district Court judge, denied Patrick Fitzgerald’s motion to obtain the telephone records of then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller to ascertain her sources after she tipped off an Islamic charity of a coming raid. In the prosecution’s appeal of that case the government indicates that if it loses, it may subpoena her notes of telephone calls directly from her.
Following the New York Time’s loss in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in the Plame case, he may finally succeed in getting them.
Journalist Judith Miller and U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald squared off in court again yesterday, with a lot less public attention than last year, when the dogged special prosecutor in the Valerie Plame case had the then-New York Times reporter jailed for 85 days to force her to disclose the identity of an anonymous source.
Yesterday’s appearance in Manhattan before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit was another instance of Mr. Fitzgerald trying to find out about Ms. Miller’s sources, this time by looking at the New York Times’s phone records, and prosecutors raised the prospect of pressing her directly yet again, as they did in the Plame case to disclose the sources.
At the center of this leak case is the question of how Ms. Miller, who has since left the paper, and a second Times reporter came to learn of the government’s plan to take action in the wake of September 11 against two Islamic organizations suspected of having terrorist ties.
The government is appealing a ruling by U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet last year that barred Mr. Fitzgerald from inspecting Ms. Miller’s phone records. Mr. Fitzgerald’s appeal has come before judges Amalya Kearse, Robert Sack, and Ralph Winter of the Second Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals. Judge Winter was absent from the panel at yesterday’s hearing.
Clarice Feldman 2 14 06
I must have remembered this wrong...because I thought that Fitzy made a deal with Miller, that if she gave him what he wanted re: Libby...then he wouldn't go after her on this other thing with the Islamic charities..
I'm not sure of that.
This case involves the "alleged" terror charity Global Relief Foundation. The GRF is accused of providing support and aid to al Qaeda. Some of the people nailed in the Global Relief case are also ranking members of or fundraisers for the highly vocal Muslim "civil rights" lobbying group CAIR.
Some of those involved with GRF were also involved in an assassination plot against President Bush.
CAIR is the spawn of another Islamic lobbying group based out of Richardson TX that was raided before 911, the IAP aka Islamic Association for Palestine, founded by a leader of Hamas, Mousa Abu Marzook.
CAIR is also interlocked with another terror charity, the Holy Land Foundation. HLF was also founded Hamas man Mousa Abu Marzook.
anyone else find it the LEAST bit troublesome that this is the FIFTH paragraph of the story. This should be the LEADING paragraph. THe FOUR paragraphs that precede are usually the ending of a story. you knw what I mean... you've read the stories where they give you the meat, and then give a cursory mention at the end that so and so is also involved in.....blah blah blah.....
I won't even touch on the fact that the article is written in a way that suggests that Fitz is going after journalists in an attempt to attack their "freeedom of the press" rights....when what is REALLY going on- is that Fitz is looking for the people in the GOV'T that are LEAKING the INFO to the journalists.....
the media has become a parady of black helicopter in the night conspiracy theorists.....complete with ACME pellets that turn them into superstars or victims within seconds.... whichever role suits them at the moment.......
The..the..the..the...........That's ALL FOLKS!
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