Posted on 07/05/2007 5:34:27 AM PDT by BGHater
Plaintiff Was Called 'Person of Interest'
Lawyers for former Army scientist Steven J. Hatfill urged a judge yesterday to order several journalists to disclose the names of law enforcement sources who leaked details of the investigation of Hatfill in the 2001 anthrax attacks.
Hatfill, a physician and bioterrorism expert, has not been charged in the attacks, in which five people were killed and 17 were sickened by anthrax bacteria mailed in envelopes. In a lawsuit, he accuses the Justice Department of violating the federal Privacy Act by giving the news media information about the FBI's investigation of him.
To help prove their case, in which Hatfill is seeking an unspecified monetary award, his attorneys want several reporters, including Allan Lengel of The Washington Post, to reveal the identities of law enforcement officials who were cited anonymously in stories about the investigation. The journalists contend that the First Amendment and a federal common-law privilege shield them from having to disclose the names.
U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, who is presiding in the case, began hearing arguments on the issue yesterday in Washington. He set aside time next week for further arguments before he issues a ruling.
No one has been arrested in the attacks, which took place in the fall of 2001. Hatfill, who worked at the Army's infectious diseases laboratory at Fort Detrick in Frederick County from 1997 to 1999, was publicly identified as "a person of interest" in the investigation by then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft.
Hatfill's lead attorney, Charles Thomas Kimmett Jr., said his client has met the requirements of "a two-pronged test," established in case law, under which the reporters should be compelled to disclose the identities of their sources.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
ping list for anthrax
Now that we have suicide bombers posing as physicians, maybe they will take the vet student more seriously.
I hope this guy wins his case. The press as well as law enforcement need to take responsibility when they destroy someone’s life in pursuit of a story or a conviction.
Yeah guys, just WHERE DID that stuff come from?
I’ve noticed the crashing silence for years now.
Hatfil just might end up rich after all.
Hooray!
IMO, another railroad job by a runaway judiciary and “authorities”, either #@**! or get off the pot! I’m still involved in LE and officially, there is no “person of interest” in legal definitions that I can find. Either one is a suspect or not, and cleared or not. Now it’s the buzz term of the age, that, and “closure”. Liberal catch phrases. Ask any victim who has lost a loved one about “closure”, such a neat term that means nothing.
FReepers are very astute, if you find a bona fide legal definition for “person of interest”, I would be interested.
Wonder what they'd be saying if some of the folks still in hospitals or with loose teeth from too much Cipro were to sue them.
Congress is already covering this eventuality, they are going to pass a “press shield” law.
Apparently the FBI and the rest of the Feds didn’t learn a thing from their kick in the ass from the Atlanta Olympic Park Bombings case and the guard who sued their pants off................
I doubdt that any law would pass that would invalidate the right to sue by private parties wronged by the press. ATLA would never support it.
I notice
the expression "person of interest" has become part
of the popular vocabulary.
For example
During the recent Plame affair
various journalists and functionaries were referred to as "persons of interest".
I believe Hatfill was the first person
to receive this designation.
Does anyone know of an earlier use of this term?
Then you are just not looking at the facts.
Back in November of 2001, some idiotic Left Wing conspiracy theorists decided that Dr. Hatfill was a rogue CIA agent working for the Bush Administration and that the Bush administration had mailed the anthrax letters to sabotage the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention. They began demanding that Dr. Hatfill be publicly investigated for the crime. He had to be PUBLICLY investigated, since, to conspiracy theorists, if it isn't done publicly it isn't done at all.
Deposition testimony in the lawsuit indicates that the FBI had checked out Dr. Hatfill in November of 2001, and they found no reason to suspect him. But, to the conspiracy theorists, that just meant they were covering up for him.
The head of this band of conspiracy theorists was talking to the media, to the public, and to every politician who would listen.
Gradually, she got Nicolas Kristof at the New York Times to believe her, and other newspaper reporters, too. She got people to write their congressmen to put the pressure on the FBI. She published papers on the Federation of American Scientists web site about "What the FBI Knows" but was doing nothing about.
Then, six months after she first began, in late June of 2002, some senate staffers asked her to brief them. The FBI was there to hear what she said. The staffers sided with the conspiracy theorists and put enormous pressure on the FBI to publicly investigate Dr. Hatfill.
One week later, the FBI bent under the pressure and publicly searched Dr. Hatfill's apartment for the first time, and Dr. Hatfill forever became a household name and "a person of interest".
The Left Wingers are still at it. Here's a link from two days ago which might help explain the kind of thinking behind the ruination of Dr. Hatfill: www.afterdowningstreet.org/
I agree. This is one case where I am in favor of unmasking the souces.
I remember the news accounts on Dr. Hatfill. He lost his livelihood IIRC over this.
I suspect and hope you are right. In this case, the media simply believed some nut job scientists because (1) those nut job scientists had impeccable credentials, and because (2) those nut job scientists were telling the Left Wing media what they wanted to hear.
Meanwhile, of course, the Right Wing media is on an even dumber path and is believing a totally different bunch of nut job scientists who insist the anthrax letters were sent by foreigners. The Right Wing media also listens to whoever tells them what they want to hear. However, the Right Wing media doesn't have to worry about any lawsuits for slander and libel. Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein are in no position to go to court to claim they were libeled.
bump
bump
"Person of interest" was actually an established usage well before it was applied to Hatfill. Here's a link to some older Usenet postings using the phrase "person of interest".
They're in reverse chronological order. The first example is an early reference to Hatfill (before his name had been made public, I believe). The rest are older and refer to various other people.
DITTO
And may I add, I hope deeper public attention will result in a greater urgency in this matter.
I know Richard Jewel won a case/settlement against the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, but I don’t think he won anything vs. the Feds.
You and I are on the same page, although you have really traced the etiology of this saga. I think I gave you the wrong idea of where I was coming from.
In LE, of all professions, it still takes a stand-up guy to hold the line and not be pressured by special interests. You must go where the actual evidence leads you, not where you (or others) WANT to be lead.
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