Free Republic

(snip)....U.S. District Chief Judge Thomas F. Hogan... unsealed an order that demands the "confinement" of Time reporter Matthew Cooper, who has refused to testify in the probe... ... Hogan also issued an Aug. 6 order confining Cooper "at a suitable place until such time as he is willing to comply with the grand jury subpoena," and ordered Time to be fined $1,000 a day. ... ... While NBC fought a subpoena issued May 21 and was included in the opinion, it avoided a contempt citation after Tim Russert, moderator of NBC's "Meet the Press," agreed to an interview over the...

Admittedly, the Valerie Plame affair is not the typical case involving a reporter's right to protect a source. Such cases are often about constraining the government from identifying and punishing a whistle-blower; this one involves an allegation of an illegal leak by a Bush administration official to punish a whistle-blower. But no one should be fooled by the unusual circumstances here - the underlying principle remains democracy's need for a free press and the free press's need to operate with a minimum of government interference, and to protect confidential sources. Those principles are endangered by a federal judge's order this...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal judge held a reporter for Time magazine in contempt of court Monday for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating the leak of the identity of a covert CIA officer. In an order issued July 20 but not made public until Monday, U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan ruled that Time's Matthew Cooper and "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert were required to testify "regarding alleged conversations they had with a specified executive branch official." NBC News issued a statement saying that Russert already had been interviewed under oath by prosecutors on Saturday under...