Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: bigsky on July 06, 2005, 09:51:47 PM
-
http://reuters.myway.com/article/20050705/2005-07-05T200854Z_01_N05132438_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-MEDIA-LEAK-DC.html
Prosecutor jail for journalists in leak case
Email this Story
Jul 5, 4:08 PM (ET)
A prosecutor on Tuesday urged a federal judge to jail two journalists who have refused to reveal...
Full Image
By James Vicini
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two journalists should be jailed for refusing to reveal their confidential sources to a grand jury investigating the leak of a covert CIA operative's name to the news media, a federal prosecutor said on Tuesday.
Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald urged Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan to reject requests from New York Times correspondent Judith Miller and Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper for home detention instead of jail.
"Journalists are not entitled to promise confidentiality -- no one in America is," Fitzgerald, a U.S. Justice Department prosecutor, wrote in one of the court filings.
He said he would defer to the judge on whether the two journalists should be confined in the Washington, D.C., jail or in some other nearby federal detention facility.
The judge has scheduled a hearing on Wednesday to consider the punishment for Miller and Cooper for refusing to disclose their sources and comply with a subpoena requiring them to turn over documents and testify before the grand jury.
They have been found in contempt by Hogan and each could be jailed for up to 120 days, the remainder of the grand jury's term. The investigation seeks to determine who in the Bush administration leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame in 2003.
Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, a diplomat in the Clinton administration, has accused the White House of being responsible for the leak. He said officials did so because Wilson had publicly disputed a prewar claim by President Bush about Iraq's attempts to buy nuclear weapons parts.
Although Time magazine has handed over subpoenaed records, Fitzgerald said after reviewing the documents that Cooper's testimony was still necessary for his investigation.
Fitzgerald said "special treatment" for the journalists would "enable, rather than deter, defiance of the court's authority."
"Although confinement in a federal detention facility would separate Cooper from his family, special counsel reiterates that all Cooper need do to avoid this result is to follow the law as all American citizens are required to," he said.
Fitzgerald made a similar argument in the Miller case and said she would be jailed only for as long as she refuses to comply. "Miller could avoid even a minute of separation from her husband if she would do no more than just follow the law."
Fitzgerald said the judge should reject an alternative request by the journalists that they be sent to a specified federal prison camp instead of to a local jail.
Cooper's attorneys said in court documents that his refusal to testify was a matter of personal and professional ethics involving his desire to keep his obligation to protect the identity of his confidential sources.
Miller's attorneys made similar arguments.
They said she must have confidential access to high-level government sources to do her job. "Nothing less will do in a free society with an independent press."
-
They reveal a CIA operatives name while driving their own agenda and then suddenly remember the professional ethics?
Sounds like they deserve to be jailed for couple of years instead of few weeks.
-
I really don't understand why those journalists are being sent to prison when they aren't even the ones that printed the agents name. Some other journalist named Robert Novak did that, but he isn't being threatened or anything.
I just find it a little wierd, why are these two journalists being prosecuted again?
-
Is prosecutor jail worse than normal jail?
-
My current understanding is that Robert Novak isn't so much a journalist as a propaganda mouthpiece for the Right. So it appears his story wasn't a case of investigative journalism; he was just doing what he was instructed to do.
And he has refused to discuss anything. Like Urchin, I find it very strange - and stranger still that other journalists aren't asking these same questions and writing stories about them.
-
I find it strange that everybody cares so much...I don't give a S about it.
-
I believe Novak should be part of this too.. But perhaps they are going for the 2 journallist because they know the source of the leak and Novak might not.. He recieved the info 2nd hand maybe..
-
The informant this person is defending is someone who leaked information about a CIA Operative. Its not like this informant has secret knews that will topple the government in a Watergate fashion.
No one is above the law. No matter how righteous this journalist feels she is. Even the editor of Time Magazine said so much when they decided to reveal the reporter's sources.
What's intriguing is all the big press these two are getting and almost nothing from Novak, a conservative-type reporter. Its interesting who the media decides to cherish and defend, isnt it?
-
How come this thread is not locked? This is a double thread.
-
"I believe Novak should be part of this too.. But perhaps they are going for the 2 journallist because they know the source of the leak and Novak might not.. He recieved the info 2nd hand maybe.."
Novak is cooperating with the prosecutor. He's just not sayin' to anyone else what he's saying to him.
-
Originally posted by Nash Novak is cooperating with the prosecutor. He's just not sayin' to anyone else what he's saying to him. [/B]
Novak is slime.. Might be interesting to know the level and what type cooperation he is implementing.. lol
-
What was Martha Stewarts prison nickname?
M. Diddy