I’ve been too busy with school work, work work, building a new version of cvillenews.com and tackling my e-mail backlog to do much blogging for the past few days or even, for that matter, to spend but a minute or so on this entry. That said.
I’m really disappointed with the circuit court ruling yesterday on the matter of the Plame case, ordering Judith Miller of the New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time Magazine to disclose their White House sources. Journalists have a right to keep their sources confidential, even in cases of high crimes, as the White House has plainly committed here.
I want to be clear: the outing of a CIA agent is beyond despicable. I want this case investigated thoroughly, and the highest levels of White House officials that were involved in this should be tried as enemies of the state.
But, as has been the overall problem for the past few years, we must not lose our freedoms in the name of defending them. Robert Novak is a horrible, horrible man — if there is a hell, I don’t doubt that he’ll go there. But neither he nor Miller nor Cooper should be forced to reveal their sources. If they voluntarily chose to give up their sources, that would be between them, their employer, and their source. But journalists must be allowed to maintain that confidentiality, should they see fit. To that end, I hope that Rep. Rick Boucher’s “Free Flow of Information Act” is signed into law, such that the protection of journalists isn’t supported by mere common law, but by statute.
This seems to be one of those issues on which Democrats will disagree. IIRC, Kos (or one of his contributors) disagrees with your opinion here. He thinks that these reporters should be forced to share their sources in such an egregious case.
I agree with you in this case. As conservative as the media is these days, any time we dismantle the first amendment is bad, bad, bad. Of course, I think any person outside the Bush administration (or their press cronies) want this case to be solved, but to take away the freedom of the press to do so goes into what is so wrong with the PATRIOT ACT.
I think the court did exactly right. If Miller et al are not forced to testify that will be a signal to hostile intelligence agencies, drug dealers and criminals of every sort that all you have to do is involve a journalist in your plot and the law cannot touch you. It will be the end of democracy and a free press.
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/04/22/features-ehrenstein.php
Apples and oranges. Revealing a confidential source is much different than actually taking part in a crime.
I think exceptions already exist in cases where lawyers and doctors who commit crimes and try to hide behind privilege.
As I am as suspicious of the “media” as I am of the government, I don’t think either one should be allowed to keep secrets as a rule, although there may be some exceptions. I don’t agree that reporters should be entitled to any more or less protection under the First Amendment (or any source of law) than the man on the street. If their sources broke the law, either enforce the law or change the law. Even the attorney-client privilege has a crime/fraud exception.
Congressman Boucher’s proposed law would be a menace if it did all the things I’ve read about it, but having glanced at the bill, for one thing it applies only to reporting on the federal government, and I’m not sure that it would have affected the ultimate outcome of the Cooper and Miller case at all.
Even the attorney-client privilege has a crime/fraud exception.
That’s interesting — I didn’t know that.