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Soda
Supporter
Username: Soda
Post Number: 2585
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 16, 2005 - 9:01 am: | 
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Matt Cooper grew up in South Orange. What's your opinion of the situation?
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?tntget=2005/02/16/national/16profiles.html &tntemail0 |
musicme
Citizen
Username: Musicme
Post Number: 969
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 16, 2005 - 9:06 am: |
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Soda
Can you post article. I don't have access. |
Soda
Supporter
Username: Soda
Post Number: 2588
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 16, 2005 - 9:47 am: |
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Here ya go:
"February 16, 2005
2 Reporters Express Dismay But Say They're Resolute
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
The two reporters at the center of the case involving disclosure of the identity of Valerie Plame, a C.I.A. operative, said yesterday that they were disappointed with the decision upholding a lower court's ruling that found them in contempt for refusing to name sources. But they vowed to fight to the last appeal.
One of the two, Judith Miller, a veteran reporter for The New York Times, said: "A case like mine is a warning to people not to talk because the government will come after you, and that's what we're fighting. That's what the press ought to be concentrating on: the threats to the First Amendment and the free press."
Ms. Miller was among a group of Times journalists who won a 2001 Pulitzer Prize for reporting they did on Al Qaeda, and much of her work has focused on national security and government secrecy. Most recently, she has written about the controversy surrounding the United Nations oil-for-food program.
The other reporter involved in the contempt case, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, has a side career doing stand-up comedy, including dead-on impersonations of politicians. He writes about politics and politicians, and was the first to disclose, in June, that President Bush had been given Saddam Hussein's pistol and kept it in a small room off the Oval Office.
Mr. Cooper said he kept the Plame case in perspective by thinking about his Time colleague Michael Weisskopf, who was in a Humvee in Iraq when someone tossed in a hand grenade. Mr. Weisskopf picked up the grenade and threw it out, saving the lives of several people but losing his right hand in the process.
"He sits down the hall from me," Mr. Cooper said. "I think yes, what I'm putting up with is tedious and unsettling, but it's nothing compared to that kind of personal sacrifice."
Ms. Miller, 57, grew up in Miami and Los Angeles, and attended Ohio State University, Barnard College and the Institute of European Studies at the University of Brussels. She earned a master's degree in economics from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton in 1972.
She joined The Times's Washington bureau in 1977 and in 1983 became the first woman to be chief of the paper's Cairo bureau. She has written four books.
Ms. Miller has been a target of media critics who contend that her articles on unconventional weapons helped provide the Bush administration's justification for going to war in Iraq.
In an interview yesterday, she said she hoped to separate the issue of her own career from that of protecting sources.
"My strategy is to tell anyone who will listen that this is not about me, this is really about their right to know," she said, adding, "For all the mistakes that we journalists make at times, try running a functioning democracy without us."
She added that the Plame case had been "debilitating" for her and had limited her ability to do her job. "It's tough to travel, to be away, in case there are developments or a decision," she said.
Mr. Cooper, 42, grew up in South Orange, N.J., and studied history at Columbia University. He was an editor at The Washington Monthly, wrote about the White House for The New Republic and covered politics for three years at Newsweek before moving to Time in 1999 as deputy chief of the Washington bureau.
He said yesterday that he was going about his daily duties of covering the White House and going on trips with President Bush, focusing on the Plame case only when he had to.
He said he was not dwelling on the chance that he might go to jail, and had yet to explain his situation to his 6-year-old son.
"Why worry him until you have to?" Mr. Cooper said. "I'm teaching him about respect for the law and the rule of law, and it's hard to explain why Daddy finds himself in a legal predicament." "
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Soda
Supporter
Username: Soda
Post Number: 2598
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 16, 2005 - 2:38 pm: |
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"February 16, 2005
Jailing of Reporters in C.I.A. Leak Case Is Upheld by Judges
By ADAM LIPTAK
Two reporters who have refused to name their sources to a grand jury investigating the disclosure of the identity of a covert C.I.A. officer should be jailed for contempt, a unanimous three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Washington ruled yesterday.
The panel held that the reporters, Judith Miller of The New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, may have witnessed a federal crime - the disclosure by government officials of the officer's identity. The First Amendment, the panel ruled, does not give reporters the right to refuse to cooperate with grand juries investigating such crimes.
The panel cited a 1972 Supreme Court decision, Branzburg v. Hayes, in which a reporter was ordered to testify about witnessing the production of illegal drugs. In yesterday's opinion, the panel said the Supreme Court's "transparent and forceful" reasoning applied to the two reporters before the appeals court.
"In language as relevant to the alleged illegal disclosure of the identity of covert agents as it was to the alleged illegal processing of hashish," Judge David B. Sentelle wrote for the panel, "the Court stated that it could not 'seriously entertain the notion that the First Amendment protects the newsman's agreement to conceal the criminal conduct of his source, or evidence thereof, on the theory that it is better to write about a crime than to do something about it.' "
But the judges disagreed about whether evolving legal standards reflected in lower court decisions and state statutes might provide a separate, nonconstitutional basis for protection to reporters in some circumstances, under a so-called common law privilege. That dispute, however, was of no immediate help to Ms. Miller and Mr. Cooper, as all three judges agreed that the special prosecutor in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, had demonstrated a need for the information that would overcome whatever protection was available.
The reporters will ask the full appeals court, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, to hear the case, their lawyers said. Should that fail, they will ask the Supreme Court to review it. Those steps could take weeks or months, said Catherine J. Mathis, a spokeswoman for The New York Times Company.
Unless the appeals court alters its usual procedures, the reporters will remain free at least until it rules on their request for a rehearing.
The case has its roots in an opinion article published in The Times on July 6, 2003. In it, Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former diplomat, criticized a statement made by President Bush in that year's State of the Union address about Iraq's efforts to buy nuclear weapons material in Africa. Mr. Wilson based his criticism on a trip he had taken to Africa for the Central Intelligence Agency the previous year.
Eight days after Mr. Wilson's article was published, Robert Novak, the syndicated columnist, reported that "two senior administration officials" had told him that Mr. Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was "an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction."
Mr. Wilson has said the disclosure was payback for his criticism. Others have said that the disclosure put his criticism in context by suggesting that Mr. Wilson's trip was not a serious one but rather a nepotistic boondoggle.
It is not known whether Mr. Novak has received a subpoena or, if he did, how he responded. His lawyer, James Hamilton, declined to comment on yesterday's decision.
Mr. Cooper and two other Time reporters published an article on the magazine's Web site three days after Mr. Novak's column was published. It questioned the administration's motives for disclosing Ms. Plame's identity and said that the magazine had received similar information.
Ms. Miller conducted interviews in contemplation of a possible article, but she has not written on the Plame matter. However, that did not spare her from her obligation to testify, Judge David S. Tatel wrote in a concurring opinion.
The crime, if there was one, was the communication from government officials to the reporters, Judge Tatel said. "It thus makes no difference," he continued, "how these reporters responded to the information they received."
Ms. Miller and Mr. Cooper were held in contempt of court by Chief Judge Thomas F. Hogan, of the United States District Court in Washington, in the fall. He ordered them jailed for as long as 18 months. They would be released, he said, if they agree to testify.
Despite the ruling against them, lawyers for the reporters took some comfort in the debate that the judges engaged in over the existence and potential scope of a common law privilege. They said the debate made it more likely that the Supreme Court would be willing to hear the case.
Judge Sentelle, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, wrote in his concurrence that the Branzburg decision had definitively rejected protections under both the First Amendment and common law. The reporters' arguments, he wrote, "should appropriately be made to the Supreme Court."
But he added that Congress, rather than the courts, was the better forum for the consideration of whether reporters deserve protection.
Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the chairman of The New York Times Company and the publisher of The Times, said the newspaper would act forcefully in both forums.
"The Times will continue to fight for the ability of journalists to provide the people of this nation with the essential information they need to evaluate issues affecting our country and the world," he said in a statement. "And we will challenge today's decision and advocate for a federal shield law that will enable the public to continue to learn about matters that directly affect their lives."
Norman Pearlstine, editor in chief of Time Inc., said in a statement, "We continue to believe that the right to protect confidential sources is fundamental to journalism. Without that right, important information that should be available to the public would never see the light of day."
Judge Tatel, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, wrote that the case "involves a clash between two truth-seeking institutions: the grand jury and the press."
The appropriate way for federal courts to balance those interests, he wrote, is through a common law privilege based on at least qualified protections available to reporters in 49 states and the District of Columbia. The privilege, in Judge Tatel's formulation, would weigh the harm caused by the disclosure against its newsworthiness.
Under that standard, however, Judge Tatel said, the two reporters must lose. The disclosure of Ms. Plame's identity, he said, harmed national security while contributing little to the national debate.
Judge Karen L. Henderson, who was appointed by the first President George Bush, said the question of a common law privilege was left open by the Branzburg decision. But she said this case, in which all three judges agreed that any privilege would not help the reporters, was the wrong vehicle in which to address the issue.
Subpoenas seeking reporters' sources are on the rise, according to experts in news media law. In December, a federal judge in Rhode Island sentenced a reporter, Jim Taricani, to six months' house arrest for refusing to name a source. In another case, Mr. Fitzgerald, acting as the United States attorney in Chicago, is seeking the phone records of Ms. Miller and another Times reporter in a case concerning two Islamic charities.
In a statement yesterday regarding the Plame ruling, Mr. Fitzgerald said, "We look forward to resuming our progress in this investigation and bringing it to a prompt conclusion."
In the decision, the judges debated whether some sort of legal protection of reporters is even feasible in the Internet era.
"Does the privilege also protect the proprietor of a Web log: the stereotypical 'blogger' sitting his pajamas at his personal computer posting on the World Wide Web his best product to inform whoever happens to browse his way?" Judge Sentelle asked.
Judge Tatel responded that resolving the "definitional conundrums" that "unconventional forms of journalism" raise could wait for cases actually involving those issues.
Aspects of the case remain secret. Mr. Fitzgerald submitted secret evidence to the appeals court that neither the reporters nor their lawyers were allowed to see. And the public version of Judge Tatel's concurrence includes eight blank pages along with the notation that they have been redacted.
That is scary, Ms. Miller said.
"I risk going to jail," she said, "for a story I didn't write, for reasons a court won't explain." "
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e roberts
Citizen
Username: Wnwd00
Post Number: 309
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 16, 2005 - 2:45 pm: |
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he either did or should have known that there is no federal law or constitutional reporter shield law to protect him.he also should have known better then to publically reveal a potential CIA asset, which is a violation of federal law of which he was at the very least a witness to.
he needs to reveal his source, not only to protect other potential CIA assets, but to protect all of us by finding the untrustworthy person in a position that requires a great deal of trust.
if he doesnt he should go to jail, but i guess thats just my opinion someone who is looking out for the security of my country. |
Rastro
Citizen
Username: Rastro
Post Number: 717
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 16, 2005 - 3:00 pm: |
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e roberts, the asset had already been outed by Robert Novak, who is not in danger of being arrested or jailed. Novak has not revealed his source. In fact, Miller and Cooper were not the ones who published Plame's identity. All Cooper did was question whether it was intentional as political payback. Yes, they had sources, and they chose not to publish their stories (before Novak did) based on those sources.
from the article...
"Ms. Miller conducted interviews in contemplation of a possible article, but she has not written on the Plame matter."
"Mr. Cooper and two other Time reporters published an article on the magazine's Web site three days after Mr. Novak's column was published. It questioned the administration's motives for disclosing Ms. Plame's identity and said that the magazine had received similar information."
In your opinion should Bob Woodward go to jail for protecting the identity of Deep Throat? He (DT) was likely an untrustworthy person in a position that required a great deal of trust.
I'm not saying that Cooper and Miller are not guilty of anything. Just that justice needs to be meted out equally, not for political reasons. |
Josh M.
Citizen
Username: Jmaxlaw
Post Number: 217
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 16, 2005 - 4:05 pm: |
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I frankly don't understand how anyone with half a brain can support this administration considering this crap they're pulling. The biggest crime here is the selective enforcement... why isn't Bob Novack under arrest? |
LibraryLady(ncjanow)
Supporter
Username: Librarylady
Post Number: 2199
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 16, 2005 - 5:23 pm: |
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Exactly Josh (see we agree on something!) Matt is a friend of mine (at least his dad is) and this is extremely disturbing. Matt is married to Mandy Gruenwald, a close associate of the Clintons. Ya don't think that might be a small part of why he was targeting and Bob Novak has gotten a bye on this? And Judith Miller, well she works for the New York Times, home of Adam Clymer, major league axxhole from the New York Times
Edited to add: Wow, the MOL screening machine won't allow me to post a word that our VPOTUS used in describing a member of the press. |
LibraryLady(ncjanow)
Supporter
Username: Librarylady
Post Number: 2200
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 16, 2005 - 5:24 pm: |
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Dave, should this thread be moved to the Poltical Soapbox??? |
Bobkat
Supporter
Username: Bobk
Post Number: 7618
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 16, 2005 - 6:04 pm: |
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Novak isn't a favorite of the Bush Administration and especially the neocons. I can't believe he hasn't named his source(s) in order to avoid the fate of the the others.
The prosecutor is trying to do what has never been done before, plug a leak. Heck even Nixon's "Plumbers" never did that.
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ashear
Supporter
Username: Ashear
Post Number: 1688
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, February 17, 2005 - 8:57 am: |
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It is virtually certain that Novak has cooperated with the special prosecutor and revealed his source to the Grand Jury. Else he would be in the same position as Miller and Cooper. Presumably the special prosecutor wants to know if the same person told Miller and Cooper since this would be strong evidence of intent (i.e. he or she did not just let something slip to Bob Novak). |
Rastro
Citizen
Username: Rastro
Post Number: 718
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, February 17, 2005 - 10:06 am: |
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ashear,
Are you basing that on your understanding of the situation as an attorney, on specific information, or guessing? I'm really just curious. I've tried to stay abreast of this issue because it is one I'm deeply concerned about, but not firmly in either camp. They clearly broke the law. To me, the question is whether the law is "right." |
Bobkat
Supporter
Username: Bobk
Post Number: 7624
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, February 17, 2005 - 10:19 am: |
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Miller and Cooper didn't publish until after Novak did. I don't see how once the "spy" was outed they broke any laws or that there is a big question of national defense here.
This is a case where someone in the administration leaked information to embarras a critic of their policy and now they are turning the tables by making the reporters the bad guys.
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ashear
Supporter
Username: Ashear
Post Number: 1690
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, February 17, 2005 - 11:30 am: |
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Rastro - my understanding as an attorney and educated guessing.
Bob - No one is suggesting that any of the journalists violated the law. Its the person who told them that violated it. The aim of the investigation is supposed to be finding that person. The journalists have been held in contempt for refusing to answer questions persuant to a grand jury subpoena. The staute at issue in the investigation only bars people with authorized access from revealing the identity of a covert operative. Since none of the reporters had authorized access they can't have violated the statute. The statute also requires intent, which, as I speculated above, might be why the Special Prosecutor would want evidence that the same person had told more than one reporter.
The first amendment question of whether the reports can/should be compeled to give up their sources is more complicated. I do think that some level of protection for sources is important if the press is to fullfill its role as a watchdog. On the other hand at some point that protection has to bow to criminal investigations. If a reporter knew where a kidnap victim was hidden I have no doubt they should be compeled to tell. Where to draw the line is tough, but I would draw it somwhere North of this case where no real harm seems to have been done. |
e roberts
Citizen
Username: Wnwd00
Post Number: 310
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, February 17, 2005 - 11:32 am: |
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and i believe the goal is to find the exact person or persons who leaked the information. miller and cooper broke a law when they heard that a certain person is connected with the CIA in a clandestine role and did not inform the proper authorities about it. it is a federal crime to reveal a CIA asset and as witnesses to the federal crime Miller and Cooper by not reporting it because just as guilty.
I do believe that Novak has probally talked because there is little benefit to anyone of not wanting to attack the columnist.
anyway this should be an easy situation Miller and Cooper talk with the correct federal investigator, reveal the source, answer a few questions and i would find it very hard to believe that Miller or Cooper would be charged with any crime. the goal here is to find and weed out the source.
Lets not forget either that Cooper and Miller have no legal standing to not answer the questions of a federal investigator, since as i said before there is no federal reporter shield law making it unlawful for them to not truthfully answer questions posed by a federal investigator. |
Rastro
Citizen
Username: Rastro
Post Number: 721
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, February 17, 2005 - 11:57 am: |
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"it is a federal crime to reveal a CIA asset and as witnesses to the federal crime Miller and Cooper by not reporting it [become] just as guilty." I don't believe this second part is true. I don't believe there is any legal obligation to report any crime, whether federal, state, or local.
They are being held in contempt of court for refusing to answer questions, not for commiting a crime.
The legal standing issue is the heart of the matter. I'd leave it to legal minds to determine whether they have violated any laws. This is likely to end up with the Supreme Court.
If you can point to a specific law that they have violated, I'd be interested. |
ashear
Supporter
Username: Ashear
Post Number: 1691
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, February 17, 2005 - 12:38 pm: |
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Rastro is correct, there is no legal obligation to report a crime. The issue before the court is contempt for not answering questions before the grand jury persuant to a subpoena. |
LibraryLady(ncjanow)
Supporter
Username: Librarylady
Post Number: 2204
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, February 17, 2005 - 2:27 pm: |
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Oh and to be clear, Judith Miller never published anything. She is being persercuted for something she DIDN'T write about. |
e roberts
Citizen
Username: Wnwd00
Post Number: 312
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, February 17, 2005 - 2:44 pm: |
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rastro, im going to take a look for it when i get a chance later on, i am at least under the impression that there is a federal law realted to information and other otherwise cladestine and classified information that if you are a party to any type of information you are not cleared to be aware of such as a situation like this where they may have been informed by a source that you have an obligation to report it.
i only remember from my ethics in media class in college which, well was a few years ago, because it was one of the lone exceptions in which you have to report a crime, but i am going to look it up when a get a chance tonight or tomorrow. |
e roberts
Citizen
Username: Wnwd00
Post Number: 314
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, February 17, 2005 - 2:57 pm: |
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so being a bit bored at work, before i am out of here for a three day weekend, i found the statute i recal from my college days in my media law class here it is:
"http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00000004----000-.html Title 18 U.S.C. § 4 Misprision of felony. Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both."
Though I am not a jd, my reading of this would make anyone who was aware of a federal felony, such as revealing a CIA asset, a mandatory reporter to either the court system or the US attorney.
The link is a portion of Title 18 "Misprison of felony from Cornell Law. |
ashear
Supporter
Username: Ashear
Post Number: 1692
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, February 17, 2005 - 4:29 pm: |
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e roberts - its understandable you would think that from reading the statute. However, courts have uniformly interpreted the statute to require some affirmative act to conceal the crime beyond mere silence. |
e roberts
Citizen
Username: Wnwd00
Post Number: 315
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, February 17, 2005 - 11:11 pm: |
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i agree with you, im not saying they would be convicted, but they most certainly could be charged with it and put on trial for it. |
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