I’m not a lawyer and I’m not going to get into all the history of the Valerie Plame affair. Suffice to say, that the whole topic makes me feel very conflicted. But there are two things that could and should happen that would make all this difficult law go away for a time:
Bush could expose the culprit, fire him, and have Abu Gonzales prosecute him. Or, Miller et al, could rat the son of a bitch out. It seems to me that we are faced with a false choice here.
On the one hand, a crime was committed. This was not an ordinary leak. People may have died as a direct result of this leak. Our ability to track nuclear proliferation may have been undermined. Who knows how serious that could wind up being?
Therefore, it seems to me that the source does not deserve the usual protection afforded to confidential sources. Nor does the source deserve the protection of the Bush administration.
On the other hand, the Supreme Court’s refusal to rule on this case makes the lines fuzzy, and could result in an expansion of behaviors (leaking) that can be considered to fall outside the confidentiality privilege. It might result in even less transparent government.
I think Miller and Cooper should sing. But they should make clear that they are only singing because the source is a criminal, and his/her leak was criminal, and that no reasonable person could see any merit in their expectation of confidentiality, considering the consequences of their actions.
would be for the source to come forward, reveal him/herself, and reveal who in the Administration ordered him/her to leak the information.
Then that person would not necessarily be a criminal, but would be a hero on the order of “Deep Throat” in showing the utter political crassness of this Administration that would sacrifice the possibility of important intelligence gathering on the altar of political peevishness.
If it were me, I’d be happy to go to jail, if I could be assured that Cheney and his ilk would be in an equivalent cellblock…
Agreed — this is how several such cases have been resolved, by the source coming forward. In this administration, though, it’s easy to see why one would be worried about doing so.
But as for the journalists revealing sources — nope, as a former journalist, I cannot countenance that. It’s too slippery a slope, and my Bill of Rights has been battered enough by this administration. As a former journalism teacher, I also can’t tell you how hard it would be to train the next generation by such bad example of forgoing the Bill of Rights.
Above all, the chilling effect of the high court’s refusal to rule is is the thing to worry about on the good journalists.
That assumes:
An excellent summary of the informed speculation is excerpted below suggesting that the case has evolved considerably from the one that Booman is discussing.
Hal C.
If Fitzgerald’s investigation has now expanded to include perjury, as some close followers of the case suspect, that sharpens the dilemma for the journalists involved. It’s one thing to protect the identity of a confidential source, even if that person may have violated the law by disclosing the identity of a covert intelligence agent. But it is arguably quite a different matter if the reporter has reason to believe a source lied to a grand jury. Does a reporter’s confidentiality agreement extend to protecting a cover-up?
[snip]
Here’s where it gets complicated: Fitzgerald’s legal quest makes little sense to me as a leak investigation. The law is fuzzy, the evidence is ambiguous and the case would be hard to prove. But every good prosecutor hates perjury, above all. And on its face, this case raises the possibility that one of the senior administration officials who talked with Cooper or Miller has denied doing so, under oath. Otherwise, Fitzgerald would have been finished months ago.
link
What booman is suggesting (and i agree with) is simply that, considering that a crime was committed, they should expose their source(s). That an expectation of anonymity by said source(s) should be unreasonable.
The law crafted specifically for Agee prevents the exposure of agents who commit crimes, such as the Milan 13. This is a bad law that has been used once in a very obscure case.
The coverup/perjury angle is a different crime and twists the confidentiality agreement.
Hal C.
What crime do you think i’m referring to? I’m not suggesting that the journos did (although it seems there may be a case for obstruction of justice) but by whomever leaked Ms Plame’s identity in the first place. And, as far as we know, she did not break any laws. I’m afraid i don’t understand the meaning of your reply at all.
The law i’m referring to:
is the act you cite. Perjury (lying to a Grand jury about whether the suspect spoke with Cooper/Miller) is what appears to be at stake as the case has evolved.
The law you cite is bad law imvho. It would prevent outing agents for their criminal behavior, most recently the Milan 13, that were outed by the Italian press for extrajudicial rendition to torture. Does outing the Milan 13 bother you?
Irony is that ex-CIA top George Bush helped push this law through given that it might sink his son’s administration.
Brief history.
So seriously did the Bushes take the crime of exposing CIA operatives that Barbara Bush, in her memoirs, accused Agee of blowing the cover of the CIA Station Chief in Greece, Richard Welch, who was assassinated outside his Athens residence in 1975. Agee sued the former first lady and Mrs. Bush withdrew the statement from additional printings of her book. Still, at a celebration marking the fiftieth anniversary of the CIA, the elder Bush again singled out Agee in his remarks, calling him “a traitor to our country.”
Hal C.
And i don’t recall Novak breathlessly reporting on the crimes committed by Ms Plame.
Excellent reasoning.
I’m conflicted too. I do think journalists should have the right to protect their sources, hwoever, when I compare their status to those in the helping profession who must report a client who confesses to possibly being a threat to cause harm to another person, I wonder if there ought to be some equivalency.
It could certainly be argued that the actions of the leaker could have placed Plame’s life in danger, so where does a journalist’s responsibility lay in that type of circumstance – even putting aside the fact that it was a treasonous action?
If journalist Joe Blow outs a narc via a leak, exposing that person to retribution, aren’t they responsible for what happens to that person as a result?
I think journalists should have the right to protect their sources absolutely, with the same level of legal weight as a government top secret document, in certain situations. Those situations being “whistleblower” situations, where the source is unquestionably and directly exposing illegal behaviour. In this case, as with the Apple case, the behaviour being exposed (Apple’s upcoming products, an Ambassador’s wife being a CIA agent) is not illegal, so the protections should not apply.
There’s a difference: it’s not about the fact that her being CIA is legal, it’s about exposing her to the world when she could then be in personal danger. The person who leaked that did an illegal act that could then cause personal harm. That’s not true in product whistleblower situations.
That’s exactly what I’m saying. In this case, there’s no reason to extend legal protection to the sources. They aren’t revealing details of an illegal conspiracy (IE, aren’t subject to whistleblower protection) and have caused measurable harm.
As long as those two criteria are satisfied – as they were in both this case and the Apple/Blog case – I’ve got no problems with journalists being forced to divulge their sources.
catnip wrote:
If journalist Joe Blow outs a narc via a leak, exposing that person to retribution, aren’t they responsible for what happens to that person as a result?
What about the Milan 13? They abducted an uncharged individual to torture. This behavior is abominable. It is right and just that their names be exposed to the world. Thankfully the Italian press exposed them. Hal C.
If I’m going to be consistent, I have to state that the Italian press also placed those individuals in harm’s way.
But as a disincentive to criminal behavior, I would argue that that is a good thing. The Milan 13 are long gone and now a new network must be installed that hopefully will think twice before extrajudicial rendition.
Hal C.
Thursday 15 July 2004, 20:45 Makka Time, 17:45 GMT
The code was announced on July 12 at the Doha conference
Being a globally oriented media service, Aljazeera shall determinedly adopt the following code of ethics in pursuance of the vision and mission it has set for itself:
Judith Miller would not qualify as a reporter for al Jazeera. That being said, I do not think a reporter/journalist should be forced to give up their sources. I do believe that White House traitors who give up the identity of active CIA agents should be forced to give up their jobs. Bush/Cheney/Rove know who outed Plame and they ought to force that person to come forward for ‘the good of the country.’
The Supreme Court did (does) not act ‘for the good of the country.’
but the entire New York Times would have to go out of business if they insisted on adhering to these principles.
In particular, this one stood out as something The Times wouldn’t dream of following:
giving no priority to commercial or political considerations over professional ones.
Case in point: When Michael Powell’s FCC was trying to relax media ownership regulations — and polls and hearings showed that over 90% of Americans were opposed — did The Times run even a single story about this issue? (There were a couple of op-ed columns about it, but even they didn’t note The Times considerable “commercial considerations” for tacitly supporting Powell.
Much as I like the idea of the guilty party stepping nobly forward for the good of the country, we’re overlooking one crucial point: Valerie Plame’s professional identity was very top secret, information that could have been known only to a very few. It wasn’t the sort of thing one would likely stumble over by accident (although stranger things have happened).
Whoever leaked the information, and shopped it around (or caused it to be shopped–deniability is all) to various journos, knew exactly what he had and what he was doing. This was malice of the most malicious aforethought.
I expect you could count on the fingers on one hand the number of people in the White House who could have had access to such information. And they are at the highest levels of the administration.
The trouble is, one can’t tell whether those who were authorised to know leaked or if they told sombody else, who then leaked it to the press (and i use that term loosely with these chumps). So it could have been any of many in the whitehouse, Dick’s office, etc.
Of course, it’s a crime either way. This would just mean more of them being frog-marched out the gates.
This would be a no-brainer for me if Judith Miller weren’t involved. In general, I think reporters shouldn’t have to be forced to reveal their sources, especially when they don’t even publish stories based on them. On the other hand, Judith Miller willfully pushed stories that she knew were nothing but propaganda — stories that are at least partly responsible for the deaths and maimings of over a hundred thousand Iraqis and Americans.
All the same, I think we also have to take some degree of responsibility here. The most effective punishment for someone like Miller is to be fired and never again have another article published in a respectable newspaper. The fact that she still has a job at The Times is proof that not enough of us have written letters, canceled our subscriptions and openly denounced The Times in every possible forum. It’s wrong for us to depend on judges to punish incompetent and amoral journalists like Miller.
more offended by Safire’s performance.
is that it feels to me like the WH is punishing Miller and Cooper for not cooperating in the outing in the first place. Neither of them asked for the info, neither used it, both refused to run the story. Novak, being the good lapdog he is, ran with it.
Now Novak, who if not purely responsible for the outing, was certainly in the best position to prevent it, gets to walk away, happy and smiling and no questions asked, while Miller and Cooper, who refused to cooperate with this despicable white house scheme, get hung out to dry. This isn’t about cia agents or national secrets, this is about two people who didn’t roll over at command. And in the best tradition of der Shrubbenfuhrer’s administration, those who maintain ethics are taught a lesson and those who have none get promoted.
Sieg effin’ Heil.
should be walking free (granted, logic took an E-Ticket out of town long before the indoctrination of King George II) is that he cooperated with the prosecution.
People that know a whole helluva lot more about this case than I are pointing to the special prosecuter as sharpening the case of obstruction and/or perjury — beyond the original outing of Valerie Plame.
I’ve been disappointed often when it comes to holding this administration accountable, but isn’t the coverup usually worse than the crime (as treasonous as outing an active CIA agent is)?
I agree with you. I have a real problem with Novak walking away from this. Hopefully it will be more clear when more information comes out, but I can’t make sense of it. If he cooperated, why is the information he gave not being used and why continue to go after Cooper and Miller? I suppose the information put forth by commentors above could be the reason, if I’m understanding it correctly. Perhaps Novak didn’t receive his information from the person who they hope to nab for perjury, and isn’t useful to the case at the moment? Anyway, I find this case confusing and will need to do some more reading.
But the bottom line (with respect to Novak) to me is – if Novak is responsible for publishing this information, and he understood the seriousness and illegality of exposing a CIA agent, and he refuses to reveal his source – why is he in the clear?
is that he got his info from Rove and therefore can’t/won’t/shouldn’t reveal if he values his life and apparently the fix is in to protect Rove…
Is Novak’s source the same as Miller’s and Cooper’s source?
I hope you are right, btw, and that it comes out, obviously. I’m just still a bit confused on the Novak issue and why he walks and the others don’t.
I would bet that they are the same source, plus I think Rove is the one who gives a lot of the “from a senior unamed source” press releases or briefings.
Abrams from the Abrams report, really laid into that issue of Novak on his show tonight. It only makes sense to me if Rove is at the center of this..
if it’s rebroadcast.
If I’m getting it right, and assuming that Rove is the source – it may have gone like this:
-Source(or minion) leaks the Plame info to Novak
-Same leak is fed to Miller and Cooper by same source
-Novak publishes the story
-Investigation starts
-Novak reveals the source to the prosecutor, and the fact that Miller and Cooper were also told, in exchange for immunity or whatever
-Prosecutor confronts source, under oath
-Source denies leaking the info
-Miller and Cooper are ordered to reveal the source, and this will prove the source perjured himself
-Appeal filed, goes to Supreme Court, they refuse to hear so the prior order stands
A friend of mine just suggested that he wonders if Congress could pass a law to get Cooper and Miller off the hook. I hadn’t even thought of that. I tend to forget how this admin. works.
That would piss off the base. Someone on Atrios said that the freepers are responding similarly. That is, they feel that Miller and Cooper aren’t entitled to claim the privilege here where what they are doing is protecting a criminal who revealed the identity of a CIA undercover operative who was doing important work.
I think Miller and Cooper should sing. But they should make clear that they are only singing because the source is a criminal, and his/her leak was criminal, and that no reasonable person could see any merit in their expectation of confidentiality, considering the consequences of their actions.
That’s exactly it.
The confidentiality of journalistic sources exists for a couple of reasons. Firstly, innocent bystanders with information about wrongdoing can blow the whistle to journalists without fear of retaliation. And secondly, less-than-innocent bystanders can blow the whistle on their much more corrupt bosses — Deep Throat being a perfect example.
This case is different. The leak wasn’t about a crime: the leak itself is the crime. The journalists involved, wittingly or unwittingly, were accessories to that crime, and hell yes, they should sing or face the consequences and not expect any sympathy. The attempted invocation of the shield laws is, in this case, just a smokescreen to obscure the clear wrongdoing involved.
I just dug up his article at findlaw, The Bush Administration Adopts a Worse-than-Nixonian Tactic. It doesn’t address the issue here – that of a journalist’s right to protect a source – as it’s from only a month after Novak squeeled. But he discusses the law as it pertains to whomever leaked the information. A good read.
I hope this isn’t too much to post. I thought these two sections were a good frame for all of this.