Posted on 08/16/2005 5:42:55 AM PDT by OESY
Like many Americans, I am perplexed by the federal investigation into the alleged leak of classified information that exposed Valerie Plame Wilson, the wife of Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador, as a Central Intelligence Agency officer. So far the special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, has achieved one notable result: putting a New York Times reporter, Judith Miller, in jail for refusing to break her promise of confidentiality to her sources in response to a grand jury subpoena. The incarceration of Ms. Miller is all the more baffling because she has never written a word about the C.I.A. flap.
If state rather than federal authorities were conducting this investigation, Ms. Miller most likely would not be in jail. Today 49 states and the District of Columbia recognize a "reporter's privilege," either by statute or through state judicial decisions, which allows journalists to report information and protect confidential sources without fear of imprisonment.
Unfortunately, at the federal level the legal landscape is much less clear. In 1972, the Supreme Court held that reporters do not have an absolute privilege to protect their sources from prosecutors. And various federal appeals courts have developed inconsistent standards on how and when such a privilege may apply.
Congress can help rectify this situation by passing a bill introduced by Senator Richard G. Lugar and Representative Mike Pence, both Indiana Republicans, that sets clear standards the federal government must meet before it issues a subpoena to a reporter in a criminal or civil case.... [I]n a criminal investigation, a reporter would be required to turn over confidential information only if a court determined that there are reasonable grounds to believe a crime has been committed, that the requested information is essential to the investigation and that it could not be obtained from nonmedia sources....
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
OR...maybe Bob Dole is just as brain dead today as he was we he annoited himself ("it's my turn") as the GOP Presidential Candidate that let Klinton get reelected to office.
Geeez...what F'n LOSER - Dole is, then & NOW!
They didn't call him "tax collector for the welfare state" for nothing.
Or, make up a story, and then use a "reporter's privilege," to pass it off as factual.
What's with Dole? Can't he see that any law that protects journalists leaves the MSM wide open to abuse that law?
This is a reminder why we should all rejoice in his political retirement.
Bob Dole needs to go back to his advertising career.
Too bad there's not a "Viagra for the Brain."
One thing about Dole I loved was his dry sarcastic wit and his referring to himself in the third person. He should have displayed this during his '96 presidential campaign, instead of after and lusting after Britney Spears.
I had the same thoughts. maybe that is why we read at the FreeRepublic and not DU or any other location where the Old GOP likes to write about what President Bush is doing wrong. You can take Brent, Sandy and dozens of other foreign service people on both sides of the aisle and find no difference in them. This is what was in this article - Dole holding out hope for the MSM. Give me a break.
Old war heros just fade away......old politicians get louder and crazier with time and refuse to fade away.
Strange, isn't it, that the only Constitutional rights that anyone considers should be "absolute" are Free Press and abortion. Every other right is subject to limitation, regulation, and/or taxation at Congressional whim. WHy those two, and only those two?
Actually, the MSM annointed him their favorite Republican, just like John McCain is now.
That's why Dubya had to be pre-ordained to be the GOP candidate in 2000. Had he not been pre-ordained, the MSM would have annointed McCain to be the GOP candidate.
Frist is the 2008 Dole-Clone.
Dole is a bona fide war hero and would have been a much better president than Clinton, but didn't come out swinging till the very end. BTW it's never mentioned that it was Ross Perot's relentless scandal attacks on Clinton that brought the soiler to under 50% of the reelection vote. Oddly, no one recalls that during the election Perot predicted Clinton would be impeached and cause a constitutional crisis.
He never wanted to be President, he just wanted to be the spoiler.
The MSM abuses their power anyway....what if the whistle were being blown on a confidential issue under a HRC administration on domestic surveillance or some other such hillaryesque approach? Would you doubt she would have a journalist jailed in a second if she could?
I don't get it. Why is what he is proposing wrong?
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