Posted on 10/01/2005 6:23:23 AM PDT by Maria S
Why isn't Novak considered a law breaker in this?
This should help answer your question.
The law provides penalties for both parties in the hypotheticals you propose.
I imagine her time in "jail" was not typical.
Even if it was 'typical', after a tour thru Iraq, I'd consider being paid to go to jail as a vacation.
I disagree. Journalists are no more "special" than you or me. If I have to testify, then they can also.
Why? Can you provide any documentation for your accusation?
They picked a bad time to loose Miller's story.
What with hurricanes, DeLay, Frist, a fading Sheehan, et.al., the dems have a veritable pot of gumbo on the front burner.
Having said that, I think the pot is about to boil over on the cooks, causing irreparable damage.
IMO.
I believe your basic premise is incorrect. There is no shield law that would have applied in this case. Many states have laws like this, but there is no such Federal statute. AIM is making the point that they do not support the Federal shield law that is currently under discussion in Congress.
AIM is absolutely right about this. The "free press" should not have any protection like this that would basically treat them differently than ordinary citizens.
We must fact the reality that this whole situation is very CLINTONESQUE...
I agree. I have listened to all the talking heads and their different theories on what Miller and the NY Times was up to with this stunt, but none of them ring true. There has to be some piece of this puzzle that once known will make sense of the rest of it.
There is no "federal shield law."
What are you talking about? Miller and the MSM are asking for a new law that would essentially say that all reporters (and how would one even define such a special person?) would never have to provide evidence in their possession, such as all of their conversations, documents, etc. arising in their daily work, to any judicial proceeding.
Remember, Miller did not even publish a story in this case, and she didn't go to jail to protect her fellow journalists, Novak and Cooper, the ones who actually did publish stories – Novak and Cooper agreed to provide evidence.
And not to protect Rove and Libby, the two government officials targeted in the investigation, they certainly didn’t ask her or anyone else to keep their status confidential – to the contrary, they were handing out waivers of confidentiality left and right to any reporter who spoke to them.
Her First Amendment legal position on this case and in this proposed "shield law" they are pushing is very troubling.
I must say, I was one of the ones who found it hard to believe that anyone would sit in jail for 3 months unless she had someone or something to protect.
I thought she must be worried about perjuring herself, probably because she was the original source of the Plame information to Libby and Rove.
I am now coming around to the view that it was indeed a publicity stunt.
It seems likely that she was not the one who first told Libby or Rove about Plame, so there are no "other sources" she was protecting, and Fitzgerald did NOT give the store away by limiting her testimony to the Libby conversation.
And no US Attorney who harbored even the slightest ambition for future political office, would go after a journalist from a big MSM institution like the NYT for perjury or obstruction – it would be madness. The evidence would have to be so overwhelming that it would have to essentially knock him down, put a gun to his head and force him to file for the indictment.
Judy Miller was simply an inconsequential piece of the evidentiary puzzle who thrust herself into the national limelight when she saw an opportunity to play the “First Amendment Martyr” for her liberal buddies at the Slimes, and atone for her “crime” in that in the runup to Iraqi Freedom she reported WMD stories that were unfavorable to Saddam. She was merely burnishing her liberal credentials so that her colleagues would speak to her again when she sits down in the lunchroom at the Slimes.
I mean after all, her husband went on a sea cruise while she was in jail, for crying out loud!
What a dingbat. Had Fitzgerald threatened to throw her into the DC lockup, instead of the Alexandria detention facility, she wouldn't have stayed two days.
There is no federal shield and she is urgint there be one. Can you think of a worse case for its proponents than this? For whatever reason, she and Pincus and other reporters, knowing full well who the leaker is, left Rove and Libby hang out to dry, the subject of suspicion in their own publications, knwoing full well they didn't do it?
Do you have to have special powers to become a reporter ?
I'm with you. Who qualifies as a journalist. What if I just say I was doing research for my "book". (Didn't that case come up a few years ago?)
Are bloggers Journalists? Probably only left wing bloggers qualify.
You are right, bu there's another aspect of this. The judge DID know that her source, Libby, had released her...and therefore, she had to testify or go to jail. But if you read WHY she finally agreed, it was AFTER Fitzgerald said that she didn't have to testify about sources OTHER than Libby. She IS protecting someone...probably a journalist or maybe Joe Wilson himself. Also, by not testifying and clearing Libby (as the Post reported today...that her testimony backs up Libby) she purposely let everyone assume that LIBBY was the one who had leaked the info.
If no one gives her info again, it won't be because she testified...it will be because she tried to "burn" her source by implying by her silence that he was the leak .
The shield law was not intended to protect newspaper reporters who are in a criminal conspiracy with criminals.
There is much to suggest not only that Judith Miller was running a publicity scam, but that she was one of the instigators of the whole criminal business in the first place. If newspaper editors plot with political operatives to run propaganda campaigns against other politicians, that should not be protected. It is criminal conspiracy and/or criminal complicity.
In this case, there is evidence that Wilson, Plame, and certain DNC operatives and newspaper editors, most likely including Pinch Sulzberger, dreamed up the whole operation from the very beginning, before Plame nominated her own husband to be given a CIA contract with the ostensible purpose of helping investigate a foreign security problem but with the actual purpose and intention of booby-trapping the Bush administration. This not only is criminal, it is treasonous, since it undermines the War against Terror by means of misleading propaganda and outright lies--intentional lies plotted from the very start.
I have been thinking the exact same thing, but the problem with that analysis is that if you believe what is being leaked by Libby's side, such as in the excerpt below from WaPo, it sounds like Libby said HE told MILLER about Plame, and not the other way around.
And if it is true that Miller wasn't the one who told Libby about Plame, then speculation about "other sources” is beside the point.
From WaPo article:
According to a source familiar with Libby's account of his conversations with Miller in July 2003, the subject of Wilson's wife came up on two occasions. In the first, on July 8, Miller met with Libby to interview him about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the source said.
At that time, she asked him why Wilson had been chosen to investigate questions Cheney had posed about whether Iraq tried to buy uranium in the African nation of Niger.
Libby, the source familiar with his account said, told her that the White House was working with the CIA to find out more about Wilson's trip and how he was selected.
Libby told Miller he heard that Wilson's wife had something to do with sending him but he did not know who she was or where she worked, the source said.
Libby had a second conversation with Miller on July 12 or July 13, the source said, in which he said he had learned that Wilson's wife had a role in sending him on the trip and that she worked for the CIA. Libby never knew Plame's name or that she was a covert operative, the source said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/29/AR2005092901974_pf.html
I am coming around to the thinking that the agreement to limit testimony by Fitzgerald was no big deal, and in fact this agreement was probably just sitting there on the table, available for Miller’s attorney’s to pick up whenever they felt like asking for it, just like the oral waiver from Libby.
Publicity stunt.
Are you a troll? Just signed up?
Libby didn't know Plame's name. Miller called him up and asked him leading questions, precisely in order to try to implicate him in the so-called Valerie Plame scandal. The same trick was played on Rove, who also didn't know these details at the time. All either of these informants did was to caution the reporters who called them to go carefully with this story, because the "facts" they were trolling for were highly questionable.
Finally, a winner! And there should never be a federal shield law!
As a former reporter who dealt with numerous "confidential sources," I learned two very important lessons:
1. Sources usually have agendas (getting even for being passed over for promotion, shooting down a colleague, political partisanship, you name it...
2. Reporters (and their employers) have agendas too. Politics is a big one but taking revenge on business competitors and the like are favorites too. Since conservatives already recognize the media as strongly biased against them, why on earth would they want to give the media special protection to make up stories and create even more damage to them?
Yes, some degree of protection must be given to whistleblowers and others who go to the media in the public interest. But some other method must be developed rather than "trusting" reporters and media companies to "do the right thing." Having judges take over the responsibility is an interesting idea but has anyone else noticed that judges also have political agendas these days? It's time for some new thinking in this area.
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