The Promise of the First Amendment

[Desperadoe]

Last Thursday, a federal district judge ordered a New York Times reporter, Judy Miller, sent to prison. Her crime was doing her job as the founders of this nation intended. Here's what happened and why it should concern you.

On July 6, 2003, Joseph C. Wilson IV - formerly a career foreign service officer, a chargé d'affaires in Baghdad and an ambassador - wrote an article published on this page under the headline, "What I Didn't Find in Africa." The article served to undercut the Bush administration's claims surrounding Saddam Hussein's nuclear capacity.

Eight days later, Robert Novak, a syndicated columnist, wrote an article in which he identified Ambassador Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as an "operative on weapons of mass destruction" for the C.I.A. "Two senior administration officials told me," Mr. Novak wrote, that it was Ms. Plame who "suggested sending Wilson" to investigate claims that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium ore from Niger. After Mr. Novak's report, several other journalists wrote stories in which they said they received similar information about Ms. Plame from confidential government sources, in what many have concluded was an effort to punish Mr. Wilson for speaking out against the administration by exposing his wife as a C.I.A. operative. The record is clear, however, that Judy Miller is not one of those journalists who reported this information.

Because the government officials who revealed Valerie Plame's status as a C.I.A. operative to the press might have committed a crime in doing so, the Justice Department opened a federal criminal investigation to find whoever was responsible.<snip>

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/10/opinion/10sulzberger.html

[TomClash]

1. What about Novak?

Why isn't he being held in contempt?

Why has Fitzgerald gone this route instead of just taking Novak's grand jury testimony?

Politics.

Nice way to delay any indictments until after the election.

[shraby]

3. Apparently Fitzgerald thinks she

gave an organization the heads up that the FBI was going to raid their office for evidence of supporting terrorists. They are after Miller's phone records last I heard. I don't think this incidence is about the Plame leak...unless she is in hot water for both cases.

[TomClash]

4. What authority does he have to investigate that?

[H2O Man]

6. He's a federal prosecutor

out of the Chicago office investigating the crime. There is no question or controversy involving his authority to investigate the crime.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. What have journalists' sources got to do with the First Amendment?

"Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press ..."

So how does that make journalists a special case? All Americans have the right of freedom of speech, and the 'press' (including broadcast media, these days, I presume; and also blogs and internet forums?) has the right to publish. Where does it says that ordinary citizens can be forced to give evidence to the authorities, but journalists can't?

If journalists get special treatment, I suggest starting a blog. After all, the publisher of the NYT chunters on about journalists being sent to jail for doing their job. Isn't it worse that someone who give out facts and opinions for the sheer love of it gets harrassed too? At least journalists get money in compensation. And if the government asks you any questions, say you've got just as much right to tell them to sod off as Judith Miller does.

[H2O Man]

7. If Judith Miller drove a "get-away" car

for a couple bank-robbers, and then demanded that she had a reporter's constitutional protections because she planned to write a story about robbing banks, no one would take her serious. She would be considered a criminal who was making pathetic excuses for her criminal behaviors. The crimes Judith took part in were far worse than robbing banks.

[Chicago Democrat]

5. MY LETTER TO NYTEDITORS:

Judith Miller and Robert Novak

Three cheers for democracy! When can we expect Robert Novak to join Ms. Miller in jail? Miller and Novak are the two journalists most responsible for parroting the lies that paved the way for the Bush administration's illegal rush to war. I blame them more than the administration. I expect the Bush administration to lie and deceive. Journalists are not supposed to be puppets of the government, but that is exactly what Miller has been for the last 3 years. Now when she refuses to name felons in the administration who endangered our national security by playing politics with covert CIA agents, this is supposed to protect journalists how? This is one case where the public's right to know trumps any claim of journalistic integrity. Judith Miller is a felonious shill of the administration and is taking the fall for Scooter Libby and Dick Cheney. I'm sure she will be well compensated by the traitors she is protecting. The only hero here and victim is Ambassador Joe Wilson and his wife , Valerie Plame, both true patriots. When I see Judith Miller's name on top of a story, I know that it will be fast and loose with the facts, completely bias, and more likely than not filled with lies and misinterpretations. Ding, Dong! Miller's gone! When we you stop printing her fabrications and become a real paper again?

Tim Johnson
Chicago, IL

[H2O Man]

8. Writing letters to the editor

is one of the most important things that anyone can do to breath new life into our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Nothing makes me feel happier or more proud of DUers than seeing people like you writing letters like yours. Thank you.