Judge gives US reporters one week to reveal sources or face jail
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050629/ts_alt_afp/usjusticecourtmedia_050629210111
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A judge gave two US journalists one week to reveal their
sources to a grand jury probing the leak of a
Central Intelligence Agency operative's identity or go to jail.
District Court Judge Thomas Hogan scheduled a hearing for July 6 at which
time Matthew Cooper of Time magazine and Judith Miller of The New York
Times will have to testify or face up to 18 months in prison.
The judge gave lawyers for the two reporters until Friday to explain their
failure to testify and to present mitigating information, and allowed
prosecutors until Tuesday to respond.
The pair had argued that press freedom guarantees in the US Constitution
shielded them from having to testify. But an appeals court rejected the
argument, and the US Supreme Court Monday refused to hear the case.
The case involving Miller and Cooper stems from a grand jury investigation
into who leaked the name of covert
CIA agent Valerie Plame to conservative columnist Bob Novak. Novak revealed
her identity in a July 2003 column, citing two unnamed senior
administration officials as his sources.
Under public and media pressure sparked by reports that administration
officials had disclosed Plame's name to several journalists,
President George W. Bush in December 2003 ordered an investigation into the
leak and named Patrick Fitzgerald, US attorney in Chicago, as special counsel.
Fitzgerald promptly convened a grand jury and began calling journalists to
testify, including those, such as Miller, who had not written about the affair.
The case is one of several in the United States that have recently revived
the issue of whether reporters should be forced to testify in court about
information they learn while doing their jobs.
The First Amendment to the US Constitution protects journalists from
government interference in their work. But the Supreme Court ruled in 1972
that protection does not apply to reporters whose testimony is essential in
criminal cases, even if a source was promised anonymity.
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