http://www.richardreeves.com/columns/latest.html
July 7, 2005
THE JAILING OF JUDY MILLER
BY RICHARD REEVES | Printer-Friendly Format | E-Mail Story | Universal
Press Syndicate
SAG HARBOR, N.Y. -- So they put Judy Miller in jail last Wednesday --
for what she thought. This bunch would put us all in jail if they
could.
We are both from The New York Times, though I left long ago, and we
have lived a couple of blocks from each other in this quirky old
village on the far tip of Long Island. I saw her last Sunday. She was
scared -- I would be, too -- and she keeps getting skinnier and more
nervous than ever. She is a high-strung, high-maintenance lady.
Miller is a gifted journalist and a controversial one. She knows more
about the Middle East than most of the Americans who make official
policy there and was writing books about Islam before most Americans
had heard the word. She has won a Pulitzer Prize. But she has a
reputation for getting too close to the people she covers and too
excited about the things she covers. She takes sides. Many of us think
she went way too far in her reportage on the search for weapons of
mass destruction, cheerleading for big-titled fools in Washington
determined to find or fabricate reasons to attack Iraq.
But that is not why she was sent to the Alexandria Federal Detention
Center in Virginia. The position of this government is that the press
is just another special interest, another business out for a buck. We
don't want to drill for oil on public lands, but we do sell
information, and the government has a great deal of that, much of
which it tries to hide. Reporters, in the eyes of the people running
the country, have no more rights than any other Americans and should
be treated as "ordinary citizens."
It's hard to argue against that, although the Constitution of the
United States does mention the press, seeming to equate it with
religion as a private establishment with an obvious public role. But
Miller was not taken away because of what she did as a journalist; she
was put away for thinking and asking questions -- and for standing up
as an ordinary citizen who told the government it had no right to know
what she was thinking or asking.
.... [Judy] Miller was not taken away because of what she did as a
journalist; she was put away for thinking and asking questions -- and
for standing up as an ordinary citizen who told the government it had
no right to know what she was thinking or asking.
If you do not follow these things closely, the reason Miller went to
jail is that she has refused to reveal the names of government
officials she talked with about the fact that a former ambassador
named Joseph C. Wilson IV was married to a Central Intelligence Agency
operative named Valerie Plame. The White House was angry that Wilson
had filed an official report questioning the truth of administration
claims that Saddam Hussein's Iraq was attempting to buy uranium in
Africa. It is against the law for government officials to reveal the
names of CIA agents, because covert agents and the foreign nationals
they work with have been killed when their identities were revealed.
The law does not apply to journalists or other ordinary citizens.
Miller did not reveal Valerie Plame's name. Miller never wrote a story
about Valerie Plame. (Plame's name was revealed by a syndicated
columnist, Robert Novak, who presumably had an official source but has
not been charged with anything.) Miller is in jail for thinking about
what was going on with Wilson and Plame. The government put her in a
cell in the hope that imprisonment will force her to tell them what
she was thinking and who she called to talk about that.
"I have a person in front of me who is defying the law," said a
federal judge, Thomas Hogan, in sending away Miller. He meant that she
was "obstructing justice" by refusing to answer questions from a
special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald.
They still tell stories here in Sag Harbor about David Frothingham,
the first editor of the first newspaper here, The Long Island Herald.
He was an enemy of Alexander Hamilton and of President John Adams. One
day, so they say, he was dragged away and deported, never to be heard
from again. Actually, the paper was shut down under the Alien and
Sedition Act of 1798 for "malicious writing about the government of
the United States." Judy Miller is just the best known of the ordinary
citizens being sent to jail for malicious thinking about our emerging
police state.
RICHARD REEVES is the author of 12 books, including President Nixon:
Alone in the White House. He has written for the New York Times, the
New Yorker, Esquire and dozens of other publications.
--
Nobody's laughing now
But you could always make me laugh out loud
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
Flash for programmers - Flash MX Pro
http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=56
Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:5:164127
Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/5
Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:5
Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
