While I think the leaking of information is a very, very serious issue, I think the media frenzy about media rights is perhaps overblown. And at the very least distracting from the CIA leak issue.
I'm going to reply inline to a couple of the articles. Since this is just an informal discussion, I apologize for not using proper citations. > 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." I believe this is actually the case. As I understand it, the Constitution guarantees the people freedom of the press. That means anyone is allowed to publish, not just an approved or specially sanctioned "press". That in turn means that there isn't a special legal distinction between "journalists" and anyone else. The _credibility_ of certain people as journalists is determined by public perception and market forces. > 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. Self-aggrandizing flummery, I think. > .... [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. Perhaps. This is where it gets really murky, IMO. As I understand it she was under subpoena to provide testimony to the court. We know that refusal to obey the subpoena can lead to an arrest for contempt of court. However, we also have the Fifth Amendment which protects against self-incrimination. BUT, and here's the wonky part, as I understand it if the person taking the Fifth wasn't actually a participant of the crime in question, then taking the Fifth isn't actually protecting against self-incrimination. It's being used instead to shield a crime. And in that case it's not a Constitutionally protected application of the Fifth Amendment. And if she wasn't a party to the crime, then her refusal to answer the judge was a violation of her subpoena. > With the Valerie Plame leak investigation, the press has planted its > flag on the least favorable ground to fight the larger battle for > confidentiality. This is a case in which the sources weren't > disclosing wrongdoing by others but were allegedly doing wrong > themselves by blowing the cover of a CIA officer. This is a key point. As I outlined earlier, I think that the journalist doesn't have a legal leg to stand on when it comes to shielding people who have actually committed the crime. Unfortunately, the bru-ha-ha by the press is about how the press has been injured. The press is always at its worst when it tries to report its own self-interests. > The New York Times and Miller decided not to try to finesse the issue. > Instead, they opted for what the Times editorially has described as an > act of "civil disobedience," It's important to remember, that the origin of the term "civil disobedience" was Thoreau willingly being jailed for his conviction that a law was wrong. So to cry foul about being jailed for an act of civil disobedience seems a bit misplaced. Coincidently, Thoreau's principles were being tested by another war in which the U.S. was involved. > We should begin by agreeing that the reporter-source privilege isn't > absolute -- any more than attorney-client privilege or doctor-patient > privilege. The American Bar Association's code of ethics recognizes, > for example, that the confidentiality of conversations between an > attorney and client is limited by what's known as the "crime fraud > exception." The privilege can be breached if the attorney learns his > client is planning to commit a crime or if the attorney is himself > participating in a crime or fraud. Bingo! And this is exactly the point I made above about subpoena and Fifth Amendment protections. And, at least from my limited understanding of the situation, the law is actually in compliance with this suggestion by Mr. Ignatius. I'll readily admit that I don't have all the details about this case and that I'm not a lawyer anyway. And I've actually been willfully trying to ignore the media's bleatings of self-injury. I'm much more interested in the actual act of treason. Who performed it, why, and what the repurcutions will be. I do care that the process of uncovering that information be done in a measured and legal way, but I don't want people to get distracted by what appear to be illusory injuries at the expense of the real case. -Kevin ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Find out how CFTicket can increase your company's customer support efficiency by 100% http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=49 Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:5:164136 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
