Court goes against reporters
p2pnet.net News:- A ruling that two reporters were in contempt for refusing to testify in a federal investigation of a leak that revealed a covert CIA operative’s identity has been affirmed by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
“The decision, which was expected, ups the ante in what has become a dangerous confrontation between prosecutorial needs and the ability of journalists to do their jobs without being threatened with imprisonment,” says a Washington Post OpEd.
“Unless the full appeals court or the Supreme Court intervenes, Judith Miller of the New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine will face a terrible choice: be jailed or break the solemn promise of confidentiality that underlies much essential journalism. Either the Supreme Court or Congress should relieve them of that burden.”
In December last year, Apple won a court order allowing it to issue subpoenas aimed at discovering the IDs of 20 John Does it claims leaked information about upcoming Apple products to AppleInsider.com and PowerPage.org.
The EFF is trying to stop Apple from using US law to compel three Net journalists to name their confidential sources.
“The trio, loyal Apple supporters all, published information about unreleased Apple products, including the Mac mini,” we said in a another post. “The news leaks undoubtedly did Apple more good than harm, but nonetheless it wants to nail their hides to the wall and compel them to reveal who passed the information.”
The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) is co-counsel for the writers, arguing they’re protected by the same reporter’s privilege laws that (used to) shield print journalists from having to reveal the names of anonymous sources.
Stay tuned.
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See:-
been affirmed – A Shield for a Free Press, Washington Post, February 16, 2005
confidential sources - EFF vs Apple, p2pnet, February 15, 2005
February 16th, 2005 at 10:58 pm
There is substantial evidence that Karl Rove was the person responsible for ‘leaking’ her undercover CIA identy to the press as revenge for her husband – Ambassador Joseph Wilson – having the nerve to publish a damaging (to the Bush regime) report that solidly refuted Bush’s assertions about Iraqi weapons.
But since Karl Rove is George Bush’s right-hand man – not to mention craftier than a snake – it is highly unlikely that he would ever go to jail, as US federal law requires, for his crime of blowing the cover of a CIA agent.