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Courts fostering "chilling" US media climate


Charlotte Raab, Washington / AFP
07/22/2005

Syracuse University
Judith Miller, the author and Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent at The New York Times who writes about national security issues, was imprisoned in July 6
Veteran New York Times columnist William Safire said Wednesday he was afraid to rigorously condemn a "chilling" assault on journalism by the courts, fearing reprisals against a colleague jailed for contempt of court.

Safire told a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, probing a bill which would shield reporters who refuse to reveal their sources, that the threat to the media was a result of "unchecked abuse of prosecutorial discretion."
"I cannot blaze away at the escalating threats of a federal judiciary that is urgently in need of balancing guidance by elected representatives of the people," he said.

"For the first time, I have to pull my punches. The reason is I'm afraid. I'm afraid of retaliation against federal prisoner 45570083, whose byline in the New York Times is Judith Miller."

Miller was jailed two weeks ago after refusing to reveal her source, for a story that she never even wrote, to a grand jury probing a political scandal centering on White House political guru Karl Rove .

The investigation is trying to find out whether Rove or other officials exposed CIA agent Valerie Plame after her husband Joseph Wilson criticised administration claims about Saddam Hussein's alleged nuclear weapons program.

The Washington Post said Thursday that the covert CIA agent's name was marked as secret in a confidential memo delivered to the State Department a week before Plame's name was leaked to the press in 2003.

The memo is part of a federal investigation into whether White House officials, including deputy chief of staff Karl Rove , leaked the covert agent's name to the press - a criminal offense punishable with up to 10 years in jail. Sources who described the memo to The Washington Post said a paragraph in it identifying Plame as Valerie Wilson, the wife of the former US ambassador, was clearly marked to show it contained classified material.

Anyone reading the paragraph, the sources said, should have been aware it contained secret information, although that designation was not specifically attached to Plame's name and did not describe her status as covert.

The Free Flow of Information Act, under scrutiny at the hearing, would bar federal agencies from forcing a journalist to spill the name of a confidential source, except when there was an imminent threat to national security.

US Deputy Attorney General James Comey had been due to testify but did not appear, disappointing Senators, who said his written testimony submitted to the committee contained an strong argument against the proposed law.
Miller meanwhile marked her second week in prison, in Alexandria, outside Washington.

She is being held in a crowded cellblock of about 20 women, and to begin with, she was sleeping on a foam mattress on the floor, according to a memo to New York Times employees sent by Executive Editor Bill Keller.
She is expected to serve at least until the mandate of the grand jury expires in October, and supporters fear expanded criminal contempt proceedings could follow.