Tuesday, August 10, 2004
The First Amendment and the White House make strange bedfellows
While I'm not of the crowd that believes that the Bush Administration has "crushed dissent," law-and-order Republicans are only occasionally sympathetic with reporters who won't divulge sources on First Amendment grounds. But with the Plame case turning on the refusal of a Time magazine reporter to cough up the leaker, there have to be people in the White House rooting for press privileges:
TigerHawk loves irony, and there is a lot of it in this story. Time ran an article about an apparent example of the abuse of governmental power, the "outing" of Valerie Plame (never mind for the moment that subsequent revelations of her involvement in the Niger affair may help the leaker avoid conviction). As Floyd Abrams says,
But if Time wins its appeal on First Amendment grounds (which it very well may lose), nobody will be indicted for this alleged abuse of power. The First Amendment will then have made the disclosure of the abuse possible, and prosecution for the underlying crime impossible. A utilitarian might ask which is the better disinfectant: sunshine, or jail?
UPDATE: Tom MacGuire has a very interesting round-up of other coverage of this story. Via Glenn.
A federal judge in Washington held a reporter for Time magazine in contempt of court yesterday and ordered him jailed for refusing to name the government officials who disclosed the identity of an undercover C.I.A. officer to him. The magazine was also held in contempt and ordered to pay a fine of $1,000 a day.
The judge, Thomas F. Hogan, chief judge of the Federal District Court in Washington, suspended both sanctions while Time and its reporter, Matthew Cooper, pursued an appeal. But the judge firmly rejected their contention that the First Amendment entitled journalists to refuse to answer a grand jury's questions about confidential sources.
"The information requested," Judge Hogan wrote, "is very limited, all available means of obtaining the information have been exhausted, the testimony sought is necessary for completion of the investigation, and the testimony sought is expected to constitute direct evidence of innocence or guilt."
TigerHawk loves irony, and there is a lot of it in this story. Time ran an article about an apparent example of the abuse of governmental power, the "outing" of Valerie Plame (never mind for the moment that subsequent revelations of her involvement in the Niger affair may help the leaker avoid conviction). As Floyd Abrams says,
"The story was essentially critical of the administration for leaking information designed to focus the public away from what Ambassador Wilson was saying was true and toward personal things," Mr. Abrams said of the Time article. "That sort of story, about potential government misuse of power, is precisely the sort of thing that is impossible to do without the benefit of confidential sources."
But if Time wins its appeal on First Amendment grounds (which it very well may lose), nobody will be indicted for this alleged abuse of power. The First Amendment will then have made the disclosure of the abuse possible, and prosecution for the underlying crime impossible. A utilitarian might ask which is the better disinfectant: sunshine, or jail?
UPDATE: Tom MacGuire has a very interesting round-up of other coverage of this story. Via Glenn.
0 Comments:
