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Post# of 475038
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easymoney101

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Re: easymoney101 post# 28347

Monday, 06/06/2005 9:48:24 AM

Monday, June 06, 2005 9:48:24 AM

Post# of 475038
Miss. asks high court to shield reporters' sources


Mississippi is among 34 states urging the U.S. Supreme Court to recognize a reporter's right to keep sources confidential.

Justices have agreed to hear a case involving the leak of an undercover CIA officer's identity. A bipartisan group of attorneys general is assembling to file a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, which involves contempt of court orders against New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Time magazine's Matt Cooper.


The journalists face 18 months in jail for refusing to testify before a grand jury as part of an investigation into who divulged the name of CIA officer Valerie Plame.

A federal judge held the reporters in contempt last fall, and an appeals court rejected their argument that the First Amendment shielded them from revealing their sources.

The case has much broader implications than Miller and Cooper, however, because it challenges a journalist's ability to protect confidential sources. The friend-of-the-court brief is an attempt by the state attorneys general to have the Supreme Court define confidential sources for reporters and broaden the lengths they can go to protect those sources without violating the law.

"We did sign onto that. I don't know why anybody wouldn't want to sign onto it," said Jacob Ray, special assistant attorney general.

Ray said it was essential that journalists be able to protect their confidential sources in order to expose corruption in government and other areas in which people with the necessary knowledge might be afraid to speak out.

"It allows for more communication between reporters and government employees or anyone else to get information that might not otherwise ever be released or exposed," Ray said.

His cited the recent revelation of former FBI official W. Mark Felt as Deep Throat as an example of the need for confidential sources.

Information received from Felt confidentially allowed Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to expose Watergate, which led to the resignations of President Richard Nixon and presidential aides H.R. Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman. Aide John Dean was also fired, and seven men, including two former White House aides, were convicted of conspiracy, burglary and wiretapping.

"That's a prime example of sunshine being allowed into an area that would otherwise remain dark," Ray said, adding that many other examples exist.

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, one of the organizers of the drive, said it appears odd on the surface that attorney generals would be protecting confidentiality of reporters' sources, but he said a deeper look is needed.

"Everybody's first reaction was, 'Wait a minute. We're chief law enforcement officers in our states. Why are we going to support something that makes our job harder?'" Shurtleff told The Associated Press. "But we've always recognized the importance of constitutional protections. Overall, society is better off with an open press and an informed public.

"In addition," he said, "it's important everyone knows what the rules are. Reporters in fairness need to know they're going to be protected. That argument has turned a lot of AGs around."

The Supreme Court is concerned about how such a privilege as inviolate confidential sources could be abused by reporters, who could conceivably write a fictional story with the alleged facts attributed to confidential sources.

The earliest the court could take up the case is this fall.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=14639066&BRD=1377&PAG=461&dept_id=172922&r...


"All truth passes through three states," wrote Arthur Schopenhauer. "First it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
http://www.livevideo.com/socialservice
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