Reporters ignore Miller's jailing

WASHINGTON -- Judith Miller lingers in jail, the only victim of an essentially victimless crime, and the American press is partially to blame for failing to treat this injustice to one of its own with the uniform outrage it deserves. If ever there was a time for journalism, both print and electronic, to speak with one voice it is now when the incarceration of a reporter threatens to undercut the First Amendment as seldom before.
There is no worthier crusade than to effect Miller's release instantly and to demand that Congress make one of its first orders of business the passage of a national shield law protecting journalists assigned to public affairs reporting from misguided, overly ambitious prosecutors and judges who have no understanding of the First Amendment, and that includes some on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Perhaps for the first time in its history, this nation has joined the ranks of those despotic governments that have found the stifling of a free press and the persecution of reporters and editors essential to their survival. If that seems hysterical, the proof lies with Miller of The New York Times for refusing to reveal her sources even though she never wrote a story. She has been jailed for longer than any reporter under similar circumstances in American history. It is among the most shameful disregards of constitutional safeguards ever perpetrated.
Free press
Those guilty of embarrassing this country in the eyes of the world seem oblivious, either intentionally or through incompetence, to the fact that a free press as guaranteed by the Constitution can't operate without the principles of source protection for which Ms. Miller is tenaciously fighting.
But where have we her colleagues been these painful days of her imprisonment? Most of us have accepted this outrage benignly, it seems, only clucking our tongues now and then over the awfulness of it all. One of our own institutions, the historically important but increasingly irrelevant Time magazine, has even capitulated to this prosecutorial malfeasance so its reporter, Matthew Cooper, wouldn't have to join Ms. Miller. The deafening sound of anguish heard over the magazine's New York headquarters these days can only be attributed to the outraged ghost of Time's founder, the late Henry Luce, a giant of 20th century journalistic ideals.
So what is this really all about? Nothing! Columnist Robert Novak reveals the name of a sometime covert CIA operative who is the husband of a central figure in the allegations that Saddam Hussein had been trying to buy nuclear material in Africa. The husband, Joseph Wilson, was sent to find out the truth and came back saying it hadn't happened, embarrassing the White House. Did his wife, Valerie Plame, recommend him for the job? Who knows? Who cares?
The disclosure of the wife's occupation may or may not have violated an obscure law passed to prevent such revelations. Only the person who leaked the information could be prosecuted and then only if he or she did so deliberately and with malice. The uncovered agent also had to have been in a covert job fairly recently for the law to apply. Plame doesn't seem to fit that bill.
Under pressure, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft named a special counsel to look into the matter. As is often the case in these situations, the counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald, apparently saw this as a really high profile career move. He launched a full-fledged, whiz-bang, don't-spare-the-millions grand jury inquiry to determine who leaked to Novak.
Protecting sources
Miller, who did have some of the same information as Novak, refused, arguing correctly that the Constitution gives her the right to protect her sources and that without that protection no one in government would talk to her. There goes Watergate and every other investigation of government malfeasance. Hello despotism. Fitzgerald demanded her jailing for contempt, got it, and the Supreme Court declined to intervene. Meanwhile, Novak hasn't had a hair on his head mussed, Plame is back at work at the CIA, her husband is promoting a new book about it and Fitzgerald seems not to have a case against anyone, including White House political guru Karl Rove, the suspected source and clearly the target of all this folderol.
Sen. Richard Lugar and Rep. Mike Pence, both from Indiana where there is a long history of strong public affairs journalism, have introduced a bill to shield reporters from this sort of harassment. There is nothing more important to national freedom, and the press should wake up and support their efforts with all its force before it is too late.
X Dan K. Thomasson is former editor of the Scripps Howard.