Reporters Must Disclose Sources
by TChris
The conflict between reporters who want to protect their sources and prosecutors searching for leakers is in the news again. So is Judith Miller, and again the reporters are losing in court.
Someone told Miller and another reporter, Philip Shenon, that the government was poised to seize the assets of two Islamic charities. The charities were allegedly tipped to the government's plan when the reporters contacted them to get their reactions to the upcoming raid. Prosecutors want to know who tipped the reporters.
In a 2-1 decision, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that the government's interest in learning the identity of the leaker outweighs the interest of a free press in protecting its sources.
"No grand jury can make an informed decision to pursue the investigation further, much less to indict or not indict, without the reporters' evidence," Judge Ralph K. Winter Jr. wrote for majority, in an opinion joined by Judge Amalya Lyle Kearse. "We see no danger to a free press in so holding. Learning of imminent law enforcement asset freezes/searches and informing targets of them is not an activity essential, or even common, to journalism."
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