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Shock jailing of reporter in CIA-leak case
7/7/05: The Independent reports that New York Times reporter, Judith Miller, has been jailed by a US federal judge after refusing to reveal the identity of a source to a grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA agent's name to the press. The jailing has caused concern throughout the US and European media, where information obtained from journalists from sources who do not wish to be identified is traditionally considered to be privileged.
The Independent continues:
"US district judge Thomas Hogan said Ms Miller should be imprisoned immediately and stay behind bars until she changes her mind, or until the grand jury ends its term in October.
"Speaking outside the courthouse in Washington, Bill Keller, the executive editor of the Times, warned that the ruling could open a new era of legal pressure on journalists.
"A second journalist involved in the case, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, had been set to be jailed until he told the judge that he had just been given a 'specific, personal and unambiguous waiver by his source to reveal his (or her) identity to the grand jury. A week before, Time had agreed to surrender Mr Cooper's notes to the grand jury, over the objections of its reporter.
"Mr Cooper's move is particularly intriguing. Last weekend, it emerged that during his work on the story, he had spoken to Karl Rove, President George Bush's top political adviser when the leak occurred, in the summer of 2003.
"A lawyer for Mr Rove, who is now deputy chief of staff at the White House, has acknowledged that his client spoke to Mr Cooper, but maintains he did not reveal the name of the CIA operative, Valerie Plame."
"The investigation into the leak has become convoluted. Robert Novak, the columnist who first published Ms Plame's name, seems to have escaped scotfree. Ms Miller never even wrote a story about the affair, but is now going to jail.
"She had no choice but to protect her source, she said. 'If journalists cannot be trusted to keep confidences, then journalists cannot function and there cannot be a free press.'
Ms Plame is the wife of former US ambassador Joseph Wilson, who claims her name was leaked by someone in the Bush administration to punish him for his accusation that the White House deliberately twisted intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq invasion of March 2003.
Explaining his decision yesterday, Judge Hogan said that by ordering Ms Miller to jail, her source might be persuaded to give her a more specific waiver of confidentiality, as had happened in the case of Mr Cooper.
Last modified: Thursday, July 7, 2005
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More reporters are currently imprisoned in Turkey than in any other country in the world. Only a matter of weeks ago lawyers failed to persuade a Turkish court to release a 76-year-old journalist from a Turkish internet news station.
World Press Freedom Day on Friday May 3, 2013 is being marked in Britain by a rally to highlight the dangers facing journalists in Turkey and in this podcast, Nicholas Jones speaks to Barry White, Organiser at the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, and Sam Bamford, the TUC's policy officer for Eastern Europe and Africa about the importance of a campaign to highlight international press freedom.
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The media’s job is to inform and entertain us but we rely on them too to tell us what our rulers and representatives are up to. In the run-up to the Iraq war the government used spin and disinformation in the media to create panic and mislead people. The truth is coming out now, but we need stronger, more independent media to be able to scrutinise governments and make informed choices.
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