US: Two leading US reporters have been threatened with jail for up to 18 months for refusing to disclose a source to a grand jury investigating a possible criminal White House leak.
The reporters, Judith Miller of the New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, will remain free while the case is appealed to the US Court of Appeals in Washington.
On Tuesday a three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Washington held that there is no First Amendment privilege that allows reporters to conceal information from a criminal inquiry. The reporters may have witnessed a federal crime - the disclosure by government officials of a CIA officer's identity - and should be jailed for contempt for not saying who the official was.
The case arises from an opinion article published in the New York Times on July 6th, 2003, in which Joseph Wilson, a former US diplomat, challenged a statement made by President George Bush in his State of the Union address about an attempt by Saddam Hussein to buy yellow-cake uranium in Africa. Before Mr Bush's speech Mr Wilson had visited Africa for the CIA and reported back that the claim had no merit. The week after Mr Wilson's article appeared, a conservative columnist, Robert Novak, reported that two senior administration officials had told him that Mr Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA "agency operative" on weapons of mass destruction.
The leak appeared designed to punish Mr Wilson and to suggest that he got to visit Africa only because of his wife's connections. A special prosecutor, Mr Patrick Fitzgerald, was appointed to look into the leak, as it is a crime under US law to disclose to the media the name of a CIA agent.
Matthew Cooper co-published an article on Time's website three days after Novak's column, saying the magazine had received similar information. Judith Miller also got information about Ms Plame's identity but did not write a story. One of the mysteries surrounding the investigation is whether Novak got a subpoena, and if he did, how had he responded. If he revealed his source, the investigation could possibly be wrapped up quickly, but if he did not, it would seem that he too would be facing prison. Novak's lawyer has declined to comment.
Last autumn Cooper and Miller were held in contempt of court by Chief Judge Thomas Hogan of the US District Court in Washington and sentenced to prison for as long as 18 months. The ruling this week resulted from their appeal. The fact that Miller did not write a story did not free her from her obligation to testify, Judge David Tatel wrote in his opinion. The crime, if there was one, was the communication from government officials to the reporters, and "it thus makes no difference how these reporters responded".
In another development that caused concern to the US media, Mr Fitzgerald submitted secret evidence to the appeals court that the reporters and their lawyers were not allowed to see, and the public version of Judge Tatel's opinion included eight blank pages that had been censored. "I risk going to jail for a story I didn't write, for reasons a court won't explain," Judith Miller said. Arthur Sulzberger, chairman of the New York Times, said the newspaper would challenge the decision and "will continue to fight for the ability of journalists to provide the people of this nation with the essential information they need to evaluate issues affecting our country and the world".
Norman Pearlstine, editor in chief of Time, said they continued to believe that the right to protect confidential sources was fundamental and "without that right, important information that should be available to the public would never see the light of day".