Valerie Plame's Anonymity or Judith Miller's Informants?

In February 2002, Joseph Wilson was asked to look into claims that Iraq sought uranium yellowcake from Niger. As a previous ambassador, Wilson agreed to inquire then found no credible leads.

In Bush's State of the Union Address speech of 2003, Bush added Iraq's supposed search into Nigerian yellowcake as reasons to invade Iraq.

Wilson was upset with the administration's willingness to lie in spite of Wilson's research into the whole yellowcake matter; he then ran an Op-Ed article in the New York Times on July 6, 2003.

One week later, conservative columnist Robert Novak, “just so happened” to have mentioned Valerie Plame's name as “an agency operative.” Perhaps done by mistake... perhaps it was some passive-aggressive Rovian tactic willingly employed by a neoconservative apologist.

Patrick J. Fitzgerald was called in by the Justice Department to serve as special counsel for the Valerie Plame case, after Democrats pressured for Ashcroft's removal... in the same way that you wouldn't expect a condemned man to hang himself, I reckon.

After Time magazine correspondent Matthew Cooper had testified before a grand jury about his conversations with I. Lewis Libby and Dick Cheney, New York Times star reporter and WMD specialist Judith Miller was mentioned as another source, then was ordered by Chief Judge Thomas Hogan to testify.

Judith Miller refused to cooperate in providing the prosecution her list of informants, citing a journalist's right to protect her sources, thus was judged in contempt of court and served 85 days in prison.

Merits for the Defense...

Guaranteed under the First Amendment of the Constitution is the “Freedom of the Press,” which allows journalists the ability to write unfavorable articles about the ruling government or reveal information that might not be within the best interest of the status quo, so long as the information is not defined as “classified information” for the sake of national security.

However, and pragmatically speaking, the First Amendment cannot totally inoculate a whistle-blower from vindictive repercussions made by ruling parties; there are always loopholes within the law to serve harsh treatment against those who reveal ugly truths, if not outright criminality from the more clandestine organizations.

With that in mind, a journalist's pledge to protect the identity of their sources is the greatest tool for which to encourage someone to speak the truth when either group-think or the iron law of oligarchy demands otherwise.

One such case, and perhaps the most quintessential one, where journalists had fought fiercely for the right to remain faithful to the journalist's pledge, was the Branzburg Case of 1972.

Earl Caldwell, correspondent for the New York Times who had almost exclusive coverage of the activities engaged in by the Black Panther Movement in Los Angeles, was approached by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to reveal the identities of those Black Panther Members who had engaged in “criminal” activities, such as professing a civilian's right to armed resistance against an oppressive government... which is similar to what Thomas Jefferson had preached almost two hundred years prior, by the way.

Caldwell had said, “Certainly not!” and was subpoenaed to testify in front of grand testimony a mere few days later.

If Caldwell's sources were criminally charged for activities he actually witnessed and covered, why did he not feel it was his duty as a civilian to cooperate with the law?

James Goodale, General Counsel for the New York Times during the Branzburg Case, explains why the media must remain distant from the efforts of law enforcement in Frontline's documentary called, NEWS WAR:

“The Press can't be the arm of law enforcement because if it is, there is no ability of the public, for which the Press is a surrogate, to criticize the government,” Mr. Goodale said.

I, for one, agree… not only with James Goodale's statement, but also with Earl Caldwell's decision to resist the FBI's demands. For one thing, the Black Panthers would never have garnered as much public support from the counter-culture movement if their motives weren't so legitimized by an overtly racist and brutal Los Angeles police department.

Second, although the Black Panthers had publicly armed themselves within legal boundaries as a political statement, it was the police department who was responsible for first blood, and several Black Panther members were already assassinated at this time.

Third, this was J. Edgar Hoover's FBI!!! They engaged in criminal activities under COINTELPRO to silence and discredit those parties involved in political dissidence, such as the Black Panthers. What kind of liberal idealist would have complied?

I stress the defense of the Branzburg Case because it was one of the greatest causes for opposing any collaboration with suspiciously corrupt law enforcement. But if we were to leave the “Robin Hood” romanticism aside a take more selfish measures into account, once a journalist caves in under legal pressure to reveal the identities of his sources, then he might as well kiss his career good-bye; his credibility is forever tarnished.

Merits for the Prosecution...

Alas, the Supreme Court ruling in the Branzburg Case was 5-4 against the defense, and this established a precedent that the First Amendment did not grant journalists the special privilege in refusing to provide evidence in grand testimony, especially when the rest of America is not awarded such a protection.

Justice White did provide a controversial “however” clause to the Supreme Court ruling, which kept the argument far from over. Justice White did recognize the press' ability to gather news, and although he validated the Supreme Court's decision in the Branzburg Case specifically, he did cite the Gibson v. Florida Legislative Investigative Committee case in showing that for a subpoena to override the importance of a free press, the government must "convincingly show a substantial relation between the information sought and a subject of overriding and compelling state interest."

In other words, was Fitzgerald searching for specific and relevant information from Judith Miller that was so important in a criminal case, it would justify in overriding her right to protect her informant? According to the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, Fitzgerald's subpoena was valid.

The Intelligence Identities Protection Act makes it a federal crime to intentionally reveal the identity of secretive intelligence agents, which was made into law shortly after Richard Welsh was assassinated by the Greek terrorist group called the “November 17” after his identity had been revealed through previously legal means by CounterSpy magazine.

Fitzgerald had a valid case to find the leak, not only in law but in the interests of national security as well. By leaking Valerie Plame's name, thus rendering her services in the CIA as forever null, had especially compromised her entire Counter-Proliferation Division, threatening the identities of her division subordinates as well. During a time when certain anti-American terrorist organizations are actively seeking WMDs is not appropriate to expose the one intelligence faction in charge with locating loose nuclear missiles, or the activities of unemployed nuclear scientists for that matter, in ex-Soviet rogue states.

Conclusion...

In my opinion, Judith Miller was known to be a ruthless social climber, disrespectful to other journalists, who seemed to be so in love with her own legend that the principles of Journalism, and especially certain time-tested practices such as double-checking the validity of one's own sources for credibility and ulterior motive, all seemed to have played second fiddle to Miller's priorities in life and pursuit of awardship.

With that said, Miller's grandstanding display of “a journalist's principle to protect the identity of her sources,” and the subsequent martyrdom to follow, all seemed so hollow and hypocritical that I couldn't have care less if her career was destroyed.

For Miller to repeat the concerted efforts of Earl Caldwell and James Goodale was insulting the very meaning behind their struggle, for Caldwell and Goodale sought for the right of journalists to act as a counter-balance against the powers of state, so that the public may remain well informed of the actions taken by their government and decide for themselves if those who govern them were honest and competent.

Miller, on the other hand, was the Bush Administration's little darling, and treated administrative efforts to “prove” Hussein's guilt of harboring both terrorists and WMDs as de facto from the get-go... so much so that the idea that neoconservatives MIGHT have been wrong in their theories of “Saddam, the great overlord and terrorist mastermind” had never seemed to be a possibility. Good work, Judy, and I hope your stay was lovely.