Goodbye, Judith Miller
To: letters@nytimes.com
Re: Novel Strategy Pits Journalists Against Source, October 29, 2005
To the Editor:
You should stop publishing articles like this one. They only suggest to your readers that your reporters habitually "cultivate" criminal sources. Read the April 19 decision of the DC Court of Appeals:
"But barring an absolute privilege--something no federal common law decision endorses and that Branzburg forecloses as a First Amendment matter--reporters either enjoy no privilege, in which case compelling their testimony requires no evidence at all, or they hold a qualified privilege, that is, a privilege subject to exceptions, much like the crime-fraud exception to the attorney-client privilege, see, e.g., United States v. Zolin, 491 U.S. 554, 563 (1989), and the imminent-harm exception for psychotherapist-patient communications, see Jaffee v. Redmond, 518 U.S. 1, 18 n. 19 (1996). If the privilege is qualified, then ex parte review, far from violating due process, affords a critical protection to journalists: it permits the court to demand a detailed showing by the government that it has satisfied the criteria for overcoming the privilege."
Besides, Fitzgerald's case depends not on the credibility of Russert, Cooper and Miller, but on Libby's own words in his own handwriting.
If you had been as concerned about the credibility of Judith Miller's sources as you were about protecting them there might never have been an Iraq war.
Re: Novel Strategy Pits Journalists Against Source, October 29, 2005
To the Editor:
You should stop publishing articles like this one. They only suggest to your readers that your reporters habitually "cultivate" criminal sources. Read the April 19 decision of the DC Court of Appeals:
"But barring an absolute privilege--something no federal common law decision endorses and that Branzburg forecloses as a First Amendment matter--reporters either enjoy no privilege, in which case compelling their testimony requires no evidence at all, or they hold a qualified privilege, that is, a privilege subject to exceptions, much like the crime-fraud exception to the attorney-client privilege, see, e.g., United States v. Zolin, 491 U.S. 554, 563 (1989), and the imminent-harm exception for psychotherapist-patient communications, see Jaffee v. Redmond, 518 U.S. 1, 18 n. 19 (1996). If the privilege is qualified, then ex parte review, far from violating due process, affords a critical protection to journalists: it permits the court to demand a detailed showing by the government that it has satisfied the criteria for overcoming the privilege."
Besides, Fitzgerald's case depends not on the credibility of Russert, Cooper and Miller, but on Libby's own words in his own handwriting.
If you had been as concerned about the credibility of Judith Miller's sources as you were about protecting them there might never have been an Iraq war.
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