NOW IS THE TIME FOR A REPORTER TO GO TO JAIL TO PROTECT A SOURCE...

Want to protect anonymous sources, pick now to do so. Make a stink about this. Throw it back and ask who committed the crime. This can redeem the NEW YORK TIMES, but they will roll over.

:puke:

on this one.....

what's the difference between Judith Miller going to jail and this (unnamed reporter) going to jail.

This will be a course in obfuscation 101

they will roll if they want to stay in good and get their exclusives with The White House.

You lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.

Hard to muster any outrage on the NYT's behalf.

that can force reporters to testify to grand juries in federal investigations, and the case law that follows, allows the journalist in question to have a judge review the case: if the journalist is protecting a "whistle-blower," the judge is not required to force them to testify. The obvious point is that "whistle-blowers" are those who expose illegal activities, as opposed to in the Plame case, where the government employees were engaged in illegal activities.

what the President is doing illegal and to protect a whistleblower.

It isn't their call: the judge(s) decide that.

I'd say that all this corruption is testing our very system of Checks and Balances. What this does in my view, is highlight the fact that we still have a system intact. It's not perfect, and yes it is damaged, yet it still remains.

my apologies...

you should be cynical. We live in strange times, and indeed, you could point to the 2000 Supreme Court decision as evidence that having too much faith in the judicary is risky. People should be questioning everything that this administration says and does -- and, in fact, everything that those in positions of leadership in all three branches say and do. It's good to be cynical.

I do understand.

I hope they have the balls NOT to say this time and take their chances with a Judge. That is how it's supposed to work, isn't it? I just hope enough people understand the difference between going to jail to sheild the WH and going to jail to sheild a whistle-blower.

It's about having the courage of your convictions, isn't it?

And I do not think the reporters will back down. I think that, end the end, we will have a case not unlike the Pentagon Papers. The administration, no matter how hard they bluff now, simply cannot have the truth brought to light in this case.

In the brief reports I've heard on the news no one has done so.

It is an obvious difference. The whistleblowers were reporting on the breaking of the law. That is why we have protection. (follow up on protecting them has dwindled dramatically under bush)

If my head could spin it would be as I hear the news reports. They said they'll start with the 8 members of congress who knew, but if memory serves me NY Times said it was current and past employees of NSA.

They said this endangered national security and that terrorists would quit talking as freely...but all it gave away was that we were doing it illegally, not that we were doing it at all. I'm sure they already assumed they were being monitored.
If we want to push it I suppose those who have been arrested trying to find out if it was an illegal wiretap that caught them up might be an issue, but it should be if we broke the law.

My bigger question is that bush known about this for over a year. Why are they just investigating now? Diversion?

I think that we have an administration that deals in fear .... and that relies on threats to try to get their agenda moved foreward. In my opinion, Bush is only the second president in at least 75 years who has attempted to bend the institution of the presidency to meet the needs of his personality, with Nixon being the other. That is not to say that others did not use the force of personality in various ways. But both Nixon and this Bush see the world in very paranoid ways, that result in their trying to punish those who see things differently.It is not difficult to see Bush viewing the recent NYT's article in the same light as Nixon viewed the Pentagon Papers a week after they were published. Now that is odd, in a sense, because I generally view political issues in a "systems" manner, but our country is being damaged by Bush's personality today, much as it was by Nixon's 33 years ago. Bush wants to divert attention by threatening those who "betrayed" him by publishing the truth, and to try to scare the public into not realizing he is, like Nixon, a common criminal.

Most laws purported to 'protect' whistle-blowers require that the disclosure be made to a regulatory or law enforcement agency, or a Congressman, NOT a newspaper or other public entity. People have almost NO PROTECTION under law for disclosing private or classified information other than to narrowly-defined recipients. This is a "gotcha" in most cases. Corrupt corporations "encourage" their employees to raise their concerns through "normal channels" and internal organizations (like Audit, HR, Finance, etc.) before going public or to the law. This is a wonderful opportunity for them. They can shit-can the employee right then and there - or string him/her along before firing them on a concocted basis. Without the disclosure to designated agencies, the person has no case under the so-called "Whistle-blower Protection Laws."

I am speaking specifically about the law that can require a reporter to testify to a federal grand jury. It's not a whistle-blower protection; it's a journalist's protection.

shutting down the NYTs or something equally heavy handed. I want bush to do something so outrageous that the people wake up and demand impeachment.