Journalist facing fines urges press to protect 1st Amendment
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/10/AR2008051002081_pf.html
PHILADELPHIA -- A former USA Today reporter facing fines for failing to reveal her sources for stories about the 2001 anthrax attacks said Saturday that news organizations need to go on the offensive in the fight to protect the First Amendment.
"As we all know, the news business is on a collective nervous breakdown," Toni Locy told a coalition of open-government and press groups. "It's time to stop running. It's time to turn and fight. If we don't fight for the First Amendment, who will?"
"The First Amendment needs some help," she said. "In this environment that we're in now, it needs some help."
Locy is appealing an order from U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton that requires her to pay as much as $5,000 a day until she gives up her sources for stories about the government's investigation of the anthrax attacks.
The order comes as Locy has been drawn into a lawsuit by former Army scientist Steven Hatfill..
I'm sorry, but I wish the fine were $10,000 a day.
This poor man was branded as the "anthrax mailer" and harassed horribly.. He got a defacto conviction by the press and the FBI even drove over his foot at one point!
Interestingly, we've never captured the anthrax mailer. We don't even seem to be close.
I can't help but wonder who fingered Hatfill, and for what purpose. I believe him to be innocent and just feel an incredibly amount of empathy for him.
A
really suspicious person might even say that he was targeted just to save certain people the effort of looking too deeply into the matter.. After all, who knows what one might find?
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