In case you haven’t been following this (which would be surprising to me), Miller and Cooper are the two New York Times reporters implicated in the scandal that outed Valerie Plame, a spy who is the wife of Joe Wilson, a diplomat who took Bushco to task over the fake “Niger Letter” that was proof, supposedly, that Saddam Hussein was purchasing yellowcake, an unfinished form of uranium commonly used to develop nuclear weapons (part of the justification for the war, of course). Outing Plame was Bushco’s payback against Wilson.
It is widely believed that conservative shill Robert Novak, who wrote the story that outed Plame, had to have received Plame’s identity from someone inside the White House, and if someone did that, that person is guilty of a felony. An irony to me is that Novak isn’t going to be touched along with any of his sources. Cooper was working on a story that had not been printed yet, and Miller was only gathering background information. Another irony in this is that Miller came down against John Kerry in her reporting of the 2004 presidential election.
The conventional wisdom that I’m reading says that, if any of them go up for this (and I’m temporarily downplaying the horrible “chilling effect” that this would have on news organizations for now), it will be Cooper, since she would never reveal a source. I read a spirited defense of her by conservative “godfather” William Safire, who also said that Novak should come clean and that this case should spur immediate Congressional action on “shield law” legislation across the country – I heartily agree, but good luck seeing that happen with the bunch we have now. I would link to Safire’s remarks, but to get the full background, you have to go to the New York Times site and register, and they have the worst online registration process that I’ve ever seen. I’ve also read that a deal may be in the works for Miller to turn over his notes, which would basically accomplish the purpose of revealing his source and let him off the hook.
As I was checking about this stuff online, I went to the Editor and Publisher site (http://www.journalism.org/) to find out more information, and came across information on this criminal case in Montreal.(Update: the four reporters in the Wen Ho Lee case lost their appeal today also, though the reporting on that case, as much as I can determine, was a total hatchet job on Lee.)
(Another update on 7/1...Cooper is spared.)
As you can read from this link, convicted killer Karla Homolka is seeking an injunction against the press from reporting on her in any way after her anticipated release from prison, which could come soon. I haven’t seen any reporting on this story, though I’m sure it’s a big deal up north. I definitely do not support her action – she committed brutal, heinous crimes, and I believe she must deal with any consequences from that even though she has served her jail time.
This story concerns me because I can easily see the lawyers for this piece of human refuse named Dennis Rader – the self-confessed “BTK” killer who terrorized the area of Wichita, Kansas since the early 1970s – finding a way to try and fit Homolka’s legal action for their own purposes. I don’t think they will succeed either (I sincerely hope not, anyway).
Do I see a pattern between the Cooper/Miller and Homolka stories? Yes, even if that is a bit of a stretch because Homolka is in Canada. An injunction such as Homolka’s would have been unthinkable years ago, but her lawyers obviously believe that it could succeed because (I believe) the courts, acting on signals from politicians and the public, think they can get away with squelching information and suppressing the public’s right to know (even though that right often allows stretches into prurient territory). I admit that these two cases are vastly different in subject matter, but as I said, I think there is a bit of a slender thread between them.
Also (speaking of suppressing information), let’s look at the case of the records of Dick Cheney’s secret energy task force which met shortly after Dubya’s installation as president (the most prominent task force member being Ken Lay of Enron). David Sirota (who else?) uncovered this information regarding the judge who decided the records should remain secret.
It turns out US District Judge A. Raymond Randolph, who ruled in favor of Vice President Dick Cheney's efforts to keep his energy task force records secret, has ties to the oil industry. David Sirota notes that Randolph serves on the Judicial Advisory Board of George Mason's Law & Economics Center (he has apparently served there for at least a few years, and may still currently). This is the same Law & Economics Center famous for taking judges on training junkets, and for being financed with huge amounts of cash from oil industry giants like Exxon. Raymond is also an adjunct law professor at George Mason University, a place that has taken millions from Koch Industries -- another major oil company (for more on Koch's multi-million dollar ties to George Mason, see Media Transparency's special site).This is another problem with court decisions regarding public information. Often, the judges who rule in these matters were either appointed or elected by people with a predisposition in support of business interests that don’t have an advocacy point of view, any desire whatsoever to state publicly what it is that they’re doing, or any motivation to comply with “sunshine laws” or other legislation passed with the goal of ensuring that the electorate is informed enough to act in a responsible way.
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