Source is a criminal

Matt Cooper of Time magazine and Judith Miller of the New York Times may now be facing up to 18 months in prison. The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from the two reporters when it refused to hear the case about refusing to reveal a source for a story. The two journalists are refusing to reveal the identity of a source within the Bush administration who leaked the identity of a CIA agent. The CIA agent unmasked by the leak was an undercover expert on weapons of mass destruction, Valerie Plame, whose husband, Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador, had spoken out against Bush's claims that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium in Africa. The CIA sent Wilson to Africa to investigate the claim. Wilson says the July 2003 leak of a CIA operative’s name, a crime under federal law, had come from a senior official in the Bush administration as a form of retribution against him. This is clearly what the Bush administration did. They risked the lives of a CIA operative and the people she was involved with to “get even” with someone who would stand up and speak out against them. The strange part of this story is that Matt Cooper and Judith Miller never printed or revealed anything. They were contacted by their “source” but did not write the story. Robert Novak, one of the most hate filled, rotten to the core journalists in America wrote the story. He has apparently cooperated with the prosecutor but nobody really knows. In most circumstances I would side with Matt Cooper and Judith Miller, even though I consider Miller a despicable reporter. However the crime in this case was the leak itself. This was not a “whistleblower”; this was a planned leak from the Bush White House to destroy someone who was speaking out against them. Cooper and Miller should give up their source because the source is a criminal. You cannot allow the administration to use the media to get payback for dissidents.