God Bless Judith Miller... or God I hope the country has changed when I get back in a month

[yossarianjumps]

The bullshit that has been piling up since George Bush took office has finally pushed me to the breaking point (I know I probably say this very often but this time I am really losing it). I don't know how much everyone followed the story about the leak of undercover CIA operative Valarie Plame's identity, and I don't have time for a full

Comments

[so_outofcontext]

i posted this on justin's, but since he is not responding, i figured i'd post it here too:

i am an aspiring journalist and this situation frustrates me as much as it does you, but frankly, a woman's life and career were completely compromised (is that the right word?) by this event, no matter who said what first.

although i hate to say it, there is nothing that legally protects journalists from revealing their sources. maybe some good will come out of this mess and this will happen. but until then, we are not doctors. we are not lawyers. we are not entitled to that kind of confidentiality.

while they may not have been the first to know that this woman had worked for the cia, and i'm not sure exactly how far the information had spread from novak himself, but they still had no right to publish it. the first amendment does not allow anyone, including journalists, to threaten national security.

frankly, it all just boils down to the bush administration being pissy about an opponent to their practices. i do not disagree with that one

[yossarianjumps]

Interestingly enough Judith Miller, the only person who ended up in jail for the whole affair, was the only one involved never to publish the information about the CIA operatives identity in an article. She simply had the research in her possession but chose not to release it and compromise the operative's safety. She showed the restraint to refrain form publishing that information even after Novak had blown the woman's cover. Yet Miller ends up in jail, that is one of the true tragedies of this situation.

[so_outofcontext]

personally, i don't see how, as you said and as the entire world knows, the "president's illegal activities" effected national security.i see a huge difference between revealing a conspiracy to fool the american public in order to gain reelection and revealing the identity of a woman which may cause danger to her and even to the entire nation, depending on what her role in the cia was. watergate didn't threaten national security, it threatened the reputation of a corrupt politician.

and while you may think that this may lead to more intrusions on investigative journalism, it can also, as i said before, lead to more protections for journalists, depending on how it is handled. hopefully the aclu or a similar group will step in and try to swing the issue to our direction.

i honestly respect miller for standing up for her beliefs and for the integrity of investigative journalists everywhere. she's being punished because she decided to not play ball with the government that basically put her in this situation in the first place.