First Amendment Amended

A three judge appellate panel ruled this week that Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper of Time Magazine can be held in contempt for not revealing their sources regarding the Valerie Plame leak case. In case you've already forgotten, this stemmed from the column in which Robert Novak revealed the identity of the undercover spy to the world.

[The court] upheld a ruling that found New York Times investigative reporter Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper, the White House correspondent for Time Magazine, in contempt for refusing to testify. They each could be jailed for up to 18 months.

The three-judge panel ruled that the two journalists must comply with a subpoena from a grand jury investigating whether the Bush administration illegally leaked the CIA officer's name to the news media.

Here's the curious part... Miller and Cooper never published their article. The did research, conducted interviews, but in the end decided not to run the story. Novak has gone before the courts in a private session regarding the story, but no details of his testimony have been released. Novak, of course, is a known element - he's a friend of the Bush administration and constantly writes columns supporting BushCo policy. The problem is, he actually did release the information.

The law on this one is a bit vague. It is technically illegal to "out" one of our covert operators. However, members of the press are given a limited pass on this law, because it specifies that they are only guilty of breaking it if they show a demonstrated "pattern" of such disclosures. As much as he certainly deserves to be rotting in jail for this, Novak will likely face no consequences for his article.

So... if Novak is walking around free as a bird after actually printing Plame's name and position, how are the courts managing to go after, and possibly imprison, Miller and Cooper? Possibly because they not only demonstrate a bit more journalistic integrity than Novak, but also are a bit more open in their criticism of the administration? When the fox gets into the hen house, you need to be damned sure you're trapping the right fox.