Jailed reporter seeks law to protect sources

By Thomas Ferraro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – New York Times reporter Judith
Miller, jailed 85 days for refusing to testify in a federal
probe that now threatens the White House, urged Congress on
Wednesday to protect journalists from having to reveal
confidential sources.

“I hope you will agree that an uncoerced, uncoercible
press, though at times irritating, is vital to the perpetuation
of the freedom and democracy we so often take for granted,”
Miller told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Proposed legislation, opposed by the Bush administration,
would allow reporters to shield sources in most cases.
Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia have such shield
laws, and efforts to obtain a federal one have gained traction
largely because of Miller’s case.

Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania
Republican, said at the close of the hearing, “I believe we
need a statute.”

But Chuck Rosenberg, U.S. attorney in Texas, said the bill
before the panel “would create serious impediments to the
(Justice) Department’s ability to enforce the law, fight
terrorism and protect national security.”

Miller spent nearly three months in jail before obtaining
additional assurances from her source, Lewis “Scooter” Libby,
Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, that she could
testify about their conversations before a federal grand jury
examining the leak of the identity of CIA operative Valerie
Plame.

Miller was jailed even though she never wrote a story about
Plame. She testified twice before the grand jury after her
release.

The leak investigation has ensnarled White House political
adviser Karl Rove as well as Libby. The White House had long
maintained the two had nothing to do with the leak but
reporters have since named them as sources.

Plame’s diplomat husband, Joseph Wilson, has charged that
the administration had leaked her name to get back at him for
criticizing President George W. Bush’s Iraq policy.

Miller, who was jailed at the Alexandria Detention Facility
in Virginia, told the Senate panel: “Journalists are
increasingly being subjected to federal subpoenas” since the
September 11, 2001, attacks.

“More than two dozen reporters have been subpoenaed in the
past two years and are in danger of going to jail,” Miller
said. “If the current trend prevails, the Alexandria Detention
Facility may have to open an entire new wing to house
reporters.”