NY Times Reporter Ordered Jailed

A federal judge ordered New York Times reporter Judith Miller jailed for refusing to tell a grand jury her sources in the leak of a CIA agent’s identity.

Miller, a Pulitzer Prize winner, never published a story on the identity of Valerie Plame, a covert CIA operative, but faced 18 months in jail for civil contempt along with Time magazine’s Matthew Cooper. Cooper agreed to reveal his confidential sources on the leak Wednesday after his source released him from a promise to keep their conversations confidential, The New York Times reported.

U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Hogan refused to allow Miller to serve detention at home and ordered her to be taken to a District of Columbia jail immediately.

She could remain jailed until October, when the grand jury expires, unless she agrees to testify.

Times Executive Editor Bill Keller called Miller’s decision to go to jail rather than give up her source a brave and principled choice.

Reporters Without Borders, a press freedom activist group, said Hogan’s decision represented a dark day for freedom of the press in the United States and around the world.