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Fitzgerald going after NYT anonymous sources again
Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was back in court seeking information about the New York Times' anonymous sources on Monday, this time appealing his setback in a lower court.Fitzgerald is best known for being the special prosecutor whose investigation led to the indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Former Times reporter Judith Miller spent 85 days in jail in that case last year for resisting Fitzgerald's request to reveal her sources, and the two have been pitted against each other once again in a free-speech battle over journalists' rights to keep their sources secret from prosecutors' probes. The case argued in a New York courtroom on Monday started when Fitzgerald was in the U.S. Attorney's Chicago office, before he was appointed special counsel over the leak of a CIA operative's name. The two cases are not directly related, though both involve reporting by Miller, and others, when she was still at the Times. Fitzgerald is seeking phone records relating to newspaper articles on government probes into Islamic charities during the fall of 2001, shortly after the September 11 attacks. The government wants to uncover the identities of government sources who might have given information to the reporters. U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet ruled in February 2005 the phone records were protected from disclosure by a reporter's privilege under the First Amendment of the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Back then, Times' lawyer Floyd Abrams called Sweet's decision "a major vindication for First Amendment interests," and now Fitzgerald is seeking to overturn that ruling. Abrams on Monday reiterated his argument that reporters' phone records were protected free speech under the U.S. Constitution and should be kept secret from the government. With Fitzgerald sitting quietly on the sidelines, Special Assistant U.S Attorney Jim Fleissner argued there should be limitations on a reporter's privilege in refusing to release telephone records. Grand jury investigations were sufficient to protect reporters and their sources because they take place behind closed doors, and were the only way to resolve inquiries into government leaks, Fleissner said. But Abrams said if the telephone records were released, "dozens of individuals" would be identified. "Telephone records are the embodiment of the speech of these journalists and require the same level of protection," Abrams told the court. There was no indication when the appeals court judges would rule on whether to overturn the lower court decision. Posted by: Dan Darling 2006-02-16 |
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