Trampling the First Amendment
A federal judge in DC is holding a reporter for USA Today in contempt of court for refusing to divulge her sources for a series of stories she wrote on the unsolved 2001 anthrax attacks. Toni Locy wrote a series of articles for her paper that were skeptical of the government's whisper campaign that Dr. Stephen Hatfill was somehow involved in the attacks.
Hatfill is now suing the federal government for defamation, and Locy is one of the witnesses in the case. She contends that much of the information she reported was provided by Hatfill's own attorneys and was merely confirmed by ten or twelve government sources she consulted for the 2003 stories.
The judge in the case, Reggie B. Walton, is holding her in contempt of court for refusing to name those officials, and he is fining her $5,000 per day until she complies. To add outrage to injury, he's also prohibiting her employer from paying the fines on her behalf.
Judge Walton does not seem to realize (or maybe he just doesn't care) that a society cannot be free without a free press. If the First Amendment has any meaning at all, "free" has to mean a press unencumbered by interference from any governmental entity. With narrow exceptions for libel and the like, no judge, legislator, law enforcement official, member of the military, or official of the executive branch should be allowed to interfere with the press's obligation to inform. It seems self-evident that no society can be free if its press is subject to official interference; this judge's fishing expedition must be squelched before it sets an irreversible and dangerous precedent.
If any case in the land serves as justification for a federal shield law for reporters (and bloggers), this case must surely be it.