[Infowarrior] - Court rules in favor of Times reporter confidentiality

[Richard Forno]

Thursday, July 24, 2008
Court rules in favor of Times reporter
Tom Ramstack THE WASHINGTON TIMES

http://www.washtimes.com/news/2008/jul/24/court-rules-in-favor-of-times-reporter/

A federal judge in California supported a reporter's right to protect  
confidential sources on Thursday, ruling in favor of Washington Times  
national security reporter Bill Gertz on First Amendment grounds.

In a ruling that could influence similar cases in future, U.S.  
District Judge Cormac J. Carney found that Mr. Gertz could not be  
compelled to answer questions about a May 16, 2006, article about a  
Chinese espionage case because his First Amendment right to protect  
his sources outweighed the government's need to identify those sources.

Judge Carney, whose court is in Santa Ana, Calif., also refused  
federal prosecutor Jay Bratt's request for time to appeal the ruling.

"It has been some time since we have seen a judge deliver a ruling  
like this," said Charles Leeper, a lawyer for Mr. Gertz. "The law of  
course varies from circuit to circuit, but the judge's reasoning was  
thorough and thoughtful so other courts might give it considerable  
weight."

Mr. Gertz said after the ruling: "Today´s hearing shows that First  
Amendment press freedoms are under assault. Confidential sources are  
the lifeblood of a free press, independent of government control.  
Without them, most government failures and abuses of past decades  
would have gone unreported and uncorrected.

"The identity of these confidential news sources must be protected if  
our press freedoms, fundamental to the effective functioning of our  
democratic system, are to endure. Efforts by government to compel  
reporters to disclose news sources must be resisted."

A May 16, 2006, story by Mr. Gertz cited unnamed "senior Justice  
Department officials" as the sources of information about criminal  
charges against Chi Mak, a Chinese-born employee of a California  
defense contractor, who was accused of leaking military information to  
the Chinese government.

Mak was sentended to 24 years in prison in March after being convicted  
last year of conspiracy to export sensitive defense information and  
being an unregistered foreign agent.

Judge Carney, who presided over the case, had ordered an investigation  
to determine whether federal officials had leaked information from a  
grand jury investigation.

Unauthorized release of confidential grand jury information by  
government officials about pending cases is a federal crime.

At the outset of Thursday's hearing, Mr. Bratt informed the court that  
the attorney general had approved the issuance of a grand jury  
subpoena to Mr. Gertz and requested that the judge stay his hearing in  
favor of the grand jury investigation the matter. Judge Carney refused  
to do that.

"This fight may not be over," Mr. Leeper said. But if Mr. Gertz is  
subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury, "we now have a judicial  
determination that the First Amendment interests here outweigh the  
need to know who provided the information for Bill's original articles."