FREE JUDITH MILLER!!!!!!!!!!

Judith Miller, a journalist for the NY Times, has been jailed. Not because she faked credentials to get into the White House press room and ask the president and his flunky questions! Not because she was paid by the administration to praise their policies while still under the guise of neutrality! No, Judith Miller is "being held in civil contempt of court", because she refuses to divulge her source on the Valerie Plame scandal. A scandal that she has not written about.

Senior administration officials made public (first through robert novak) the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame in an attempt to discredit her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Ambassador Wilson was trying to tell the world that there was no credible evidence that Iraq was seeking significant quantities of uranium from Niger. The president of the United States referenced this claim in his State of the Union Address in 2003 to further scare Us into his War in Iraq. The "documents" supporting the Iraq-Niger uranium connection were forged, and "obvious" fakes at that. The claim remains unfounded.

So there Judith sits. Novak has testified. Time magazine has given the courts the notes of the other journalist involved, Matthew Cooper. Mr. Cooper is now going to testify, and I would assume give up his sources to avoid jail-time.

The ability to conceal your source isn't for the journalist's protection. It is for the source's. Sometimes a source needs to feel free of retribution to be comfortable enough to speak out. In this case, however, the source was not acting as a whistle blower. They instead were acting to distract the public and smear a man for political gain and further their march to their War in Iraq.

I respect Judith Miller for going to jail to keep her source confidential and to adhere to a trust in journalism that should not be breached.

"If journalists cannot be trusted to guarantee confidentiality, then journalists cannot function and there cannot be a free press," "The right of civil disobedience is based on personal conscience, it is fundamental to our system and it is honored throughout our history,"
-Judith Miller from a statement made today after Judge Hogan's ruling

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

United States Constitution
Amendment I - Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression. Ratified 12/15/1791.

"abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"

Maybe we should look up freedom in the dictionary. What do you think King Richard?