January 31, 2007: Time Columnist: Leakers Deserve the Same Protection as Reporters

In a column ironically titled “Free Scooter Libby!” Time columnist Michael Kinsley notes the damage done to the idea of the “anonymous source” in the Plame Wilson investigation and the Libby perjury trial (see January 16-23, 2007). Leaks from anonymous sources are widely believed to be necessary to keep government honest, Kinsley notes, and journalists must not be asked to testify as to those sources. Kinsley goes on to note that in this case, instead of heroic whistleblowers, reporters such as the New York Times’s Judith Miller were protecting White House officials trying to spin the public. And, he continues, it is an established crime to blow the undercover status of a CIA officer such as Valerie Plame Wilson (see July 21, 2003, October 22-24, 2003, and October 23-24, 2003). Most journalists were somberly critical of Miller’s forced testimony, and, in contrast, are writing about the Libby trial in a “jaunty to the point of slapstick” manner. But ‘[i]t takes two” to “create a leak,” a government official on one end and a reporter on the other. Kinsley calls the Miller/Libby leak “a bad leak.” Plame Wilson’s covert status “should have stayed secret.” He concludes: “If leaks are vital to the freedom of the press, then surely both of the people needed to create a leak—the reporter and the source—deserve protection. If Judy Miller is a martyr of press freedom, then so is Scooter Libby.” [Time, 1/31/2007]