03/27/07

Specter advocates passage of law to protect journalists



By KIMBERLY HEFLING
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sen. Arlen Specter, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Tuesday the jailing of journalist Judith Miller convinced him that a federal shield law that would protect journalists is necessary.

"My own sense it that it ought to be a very serious national security concern before the privilege goes and someone is held in contempt and subject to going to jail," Specter told attendees at the American Society of Newspaper Editors conference.

Specter, R-Pa., said journalists do more to shed light on corruption and mismanagement "than all congressional oversight combined," but the fear of being jailed can have a chilling effect.

It would probably take a fair amount of momentum from media members for a federal law to protect reporters from having to identify their sources, Specter said. Several states have such a law.

Last year, Miller, who was then with The New York Times, was jailed for 85 days after she refused to cooperate with prosecutors in the Valerie Plame leak investigation. She subsequently disclosed that the source who told her of Plame's CIA identity had been Vice President Dick Cheney's now-indicted former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby.

Specter, who visited Miller in jail, said he's still trying to figure out why she was jailed.