- One of America's most prominent journalists was jailed
last night after she refused to testify about her confidential government
sources.
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- In a sensational climax to the nation's biggest press
freedom case in a generation, Judith Miller of the New York Times now faces
imprisonment until a grand jury concludes its investigation in October
into the leaking to the media in July 2003 of the identity of an undercover
CIA agent.
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- The case is all the more extraordinary because Miss Miller,
who wrote several stories before the Iraq war suggesting Saddam Hussein
had weapons of mass destruction, never actually wrote an article about
the leak, but was only researching the story.
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- Miss Miller and Matt Cooper of Time magazine were found
guilty last year of contempt of court for refusing to reveal their confidential
sources to the grand jury.
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- Mr Cooper last night backed down in the face of a threatened
jail term and promised to testify about his government sources.
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- Just minutes before Miss Miller was jailed, Mr Cooper
told the court that shortly before his appearance he had heard "in
somewhat dramatic fashion" from his source, who had freed him from
his commitment to keep the source's identity secret.
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- Protesters demonstrated outside courtrooms across America
in the climax to a case that has pitted the media against the judiciary
and the government, and embroiled senior White House officials and a glamorous
CIA agent.
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- Among the witnesses questioned were President George
W Bush, Dick Cheney, the vice-president, and Karl Rove, Mr Bush's chief
political adviser.
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- The case, which has sent shockwaves through Washington
where the rights of journalists are enshrined in the First Amendment to
the constitution, stems from one of the longest-running controversies from
President Bush's first term.
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- The unmasked agent is the wife of Joe Wilson, a former
ambassador, who deeply embarrassed the Bush administration in the summer
of 2003 when he poured cold water on a pre-war claim made by Mr Bush that
Iraq was trying to acquire uranium from Niger for its nuclear programme.
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- When a few weeks later unnamed administration sources
exposed and named his wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA agent, he accused the
White House of seeking to take revenge on him by destroying her credibility.
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- As the judge prepared to rule, the special federal prosecutor,
Patrick Fitzgerald, rejected requests for detention at home rather than
prison. "Journalists are not entitled to promise confidentiality -
no one in America is," he said.
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- Bill Keller, Miss Miller's executive editor, said her
imprisonment was "a chilling conclusion to an utterly confounding
case".
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- He said it was unclear what crime had been committed
and what the prosecutor hoped to achieve by his "draconian" ruling.
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- © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2005.
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- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005
/07/07/wpress07.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/07/07/ixnewstop.html
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