From AP breaking: AP's take today on the Plame/Novak deal, Judith Miller, and London bombing and the media...
CIA LEAK: Novak Defends Actions in Disclosing CIA Officer's Name
ap.tbo.com
The Associated Press
Published: Aug 1, 2005
WASHINGTON (AP)- Columnist Robert Novak broke his silence Aug. 1 about his disclosure of an undercover CIA operative's identity, defending himself against a former agency official's account that he twice warned Novak not to publish the name.
In his syndicated column, Novak did not dispute that former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow told him he should not print the covert officer's name, Valerie Plame, during conversations they had prior to Novak's July 14, 2003, column.
But Novak reasserted that no CIA official ever told him in advance "that Valerie Plame Wilson's disclosure would endanger her or anybody else."
Plame is the wife of former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who was sent to Africa by the CIA in 2002 to evaluate intelligence that Iraq was trying to acquire nuclear materials.
More than a year later, with the U.S. government unable to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Wilson wrote an op-ed piece for The New York Times, "What I Didn't Find In Africa," and asked the question: "Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to justify an invasion?"
Eight days later, Novak wrote an article in which he disclosed Plame's name and cited as sources two unidentified senior Bush administration officials. Novak wrote that the officials had told him Plame had suggested sending her husband to Africa.
Wilson claims the leak was retribution for his article and criticism of the administration. Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is investigating whether government officials broke the law by disclosing Plame's name to Novak and other journalists.
Harlow was interviewed recently by The Washington Post and acknowledged telling the grand jury investigating the case that he spoke to Novak at least three days before the column appeared.
Harlow said he could not tell Novak that Plame was a covert officer because that information itself was classified. But in at least two telephone calls, Harlow told Novak that Plame had not authorized her husband's mission and that her name should not be used even if Novak went ahead with a story, according to the Post.
Harlow declined to comment when contacted by The Associated Press.
Novak, whose role in the investigation is unknown, has been silent on the series of events he set in motion. But he wrote about it Aug. 1, saying he was ignoring his lawyers' advice because Harlow's account is "so patently incorrect and so abuses my integrity as a journalist."
Novak said Harlow's admonition not to disclose Plame's name "is meaningless. Once it was determined that Wilson's wife suggested the mission, she could be identified as 'Valerie Plame' by reading her husband's entry in 'Who's Who in America.'"
The columnist said Harlow was "just plain wrong" in saying he had deliberately disregarded Harlow's comment that Plame had not authorized her husband's trip.
"There never was any question of me talking about Mrs. Wilson 'authorizing.' I was told she 'suggested' the mission, and that is what I asked Harlow," he wrote.
+++++ ^Imprisoned New York Times reporter praises staff at detention center
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) - New York Times reporter Judith Miller, imprisoned for refusing to name a confidential source, said she is allowed to read and write in jail but has been outside just twice in three weeks, according to press freedom advocates.
Miller spoke to a delegation of the Committee to Protect Journalists for about a half hour July 28 through a plastic partition, the CPJ reported on its Web site.
"There's no good purpose in keeping this dedicated, honorable, committed professional in jail," Paul Steiger, CPJ chairman and managing editor of The Wall Street Journal, said after the meeting. The delegation also included NBC's Tom Brokaw.
Wearing a dark green prison uniform with "PRISONER" written on the back, Miller praised the professionalism of the staff at Alexandria Detention Center, the CPJ reported. But she said she's been able to go outside just two times.
U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan ordered Miller imprisoned July 6 after she refused to testify about a confidential source before a grand jury investigating the 2003 leak of a CIA operative's identity. Unless she decides to talk, Miller will be jailed on civil contempt charges until the grand jury ends its work in October.
Legislation has been introduced in Congress to protect reporters from having to identify their confidential sources. So-called shield laws already exist in 31 states and the District of Columbia.
CPJ is a New York-based nonprofit organization that monitors press freedom conditions in more than 100 countries. +++++
LONDON BOMBINGS:
Media back off bombing coverage as police make London raids
LONDON (AP) - Television helicopters roared overhead and reporters stood by, but British television stations responding to a Scotland Yard request for a media blackout stopped broadcasting live as police carried out dramatic raids in London.
Every day since suicide bombers killed 56 people, including the four attackers, on July 7, police operations, arrests and news conferences have been beamed live into living rooms in Britain and around the globe.
A second series of strikes two weeks later, in which bombs carried onto the city's transportation network failed to properly detonate, increased the intensity of the coverage.
That stopped July 29 when news organizations were told lives could be at risk if they broadcast live footage or ran commentaries as raids were conducted in the quiet neighborhood on the edge of trendy Notting Hill.
The stations abided, although images from the raids that netted the remaining suspects in the failed transit bombings were broadcast after the hourlong blackout.
"Following discussions with Scotland Yard, Sky News voluntarily imposed a news blackout of certain elements of the siege," a Sky statement said. "This is standard practice to assist with some police procedures but any decision remains an editorial one."
CNN was investigating events in Notting Hill when it received word of the police request for a media blackout, said Nick Wrenn, managing editor of CNN Europe, Middle East and Africa.
"We were already onto the story. We were trying to get our facts straight, what we knew was that there was a major operation happening," Wrenn said.
The network decided not to report the developments live.
"We agreed it was a reasonable request from Scotland Yard ... and we decided we would review it constantly as the story developed," Wrenn said.
At the British Broadcasting Corp., the newsgathering process continued as normal but nothing went on air until police gave their OK - about an hour after they asked stations to honor the ban.
Police previously have requested media blackouts when working on particularly sensitive cases, Wrenn and the BBC spokeswoman said. Broadcasters are not obliged to comply, and sometimes don't.
"I think if police tell us that there are situations where license-to-shoot operations could be implemented, then that is obviously a request we are going to take seriously," Wrenn said.
CNN had cameras poised on one home targeted in the police operation, but moved back when asked to for safety reasons, Wrenn said, adding, "It's not our policy to go bursting through police cordons when there is an armed operation going on."
When the police lifted the blackout, they continued to ask media organizations to show caution in their live coverage, the BBC said.
Every police request is judged on its own merits, Wrenn said. For instance, police recently asked British broadcasters to stop using cell phone images taken by the public on the day of the London bombings and in the aftermath of the carnage.
"That's something we probably won't agree to," Wrenn said. "I think it gives us a fascinating insight. It's revealing the way newsgathering technologies are changing all the time." +++++
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AP-ES-08-01-05 1910EDT |
