Sarah Olson, The Pentagon, and the First Amendment
(an excerpt by…)
Doug Ireland <http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2007/01/sarah_olson_the.html>
January 30, 2007
Last month, military prosecutors subpoenaed Sarah Olson, a 31-year-old writer and radio journalist, asking her to appear at the court-martial of Lt. Ehren Watada <http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ehren_Watada> , the first commissioned officer to refuse deployment to Iraq. Lt. Watada said that he could not participate in the Iraq War because it was "manifestly illegal" and that his participation would make him a party to war crimes. He had spoken candidly to Olson, who had written about the case, and prosecutors have tried to conscript her into their effort to convict Lt. Watada, whose trial begins February 5. (snip)
Fieldtrips replies...
While this is indeed 'egregious' and I haven't read all the references, I'm not sure what the military is doing to try to force her to testify for the prosecution. It's simply something that the military can't do with or to a civilian.
And there are few positions safer than being a journalist with contacts in situations like this. It is not as though she is trying to keep secret a source - something that journalists can indeed be incarcerated for, but only in civilian court.
But what I don't understand is that the pleas are requested to send to the Pentagon. Screw the Pentagon. They should be flooding congress with this. There are few things Pentagon Generals fear more than congressional inquiries. And even though they aren't the Commander-in-Chief more than once I've seen or heard a member of congress say "Fix it!" and they did. So it seems like journalists and even some intelligent people ;-) are to the point where they think the military can have control over civilians.
But the big picture issue that most people do not understand and often say "Why doesn't she just testify and save the hassle?" is a matter of precedent that is very dangerous. If journalists are seen as agents of the government then there is no longer a situation that makes it impossible to have independent verifiable information. You simply can't mess with the press. And I mean the press, because broadcast news, especially FOX, is already an agent of the government or on the leash of the corporations that own them. Oh, alright I know Olson is in broadcast media.
So many times journalists have been allowed to go into hostage situations to gather information for news. The police surely were as privy to the information reporters gathered as their readers would be, but they didn't work for the police and gave them no more info than would be provided the public. In a couple of instances police impersonated journalists in hostages situations. Subsequently the officers were dismissed and in the suits that ensued the judges wisely treated them much as the law would treat someone impersonating an officer. Who could trust the press if this was accepted practice. Suddenly everyone would wonder if a journalist was an agent of the government.
In my newspapering days I was constantly told things off the record as background info for subsequent coverage. If people weren't' assured of an independent press there never would have been a Deep Throat that made public wording of the Nixon White House. We never would have heard about the massive price fixing by Cargill, and there never would have been any reporting on the effects of pollution, nor the recent backward steps to the environment. Hey people. Freedom of the press in not a right of journalists - it is your right.
In the 1920s and 30s as gangsters were getting regular headlines due to illicit or nefarious practices, the press had an 'all access' pass. The gangsters pretty much endorsed and didn't mess with the journalists. There is only one that I know of in the Chicago area who was killed due to a gangster relationship. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Lingle&GScid=107016&GRid=2740& And I believe that was because of actions outside the realm of journalism.
So what we ultimately have in this case is a military that has sensibilities that are below those of gangsters.
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