Judith Miller is a former reporter for The New York Times and author of four books on the Middle East, biological weapons and the Holocaust. For information on her prosecution for refusing to reveal sources to federal prosecutors, see the news section of this Web site or the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.



In this section:

• Judy Speaks in Brazil

• Iraqi Militants Becoming Citizens

• Intelligent Policing Comes to New Jersey

• Best of the Web -- I've Got a Secret

• The Other Terrorism

• WHAT I LEARNED AT 'ANTI-JIHAD U'

• FBI VS. THE NYPD: Behind the Latest Flap

• Anti-terrorism in paradise: Lacking funds and manpower, Bratton's war on terror is based on the principle of sharing.

• From the Shores of Tripoli

• Book Review: George Tenet's At the Center of the Storm






Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War
by Judith Miller, William Broad, Stephen Engelberg
Simon & Schuster, 2001




God Has Ninety-Nine Names: A Reporter's Journey Through a Militant Middle East
by Judith Miller
Simon & Schuster, 1996




Created and maintained pro-bono by Joshua Tanzer, web developer and journalist in New York City.

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No backing down for jailed reporter

Newsday, Aug. 12, 2005

It's been more than five weeks in a federal prison for New York Times reporter Judith Miller and there's little sign of any stand-down in the confrontation that caused her to be jailed for refusing to reveal her confidential sources in the Valerie Plame/CIA leak case.

People who have visited Miller recently in the Alexandria Detention Center outside Washington, D.C., described her as "resolute" in the decision not to identify her sources. They also said she is adjusting to incarceration but is "bored" and misses the Web. She could be behind bars until October. ...

"It's tough, but she is fine. She's hanging in there," Lucy A. Dalglish of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press said of Miller, whom she visited last week.


Original article

Posted by Joshua Tanzer | August 13, 2005


The Secret Trial of Judith Miller

Reason, Aug. 10, 2005

By Michael McMenamin

Judith Miller—The New York Times reporter now in federal prison for refusing to burn a source before a federal grand jury investigating an executive branch leak of a former covert CIA officer's identity—is a hero to her fellow journalists, a martyr to the media's constitutional mission of serving as a restraint on government abuse. In contrast, the public doesn't seem to give a damn. Why should journalists have special privileges before a grand jury which ordinary citizens do not? Why should non-journalists care? Why indeed. . . .

Judith Miler is unique, the first American ever to be sent to jail based on facts she never saw and a federal appellate opinion she was not permitted to read. She won't be the last. Make no mistake: This will happen again and again whenever a case involves "national security," "the war on terror," or any combination thereof. This is too big a weapon for the executive branch to ignore, especially since it was fashioned by the most prestigious of the U.S. Courts of Appeals and approved by the Supreme Court. Let's face it. If they can do it to a reporter for The New York Times, they sure as hell can do it to anyone else.

Sadly, the mainstream media have overlooked this aspect of Miller's conviction and, as a consequence, the pubic has as well. While some in Congress have introduced legislation to provide for a federal reporter-shield law akin to those used by states, no federal shield law being considered would have protected a reporter from what happened to Miller.

Original article

Posted by Joshua Tanzer | August 10, 2005


Leading by example

New York Times editorial, Aug. 8, 2005

The United States is used to representing the high road when it comes to freedom of the press. If it fails to set the right example, countries with weaker traditions of civic rights are bound to notice. As the New York Times reporter Judith Miller enters her fifth week in jail for refusing to disclose a source, the repercussions are being felt abroad.

In the days after Ms. Miller's arrest, the Committee to Protect Journalists found that three countries harassed or jailed journalists while pressuring them to reveal their sources. In Burundi, government authorities jailed the journalist Etienne Ndikuriyo - for a story questioning the health of the president. According to the journalist group, Mr. Ndikuriyo said that while in jail, police interrogators kept demanding that he reveal his sources; he refused. He was released after a week but faces criminal charges.

In Nepal, a police inspector demanded that one newspaper editor reveal his sources for a report on fighting between the government and Maoist rebels. In another incident, two military officers demanded that an editor of a new weekly reveal sources for an article. And in Serbia and Montenegro, two police officers visited an independent daily newspaper demanding that the editor tell them the source of information for an article identifying where Gen. Ratko Mladic, the indicted war criminal, might be hiding.

Commentators close to autocratic rulers are using the jailing of Ms. Miller "to legitimize gross and continuous press freedom violations" all over the world, said Ann Cooper, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. "We've heard from journalists in other countries raising alarms that if the U.S., which has the freest press in the world, is going to imprison journalists, then it's fair game for everyone else."

Last week when Russian authorities, peeved that ABC News dared to broadcast an interview with the Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev, barred the network's journalists from working in Russia, the response from the State Department seemed muted. "We certainly respect ABC's right, as a news operation, to operate as it sees fit," said a spokesman, Tom Casey. Mr. Casey didn't say much more, and it's no wonder.

By keeping Ms. Miller in jail, the United States is sending a signal to the rest of the world that it is O.K. to go after journalists as long as you invoke national security. That's not a good message to send.

Original article

Posted by Joshua Tanzer | August 10, 2005


Judith Miller in Jail: Principle vs. Politics

Washington Post, Aug. 2, 2005

By Richard Cohen

The fury at Miller is ugly and does journalism no good. Whatever her politics, whatever her journalistic sins (if any), whatever the whatevers, she is in jail officially for keeping her pledge not to reveal the identity of a confidential source. (If that's not the case, then we don't know otherwise.) That pledge is no different than the one Bob Woodward made to Mark (Deep Throat) Felt or, if you will, the one I made to my sources back when I was revealing some unsavory facts about Vice President Spiro T. Agnew. Only Agnew's unexpected, but deeply appreciated, resignation saved me from going to jail. Like Miller, I thought my word was my word. Jail was something a journalist had to endure on occasion. It is, to quote "The Godfather's" Hyman Roth, "the business we have chosen."

The law is not in our corner. Maybe Miller could be faulted for making that clear, pushing matters so that an understanding has now been revealed as little more than a wish. Maybe it will even turn out that she is somehow complicit in her own incarceration. Maybe. Maybe. But in the meantime she's in jail, upholding a principle that has been an integral part of American journalism for years and years: You don't reveal confidential sources. At the moment, that -- not her politics or her reporting or her tempestuousness -- is what matters.

Original article

Posted by Joshua Tanzer | August 10, 2005


Lawyers Want U.S. to Protect Journalists

Associated Press, Aug. 9, 2005 (in Wired.com)

CHICAGO (AP) -- The American Bar Association gave its backing Tuesday to embattled journalists facing jail time, voting to endorse federal protection for those refusing to reveal their sources to prosecutors.

The nation's largest lawyers' group overwhelmingly approved the measure on voice vote at its annual meeting. The move, which comes following the high-profile jailing of one reporter and threats against others, authorizes the 400,000-member ABA to lobby Congress, where "shield law" proposals are pending.

"Our action today acknowledges the important role of journalists and the media to providing the public with significant information to ensure an informed democracy, and reporters' need to be able to protect sources in order to get that information," said Michael S. Greco of Boston, ABA's president.


Original article

Posted by Joshua Tanzer | August 10, 2005


Press group's leader decries jailing of reporter

Associated Press, Aug. 10, 2005 (in Hosuton Chronicle)

A leading defender of press freedom in the Western Hemisphere said Wednesday he is concerned that the imprisonment of New York Times reporter Judith Miller could set a "terrible example" for the cause of press freedom in Latin America.

Alejo Miro Quesada, a Peruvian who is head of the Inter-American Press Association, said, "No journalist should be forced to disclose his sources of information."

He said that this has been a guiding principle of the IAPA, a free press advocacy group, for 11 years.

Miro Quesada, president of the Peruvian daily El Comercio, was leading an IAPA delegation that planned meet with Miller Wednesday night at the Alexandria Detention Center in suburban Virginia, where she has been since July 6.

Original article

Posted by Joshua Tanzer | August 10, 2005


Reporter Judith Miller enters fifth week in jail

Newsday, August 2, 2005

By MATTHEW BARAKAT
Associated Press Writer
ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- When August arrives in the nation's capital, Washingtonians stay inside to avoid the steamy heat. After almost a month in jail, New York Times reporter Judith Miller says she would like nothing better than to get outdoors.

"She joked that the swampy, humid air of Washington smelled as sweet as could be" on the couple of occasions she was allowed outside at the Alexandria Detention Center, said Times managing editor Jill Abramson, who visited Miller last week.

Original article

Posted by Aaron Selverston | August 05, 2005