A federal judge in DC is holding a reporter for USA Today in contempt of court for refusing to divulge her sources for a series of stories she wrote on the unsolved 2001 anthrax attacks. Toni Locy wrote a series of articles for her paper that were skeptical of the government's whisper campaign that Dr. Stephen Hatfill was somehow involved in the attacks.
Hatfill is now suing the federal government for defamation, and Locy is one of the witnesses in the case. She contends that much of the information she reported was provided by Hatfill's own attorneys and was merely confirmed by ten or twelve government sources she consulted for the 2003 stories.
The judge in the case, Reggie B. Walton, is holding her in contempt of court for refusing to name those officials, and he is fining her $5,000 per day until she complies. To add outrage to injury, he's also prohibiting her employer from paying the fines on her behalf......
Perhaps I'm too simple minded but it seems to me if you don't have the First Amendment, you don't have the Second Amendment. And if you don't have the Second Amendment, you don't have the First Amendment. Any assault on one is an assault on the other. Likewise, any assault on either is an assault on all the Amendments.
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