Time Magazine to hand over Valerie Plame notes

Finally, we'll soon find out who in the White House leaked information about CIA operative Valerie Plame to the press. Although I do not agree that reporters give up their sources, this particular source did an illegal act and should be held accountable (most annoymous sources don't do anything illegal). If the source had any respect, he or she should of came forward and confessed which would of spared these reporters from all this leal action.

This will spare Anthony Miller from jailtime since Time Magazine is handing over the information but not The New York Times so it is unclear if Judith Miller will get off the hook as well.

Somewhere Joe Wilson is crossing his fingers and hoping that the person who leaked the information is Karl Rove.

From The Washington Post

Time Inc. announced today it will comply with a court order to hand over the notes of correspondent Matthew Cooper to a prosecutor investigating the leak of an undercover CIA operative's identity, and so avoid jail time for the magazine reporter.

In a statement issued by the magazine's editor-in-chief Norman Pearlstine, the magazine said the delivery of the confidential source documents "certainly removes any justification for incarceration."

The announcement came three days after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal by Cooper and Judith Miller of the New York Times and one day after a federal court judge repeated a threat to jail the two journalists for contempt for refusing to disclose their sources. The reporters told the judge yesterday they were prepared to spend four months in jail rather than answer questions about their confidential government sources.

[...]

Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher of the New York Times, issued a statement saying the newspaper was "deeply disappointed by Time Inc.'s decision to deliver the subpoenaed records." He noted that one of its reporters served 40 days in jail in 1978 in a similar dispute.

"Our focus is now on our own reporter, Judith Miller, and in supporting her during this difficult time," Sulzberger said.

Although Time said it would comply, the statement by the magazine and comments by the magazine's editor-in-chief following the announcement left no doubt the magazine strongly disagreed with the courts' orders.

Pearlstine told the Washington Post that the magazine felt it had no choice but to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court's decision. "As much as I'm a staunch defender of editorial independence, I don't believe there's anything in the Constitution that says journalists are above the law," he said. "The alternative to complying would be a kind of anarchy."