NEW YORK: The Wall Street Journal 's parent company is seeking to expose sensitive material relating to Judith Miller of The New York Times in court.
The Journal's editorial page revealed today that Dow Jones & Co., this newspaper's parent company, filed a motion late Wednesday requesting that the federal district court unseal the infamous eight pages of redacted information that the special prosecutor showed to judges to convince them that Miller must testify in the Plame case, or else.
The Dow Jones motion notes that the D.C. Circuit of Appeals had ruled in an earlier case that "contemporaneous access" to information is vital "to the public's role as overseer of the criminal justice process."
The Times has sought the same eight pages, to no avail.
In the editorial, the Journal observed: "Thanks to the disastrous New York Times legal strategy, the D.C. Circuit of Appeals dealt a major blow to a reporter's ability to protect his sources. Prosecutors everywhere will now be more inclined to call reporters to testify, under threat of prison time."
In response to "this parade of masochism, we thought we'd try to speed things along, as well as end one of the remaining mysteries in the probe. ... Future prosecutors and judges trying to decide whether to throw a reporter in jail should be able to inspect the evidence in this case, which will be an influential precedent."
Unsealing the eight pages, the Journal declared, "would also help put to rest the wilder 'conspiracy' claims that continue to circulate about the case. Residents of the Internet fever swamps can now point to the sealed pages and say, aha!, dark secrets are being covered up. "
The Times had argued to the U.S. Supreme Court this year that the eight-page redaction raised serous due process concerns.
Attorneys familiar with the case said the Times welcomed the effort by Dow Jones and had been alerted to it prior to the filing.
In one of several recent references to the redacted information, Carol Marin, the Chicago Sun-Times columnist, on Oct. 26 referred to the missing pages (although she finds six, not eight) this way:
"Let's remember that you and I still don't know exactly why Miller was ordered by the court to go to jail. That's because the written opinion of the U.S. Court of Appeals District of Columbia No. 04-3138 contains six-blank pages, 72-78. The information on those pages has been redacted at the request of U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald, citing national security concerns. That level of secrecy in a court ruling has stunned constitutional lawyers."
