Remember John Peter Zenger

The arrest of Judith Miller of the New York Times is yet another desperate attempt by yet another repressive colonialist regime to turn back the clock 270 years and deny the existence of a free press. Think Pravda. Think Greece under the Generals (the movie 'Z'). Think New York, c. 1734.

The American Vision has a nice little feature on John Peter Zenger's arrest in 1734 for printing articles critical of the British royal governor of the American colonies. Zenger's lawyer argued that only a press that is free to criticize the government could prevent that government from abusing its power, and after eight months in prison, Zenger was found not guilty of libel. Zenger is universally celebrated as a hero in the history of freedom of the press later guaranteed by the First Amendment. Until now.

While the circumstances of Miller's refusal to reveal her sources are different from Zenger's refusal to muzzle his criticism of the arbitrary rule of British tyrants, the journalistic principles and constitutional issues are the same. In reporting (or even NOT reporting?) the White House leak of Valarie Plame's identity as a CIA agent, following Plame's husband's outing of the Bush administration's lies justifying the war on Iraq, Miller apparently has pissed off the war makers who were caught in their own fabrications. She has committed the terrible crime of keeping her promise to an anonymous source.

If reporters were forced to reveal their sources of information, informants would clam up, sources would dry up, and reporters would be left with the official government account of official government business, which anyone can see on Fox, CNN, CBS, NBC, or ABC anytime. The information just wouldn't get out, exactly as federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and his bosses want it. (Let's watch for his upcoming appointment as a federal judge. He'll get a sure confirmation vote from Senator Katherine Harris of Florida, another good team player.)

"Journalists are not entitled to promise complete confidentiality," Fitzgerald said, "no one in America is."

Fair warning from the top: there is no such thing as confidentiality, fool. Anyone can be forced to reveal anything at any time. Miller said, "If journalists cannot be trusted to keep confidences, then journalists cannot function, and there cannot be a free press."

Now every mainstream editorial page is paying lip service to their high-minded solidarity with Miller and the NYT, and most of them will continue to bootlick the official sources and print their official version in the official language of the official white house press release. With NPR safely under self-censorship and reporters being jailed for protecting sources, totalitarian control of public information is closing in by closing off the independent news outlets.

Call me an alarmist. Correct my factual inaccuracies and exaggerations. Then tell me with a straight face that the First Amendment isn't systematically being erased while we all watch other stuff on the nightly network infotainment.