Two Cheers for Throwing Reporters in Jail

Someone has to say it, so I will. I’m glad New York Times reporter Judith Miller is going to jail and I wish Time magazine reporter Mathew Cooper was too. Threatened with going to jail for not revealing their sources, Miller chose jail while Cooper somehow managed to get his source to voluntarily come forward. Reporters (not to be confused with unaccountable and anonymous bloggers) are going ballistic, claiming this issue is about free speech. It’s not. No one is saying that the New York Times or Time can not publish news stories the way they want to. No one is even interfering with the right of Judith Miller and Mathew Copper to write whatever the hell they want. All the grand jury and the U.S. District Judge in the case are doing is treating these two reporters like every other American. Judges threaten people with prison all the time for not testifying to something they heard or saw. Why should reporters have special rights? If I can go to jail for not telling a judge what he wants to hear, then so should reporters. The 14th Amendment is clear: the state has to treat everyone equally. Of course, one could make an argument that no one should be forced to testify if they don’t want to (see Murray Rothbard’s For a New Liberty for instance); but as long as judges are allowed to throw people in jail for failure to testify why not incarcerate a few reporters?