REPORTERS TOLD TO NAME SOURCES IN PRIVACY SUIT.U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson Thomas Penfield Jackson (born January 10, 1937) was a United States District Court Judge for the District of Columbia. He was appointed in 1982 after serving as president of the District of Columbia Bar Association. He is currently an attorney with the Jackson and Campbell, P.C. has ordered reporters for four news organizations to disclose who in the government might have given derogatory information to them about Wen Ho Lee
Wen Ho Lee (Chinese: 李文和; Pinyin: Lǐ Wénhé , a former nuclear weapons scientist one the chief suspect in an espionage case. Reports in 1999 name Taiwan-born Lee, who worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) (previously known at various times as Site Y, Los Alamos Laboratory, and Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory) is a United States Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratory, managed and operated by Los Alamos National , as chief suspect in an investigation of whether U.S. secrets had helped mainland China design nuclear warheads. Lee was charged with 59 counts of felony espionage but ultimately pleaded guilty to one count of copying classified documents onto computer tapes without authorization, and the government admitted having bungled bun·gle v. bun·gled, bun·gling, bun·gles v.intr. To work or act ineptly or inefficiently. v.tr. To handle badly; botch. See Synonyms at botch. n. the case by focusing on him. Lee sued the Energy Department and the FBI, alleging violations of the Privacy Act limiting disclosure of personal information by government agencies. He alleged the disclosures were intended to cover the government's embarrassment about security lapses and caused harm to his reputation, emotional distress emotional distress n. an increasingly popular basis for a claim of damages in lawsuits for injury due to the negligence or intentional acts of another. Originally damages for emotional distress were only awardable in conjunction with damages for actual physical harm. and financial loss. Plaintiffs' attorneys Heather Hersh Gilhooly and Brian Sun sought to compel testimony by reporters from The New York Times, Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times Morning daily newspaper. Established in 1881, it was purchased and incorporated in 1884 by Harrison Gray Otis (1837–1917) under The Times-Mirror Co. (the hyphen was later dropped from the name). , Associated Press and Cable News Network, but lawyers for the news organizations resisted. In a letter to the companies, Judge Jackson said Supreme Court opinions have held reporters lack an absolute right to withhold information about their sources and they must yield to lawsuits brought in federal court when - as in this case - plaintiffs have shown the information is central to their claim and they have exhausted other means of getting it. Depositions of 20 current and former government officials provided no useful information but "a pattern of denials, vague or evasive answers, and stonewalling stone·wall v. stone·walled, stone·wall·ing, stone·walls v.intr. 1. Informal a. ," he said. "At the moment, only the journalists can testify as to whether defendants were the sources for the various news stories," he wrote. Lawyers for the media companies said they were reviewing the letter and considering their options. |
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