A judge dramatically jailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller Wednesday for refusing to divulge the name of a source who blew the cover of an undercover CIA agent.
The case, arising from the political tempest whipped up by US President George W. Bush's rationale for the Iraq war, prompted sharp warnings that US press freedoms were in peril.
"If journalists cannot be trusted to guarantee confidentiality then journalists cannot function. There cannot be a free press," Miller told Judge Thomas Hogan in a face-to-face statement.
Miller, a veteran of years of Middle East coverage, will remain in jail until she agrees to testify, or until the mandate of the grand jury probing the case expires in October.
A second journalist, Time magazine's Matthew Cooper, who had earlier kissed his six-year-old son goodbye expecting also to go to jail, won a sudden, reprieve after his source cleared him to testify.
The name of CIA agent Valerie Plame was first published in a column by veteran reporter Robert Novak in 2003, which cited senior administration officials.
Her husband, former US ambassador to Iraq Joseph Wilson, claimed she was outed as punishment for his contradiction of Bush's assertion in the 2003 State of the Union address that former Iraiq president Saddam Hussein sought yellowcake uranium from Africa.
Miller researched the story, but didn't write it, and Cooper only mentioned it in passing.
Recalling the Iraq war, Miller said in court : "I wrote about people who were truly among our nation's best and bravest -- men and women willing to die for their country and its freedom."
"If they can do that, surely I can face prison to defend a free press."
Cooper was visibly moved, as he struggled to digest his escape.
"This morning in what can only be described as a stunning set of developments, that source agreed to give me a specific personal and unambiguous waiver to speak before the grand jury," Cooper said outside court.
"It is a sad time when two journalists who are simply doing their job and trying to keep confidences and report important stories face the prospect of going to prison," he said.
Miller and Cooper were held in contempt of court and given 18 months in jail last year, but their sentences were held in abeyance while they appealed, unsuccessfully, right up to the US Supreme Court.
Before his repreive, Cooper had decided he would stick to his refusal to testify, even though his magazine bowed to the court last week and handed over documents, notes and e-mails which named the source.
Hogan turned down pleas from Miller's lawyer to have her confined at home, or to send her to a detention center in Connecticut, so that she would be near her husband.
He reasoned that a spell in jail might convince her to testify, though her lawyer argued that there was no way she would ever back down.
"If she were given a pass today, then the next person could say as a matter of principle, I will not obey the law because of the abortion issue, or the election of a president or whatever," Hogan said.
"They could claim the moral high ground and then we would descend into anarchy," he said.
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald argued the judge had to underline that journalists had no more immunity under the law than lawyers or even presidents.
"There are times when the greater good of our democracy demands an act of conscience," said Arthur Sulzberger, chairman of the New York Times Company.
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