From the current editorial page of the NY Times:

Showdown for Press Freedom
Published: December 5, 2004

The First Amendment suffered a blow in October when a federal trial judge sentenced two reporters to prison for up to 18 months each for refusing to comply with subpoenas to reveal their confidential sources before a federal grand jury. Their sentences were stayed pending a consolidated appeal, which is scheduled to be heard this Wednesday by a three-judge appellate panel in Washington.

This challenge to press freedoms comes courtesy of Patrick Fitzgerald, the United States attorney and special prosecutor charged with investigating accusations that the Bush administration illegally leaked the name of a covert Central Intelligence Agency operative, Valerie Plame, to the columnist Robert Novak in order to punish her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV, for criticizing Iraq policy. Mr. Fitzgerald's inquiry has evolved into a major assault on the confidential relationship between journalists and their sources, which was of critical importance in exposing the very abuse of governmental power that prompted Mr. Fitzgerald's involvement in the first place.

We have special reason to be concerned. One of the journalists is a Times reporter, Judith Miller. The other is Matthew Cooper of Time magazine. But the possibility that journalists may be incarcerated merely for acting on principle to preserve press freedom ought to trouble everyone - including members of Congress, who should use this occasion to approve legislation explicitly extending safeguards against forced disclosure of sources to all federal proceedings.

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The rest of the essay can be found here.

Ever since Bush started the idea to use the Constitution for a sexual morals pulpit, I have feared that we are steering into a real twister -- a battle between those who wish to continue the great experiment in civic freedoms unleashed by the Framers and those who think of the Constitution merely as the top gear in a complex political machine, available to serve any ends.

Do you think the Constitution is "under attack" as the liberal press asserts? And if so, why and how?

A