Why would any principled reporter want to be a tool in a slander, much less a crime? Seems to me that there are other principles that should override here.

Better said here.

Beyond the question of its precedential value, I wonder if most people who decry the D.C. Circuit’s opinion have actually read it. The majority opinion did not hold that reporters have no privilege under federal common law. The justices could not agree, and wrote three separate opinions, on this very question. What they did agree upon was this: if any such privilege existed, it would be a qualified privilege, and the government’s evidence in this case was more than sufficient to overcome it.

The Supreme Court ruling on Miller and Cooper isn’t precedent. The Court denied certiorari, which means simply that they declined to hear the appeal from the D.C. Circuit. A denial of cert has no precedential value. The Court only hears a fraction of the cases it receives anyway, and I can certainly see them deciding that this case, given its unusual facts, was best left untouched.

Today the Supreme Court declined to hear the case of journalists Matt Cooper and Judith Miller. The blogosphere is having a tizzy, especially on the left where there is sharp disagreement about what should be done with the two journalists.