barry bonds BALCO vic conte stan conte SF Giants jeremy giambi yankees marlins world series dontrelle willis ivan pudge rodriguez byun hum kim flipping the bird middle finger chicago cubs sammy sosa

My bet is he will try, but who will breakdown and make the call?

http://www.sportsartifacts.com/pcl50seals.JPG

Reporters who refused to reveal BALCO leak get prison [sports.espn.go.com]

SAN FRANCISCO -- Two San Francisco Chronicle reporters were ordered jailed Thursday for a maximum of 18 months, pending an appeal, for refusing to testify about who leaked them secret grand jury testimony from Barry Bonds and other elite athletes.

Federal prosecutors asked U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White to send the reporters to prison for the full term of the grand jury investigating the leak, or until they agree to testify.

"The court is hopeful that perhaps they'll reconsider their position when faced with the reality of incarceration," White said Thursday.

Williams and Fainaru-Wada have said repeatedly they would go to jail rather than comply with the grand jury's subpoena and reveal their source or sources.

"I'm supposed to keep my promises when people help me and take me at their word," Williams said in court. "I do despair for our country if we go very far down this road, because no one will talk to reporters."

Both sides agreed to stay the ruling by White sending the reporters to jail pending an appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The reporters agreed with the government that they are in contempt of court but sought a "nominal monetary fine" and other punishment "short of full blown incarceration," including house arrest and weekend jailing, according to court documents.

In arguing for the stiff penalty, federal prosecutors cited the reporters' statements that they would go to jail before testifying.

"Only imprisonment would be the type of sanction that's going to get their attention," Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas Miller said.

Authorities want to charge whoever unlawfully leaked the transcripts, and told White that the reporters are the only ones who know who did. White ordered the two to testify on Aug. 15. The criminal conduct being investigated in the Bonds leak case includes possible perjury and obstruction of justice by government officials, defendants in the BALCO probe and their attorneys. All had access to the leaked documents but have sworn they weren't the source of the reporting by Williams and Fainaru-Wada.

In August, White ruled his hands were tied by a 1972 Supreme Court precedent that said no one -- journalists included -- was above the law and may refuse to testify before a federal grand jury.

Chronicle executive vice president and editor Phil Bronstein said the case highlighted the need for a federal law to protect journalists from having to reveal their confidential sources.

"It's a tragedy that the government seeks to put reporters in jail for doing their job," said Bronstein, standing with the two reporters outside the courthouse after the hearing.

A bipartisan bill before the Senate Judiciary Committee would give reporters protection from revealing their confidential sources in cases that involve federal authorities. Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia have media shield laws already in place.

The Chronicle reported that Bonds told the grand jury that he believed he was using flaxseed oil and arthritic balm, not steroids, supplied by trainer Greg Anderson, one of five defendants convicted in the BALCO scandal.

Anderson served his three months and is behind bars again for refusing to testify before another federal grand jury investigating whether Bonds committed perjury when he gave that testimony in the BALCO case.

Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press

Breaking the law = part of their job? Idiots.

I want to know why these douches are taking the fall while the people who gave them the grand jury testimony are presumably getting off the hook completely? They're facing jail time now, so why protect anybody?

B, if these "idiots" and "douches" break their word and give people up, then we get one step closer to the government controlling the media. There are worse things than jail. As a Canadian (and temporary Israel)i, you might not care, but I am proud of them.

While I certainly support the power of the press to report the news/facts, I strongly believe these two reporters are puppets of the FBI agents Jeff Nowitzky and Iran White, the two agents who approached Bonds at his gym while Bonds was working out and Bonds gave them the cold shoulder.

Since when are you allowed to break the law in the name of journalism? Does this mean I can get caught with drugs or guns and clear my name by claiming I'm a journalist doing an investigation into drug and gun culture? Freedom of the press isn't the issue here, it's a matter of two guys illegally obtaining federal grand jury documents to sell more papers and further their careers.

*cough* Pentagon Papers *cough*.

Seriously, if these two guys had snuck in and stolen documents, that's theft and b&e and all that. But someone obv gave them the testimonies, they're journalists following a story, the constitution guarantees freedom of the press, there are many rulings that support journalists' rights to protect sources, that's it for me.

Plus it's not like they leaked dangerous info that cost people their lives or livelihoods, like for example the name of a covert CIA agent or anything.

Hypothetically: What if (corrupt) government agents leaked the sealed grand jury testimony to the journalists?

And if then the journalists cough up the names of the agents?

Wouldn't that actually be preventing the government from controlling the media?

[xpost]

Government agents, whether they are corrupt or not, did not FORCE the journalists to publish anything, so "controlling the media" is not applicable. (Your whole implied scenario is pretty Grishamesque; it'd make a great movie starring Josh Hartnett, Brittany Murphy, and Jamie Foxx.)

My problem here is that federal prosecutors are trying to FORCE the journalists to reveal confidential sources, which I do not feel they should have to do. That is where the "control" comes in.

This is a joke, right?

I'm on VPN for another hour, so i can't but just google "iran white jeff nowitzky balco playboy"

The leaks were plants, that Nowitzky AND the two journalists were all in on the book deal (Game Of Shadows) and Nowitzky gets "even" with Bonds for showing him up.

Anderson was granted immunity for his cooperation with the initial probe. That immunity has been suspended and Anderson is back in prison for the third time.

Maybe he did do it to get even (if he even did it) or maybe he did it because he didn't think they were going to be able to win in court, but he wanted to get it out there anyway--that's pretty much as old as time itself, but really so what? Why should anyone care?

HIS IMMUNITY WAS SUSPENDED BECAUSE HE STOPPED CO-OPERATING, YA DOPE! If he was still helping the government, then he would still be immune.

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I can't speak for Steve, but *my* point is that the journalists knew they were involved in breaking the law by obtaining sealed grand jury testimony (through whatever means) and publishing articles about the information contained within. The fact that it didn't mean the difference between life and death for anyone is irrelevant -- it's a crime, it carries a penalty, end of story. Perjury (i.e. Bonds, maybe) isn't a life or death matter either.

They didn't cost anybody their livelihood, true, but they were lucky not to do so. The Yankees surely would have terminated Giambi's contract two springs ago if they'd been able to do it, and if baseball contracts weren't ironclad tight then I'm sure he wouldn't have been the only one to lose his job.

http://www.playboy.com/magazine/big_guy/

They aren't going to jail for leaking the testimony!

No they are TAKING A FALL for refusing to compromise on releasing the name of the sources who leaked the testimony to them. A stand which I (and anyone who respects the press right to report on a subject confidentially) don't generally have a problem with.

However, Fainaru-Wada and Williams are asking for exactly what they refused the witnesses to the grand jury. When the men and women were ushered into the room to testify, they did so knowing that the testimony they provided would be sealed, heard and read only by the people in that room. The principle of the sanctity of grand-jury testimony enables the judicial system to prosecute crimes using the exact same tool--the promise of confidentiality--that Fainaru-Wada and Williams used in obtaining the information and publishing it.

Fainaru-Wada and Williams showed no concern for confidentiality when they wrote front-page articles using the testimony, signed contracts to write a book based on it, made the rounds of talk shows promoting it, and, I'd imagine, when they spend the money they made off of it. Principles have only come into play now that they’re the ones being asked questions in a courtroom.

Again, we've been over this, but you're assuming Bonds' (and others') guilt (Giambi is different, he confessed to starting using steroids post-2001, which is bullshit in all likelihood and yet nobody wants to charge him with perjury, unlike Bonds, but whatever) by trying him in the not-so-respected Court of Public Opinion instead of the actual courts. The whole point of keeping testimony secret is to gather information and not ruin lives or careers before enough evidence can be gathered to charge someone with an actual crime. That's not so much to ask, since the entire process takes considerably less time than "forever", as you put it. It's not to much to ask to let the legal system do its work, rather than creating a media circus that *obstructs* this process.

And why does it matter than testimony has leaked before? Does this make it less illegal? To turn this argument around, this particular Grand Jury trial has gotten more attention than 99.99% of all other Grand Jury trials, and will have significant impact on multi-$B industries, so if the leakers and journalists involved couldn't anticipate the current shitstorm, then fuck 'em for being so dumb.