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Hatfill Seeks Contempt Rulings Against Journalists
Two journalists should be held in contempt of court for refusing to divulge the identities of sources for stories they wrote on the investigation of the 2001 anthrax attacks, a former U.S. Army scientist once linked to the case said yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 14). Former Attorney General John Ashcroft called Steven Hatfill a “person of interest” in the mailing of spore-laden parcels that killed five people and sickened 17. However, no charges have been filed against Hatfill or anyone else in the case. Hatfill from 1997 to 1999 was a researcher at the Army’s infectious disease laboratory. He claims in a lawsuit that the Justice Department violated federal privacy law by releasing details about him to reporters, the Associated Press reported. A federal court has ordered five journalists to identify sources they used in stories on the investigation, but former USA Today reporter Toni Locy and former CBS News reporter James Stewart said would not identify all the sources. Hatfill is seeking $1,000 daily fines against the two journalists, with the amount doubling after a week and increasing by $1,000 every subsequent week that they refuse to obey the court order, AP reported. The request from his attorneys would also bar media firms from paying the penalties. Court papers do not say whether the three other journalists — Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman of Newsweek and Allan Lengel of the Washington Post — have identified their sources (Associated Press/San Luis Obispo Tribune, Oct. 2).
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