WASHINGTON, Feb 15 (AFP) - A US appeals court ruled Tuesday that two reporters should be jailed for refusing to name their confidential sources to a federal grand jury probing the leak of a covert CIA agent's identity.
The three-judge panel upheld a lower court decision that New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Time magazine correspondent Matthew Cooper were guilty of contempt of court for refusing to testify before the grand jury.
"I have to be willing to go to prison," Millers told CNN.
"I think the principles at stake in this case are so important to the functioning of a free press and to the confidentiality of sources that I just have to be willing to do that," she told the network.
"There is no First Amendment privilege protecting the evidence sought," Judge Davis Sentelle said in the written court opinion.
Each journalist faces up to 18 months in jail. Their lawyers said they would continue to appeal the decision, if necessary all the way to the Supreme Court.
The First Amendment to the US Constitution protects journalists from government interference in their work.
But Tuesday's decision cited a 1972 Supreme Court ruling that protection does not apply to reporters whose testimony is essential in criminal cases, even if a source was promised anonymity.
Miller, Cooper and other reporters had been subpoenaed by US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor investigating the potentially illegal disclosure of the identity of undercover CIA official Valerie Plame.
Plame is the wife of former ambassador Joseph Wilson. Her name was published in July 2003 by conservative newspaper columnist Robert Novak, who cited two "senior administration officials" as his sources. Novak has not revealed anything about a possible case against him.
US federal law makes it a crime to divulge the name of an undercover officer intentionally.
While Miller never wrote about the Plame affair, she had conducted interviews with a view to doing an article.
Cooper wrote an article on the Time website questioning why the administration had revealed Plame's identity.
New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. said Tuesday that the newspaper was "deeply dismayed" at the appeals court ruling.
"If Judy is sent to jail for not revealing her confidential sources for an article that was never published, it would create a dangerous precedent that would erode the freedom of the press," Sulzberger said in a statement.
"The Times will continue to fight for the ability of journalists to provide the people of this nation with the essential information they need to evaluate issues affecting our country and the world," he added.
Time Inc. editor in chief Norman Pearlstine said the right to protect confidential sources was "fundamental" to journalism.
"In the United States, no journalist should have to go to jail simply for doing his or her job," he added.
Laws in 31 US states allow reporters to keep their sources confidential.
Paris-based Reporters Without Borders also criticised the ruling for eroding the right of Americans to be informed.
"The role of the press in providing checks and balances is under fire this time, and the US courts must understand that," the organisation said. "If the confidentiality of journalists sources is not guaranteed, no one will go to them with sensitive information."
02/15/2005 23:53 GMT - AFP