Expensive sources from Clinton administration

Washington Post:

Wen Ho Lee, the U.S. nuclear scientist once identified in news reports as the target of a spying investigation, will receive more than $1.6 million from the federal government and five media organizations, including The Washington Post, to settle allegations that government leaks violated his privacy.

The United States will pay Lee $895,000 to drop his lawsuit, filed in 1999, which alleged that officials in the Clinton administration had disclosed to the news media that he was under investigation for spying for China while working at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

In addition, the news organizations agreed to pay Lee $750,000. None of the media outlets -- which included The Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, ABC News and the Associated Press -- had been sued by Lee, and none of their reporting was directly challenged. But all five agreed to the payment out of concern that their reporters would have to give Lee the names of their government sources, as courts had ordered.

"Unfortunately, the journalists in this case . . . reluctantly concluded that the only way they could continue to protect the bond with their sources and sidestep increasing punishment, including possible jail time, was to contribute to the settlement with the government and Wen Ho Lee," said Henry Hoberman, senior vice president of ABC. "It was not a decision that any of the journalists came to easily or happily."

The media's payments, particularly in conjunction with the government's, are "exceptionally" unusual and may well be unprecedented, said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a nonprofit group that provides legal advice to reporters and media organizations.

Such a settlement, she said, potentially exposes the news media in other Privacy Act lawsuits, such as one brought by Steven J. Hatfill, a federal employee who sued the government after he was identified in news media accounts as "a person of interest" in the 2001 anthrax poisonings. "I'm very troubled by the results," Dalglish said, "but I'm not sure I could have negotiated anything better."

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One can gather from this results that Lee was either wrongly accused or that the goverment could not prove a case against him or both. It is also clear that the media recognizes that it cannot protect its sources from a court order and is willing to pay handsomely to protect the Clinton administration people that gave them faulty information. That seems to be a double whammy. Why pay to protect someone who gave you bad information? While there may be some rationale for protecting some people who gave accurate information, it seems illogical to pay for bad information. What that means is that sources who want confidentiallity have even less incentive to be truthful. They can push their hidden agenda without consequence.