Libby has been charged with perjury and obstruction of justice in regard to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into the leak of the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame.

CNN has dismissed calls to fire Novak, who revealed Plame's identity in a Chicago Sun-Times column, as premature, the Post reports. "No one really knows what's going on in the investigation of the Valerie Plame incident," CNN President Jonathan Klein said. "It would be awfully presumptuous of us to take steps against a guy and his career based on second, third, fourth-hand reporting." President Bush has qualified a pledge to fire whoever leaked Plame's identity following the revelation that his chief advisor Karl Rove leaked it to Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper, Yahoo! News reports. Rove's role was revealed when Cooper testified before the grand jury and revealed his testimony in a Time column. Bush now says that he will fire the leaker if hecommitted a crime. Rove's attorney has said Rove broke no law in speaking to Cooper.

"Freedom of the press and the public's right to know are under attack," wrote the San Francisco Chronicle. A "frightening attack on press freedom," wrote the Des Moines Register. The Detroit News called her jailing "unnecessary and vindictive" and said it "strikes at the heart of the news gathering process." The San Jose Mercury News accused Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald of "excessive prosecutorial zeal." "The terrible irony is that Ms. Miller, who is accused of no crime, may be the only person who goes to jail in this tangled affair," wrote The Miami Herald. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer wondered "Does (Robert) Novak enjoy his own personal shield for being a White House toady?" "It's an ugly, squalid bit of business over a case that likely doesn't even deserve to be a 'case,'" wrote the Boston Herald.

Not all newspaper editorials were so supportive, however. The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal wrote that "If protecting the anonymity of sources is a virtue, so also is abiding by the final decisions of the courts, however misguided they may be." The (Madison, Wisc.) Capital Times called Miller "one of the worst reporters ever to write for a major American newspaper," but nontheless wrote that "the desire to punish the Bush administration, or Miller, for past wrongs cannot justify the removal of the essential right - and responsibility - of reporters to protect the identity of their confidential sources." Almost all of the editorials agreed, however, that Miller's jailing underscores the need for a federal reporter's shield law. "[T]he legal authority that Mr. Fitzgerald relies on must change," wrote The Washington Post. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinal said that "Ulitmately, the solution is a federal shield law."

"I am extremely disappointed. Journalists simply cannot do their jobs without being able to commit to sources that they won't be identified," Miller said in a statement. She has also launched a Website, judithmiller.org, to call attention to the case. "The government had every right to investigate whether a crime might have been committed ... But in the process, it did more harm than good when the prosecutor inexplicable switched gears and began threatening to punish Ms. Miller and Mr. Cooper for declining to reveal whom they had spoken to in confidence about the Plame case," The New York Times wrote in an editorial. Wilson blames a lack of cooperation by the White House. "That two reporters may now have to go to jail is a direct consequence of President Bush's refusal to hold his administration accountable," he told Editor & Publisher. In an editorial, The Orange County Register wrote that the court's decsion not to hear the case makes it more urgent for Congress to pass a federal reporter's shield law. The Los Angeles Times however, editorialized that reporters should not have an absolute privilege to refuse to testify, and that the solution is for Novak or the leaker to come forward, or for Fitzgerald to drop the investigation.

"It is clear that a primary obstacle to the ... investigation is uncovering a precise chronology of when, and to whom, classified information was leaked," Conyers told E&P. "The revelation by Editor & Publisher that Mr. Guckert kept contemporaneous records of his 'reporting' activities could well be a major step forward in developing such a chronology."

Noting that Guckert may be writing a book based on his notes, Conyers and Slaughter wrote to Fitzgerald, "It would be unfortunate if Mr. Guckert published information that would be useful to your investigation, such as the identity of the person who gave him the memo, without your office having the benefit of its contents." In an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper, Guckert denied having access to the White House memo, which he mentioned in an interview with Plame's husband Joseph Wilson, saying that he read about the memo in The Wall Street Journal.

"This is what happens when liberals let their partisan disdain for a President obscure their interest in larger principles," the Journal wrote. "The idea that there might be some First Amendment equities at stake was overlooked amid the partisan frenzy, and in any case Mr. Novak was expendable because he was a conservative."

According to the Journal, the leak of Plame's identity was almost certainly not a crime, and was the fault of her husband, Joseph Wilson, not the "senior administration officials" cited by columnist Robert Novak when he first reported her identity. The Journal also criticized recent attempts to enact a federal reporter's shield law, writing that "The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press wants to protect not just reporters from established news organizations but everyone who writes anything, which means that almost anyone with a laptop and a Web site could claim to be protected from having to provide grand jury testimony. This Congress will never pass such an expansive shield, and we aren't sure it should." The Reporters Committee actually supports a shield law that protects all journalists, but not anyone with a computer.

According to the Times, Miller and Cooper both said that they will appeal. Miller said, "A case like mine is a warning to people not to talk because the government will come after you, and that's what we're fighting. That's what the press ought to be concentrating on: the threats to the First Amendment and the free press." Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. and Time editor-in-chief Norman Pearlstine issued statements decrying the ruling and committing further support for Miller and Cooper.

Numerous media groups, including The Washington Post , The Radio-Television News Directors Association, The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and others, said that the ruling underscores the need for a federal reporter's shield law like the bills introduced in both houses of Congress earlier this month. Columnists Jack Shafer of Slate.com and William E. Jackson, Jr. of Editor & Publisher blamed the unfavorable ruling on Miller and Cooper's attorney, Floyd Abrams questioning his reliance on a privilege based in the First Amendment.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said in a press conference that "the President has made it clear that he wants to get to the bottom of this matter, and that anyone who has information that relates to this that can help the prosecutors move forward and get to the bottom of it should provide that information to the prosecutors." When asked if President Bush believes that there is no First Amendment privilege, McClellan replied, "No, that's not what I said. I said I don't know the facts regarding the circumstances of these two reporters. That's a matter before the courts."

Excerpts from the opinion are available online from Editor & Publisher , and the full text of the opinion is available on the court's Web site.

Victoria Toensing, former chief counsel to the Senate intelligence committee and First Amendment lawyer Bruce Sanford, explain why the 1982 Intelligence Identites Protection Act may not have been violated. "Congress also did not intend for government employees to be vulnerable to prosecution for an unintentional or careless spilling of the beans about an undercover identity. A dauntingly high standard was therefore required for the prosecutor to charge the leaker," they wrote. "The special prosecutor and reporters should ask Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan, who is overseeing the grand jury, to conduct a hearing to require the CIA to identify all affirmative measures it was taking to shield Plame's identity. Before we even think about sending reporters to prison for doing their jobs, the court should determine that all the elements of a crime are present."

A transcript of Toensing and Sanford's online Q&A on their article is available on washingtonpost.com. The Wall Street Journal published another opinion column last month on this topic by Sanford and national security attorney David B. Rivkin, Jr.

On Tuesday, Times reporter Adam Liptak analyzed the government's recent plethora of subpoenas of journalists.

NBC's Tim Russert, host of "Meet the Press," was also ordered to testify in the July 20 order, which rejected Cooper and Russert's motions to quash the subpoenas requiring their testimony. According to the Times, Russert was questioned under oath by prosecutors on Saturday. In a statement, NBC said that Mr. Russert only testified about what Mr. Russert said during a conversation with Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler agreed to a similar interview with prosecutors earlier this summer.

According to The Post, lawyers involved in the case say that with Hogan's opinion, the special prosecutor "is now armed with a strong and unambiguous court ruling to demand the testimony" of columnist Robert Novak, who first disclosed Plame's identity, and Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus, who wrote that a Post reporter received information about Plame from a Bush administration official. Pincus was subpoenaed yesterday. The paper says it plans to file a motion to quash the subpoena. Click here to read Judge Hogan's Memorandum and Order.

In a statement, Kessler explains: "I face an unusual situation. Mr. Libby signed a waiver in which he asked me to discuss with the Special Counsel whether the Wilson matter was raised in two conversations that I had with him in 2003. Under these circumstances, at the request of my source, I am giving a deposition regarding these questions."

Today's New York Times reports that one set of documents that prosecutors repeatedly referred to in their meetings with White House aides are extensive notes compiled by I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff and national security adviser. Prosecutors have described the notes as "copious," the lawyers said. In addition, the prosecutors have asked about cellphone calls made last July to and from Catherine J. Martin, a press secretary for Mr. Cheney.