A salute to reporter Josh Gerstein

Journo Presses Own Suit Against Administration -- and Wins

A reporter representing himself has convinced a federal court to push the Bush adminsitration to release sensitive documents, according to the non-profit advocacy group, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP).

New York Sun reporter Josh Gerstein filed Freedom of Information Act requests back in March with a number of federal agencies, asking for information on how the administration was going after the leakers who shared with reporters information on the NSA wiretapping program and other sensitive operations. Needless to say, the bureaucracy has dragged its feet. So Gerstein gathered his papers and headed to court. And in this first round, anyway, he's won.
Gerstein is a guy we've had our eye on for some time. Readers may recall that Gerstein scooped the majors with the story that according to Scooter Libby, President Bush himself approved Libby's pre-war intelligence leaks to the New York Times. He got that "exclusive" by reading publicly-available documents that other reporters overlooked.

Gerstein also brought us the news that vice president Cheney's lawyers were employing a questionable "mosaic theory" defense as to why not a single shred of information should leave their office and enter public view.

He also was first-to-print with the claims that Jose Padilla had been forcibly administered an LSD-like hallucinogen by his military captors, which -- though outlandish -- have yet to be meaningfully refuted. About a week ago, the blog Secrecy News reported that the Navy (who is acting as Padilla's jailer) has recently tightened its regulations on how prisoners in its custody can be given drugs against their will.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002099.php

This is an interesting scoop that Gerstein reported. From TPMmuckraker article on April 17, 2006:


"[The memo] appears to offer no particular indication that Ms. Plame's role at the agency was classified or covert," wrote Sun reporter Josh Gerstein. He quotes Karl Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin:

"The fact that the whole memo was marked this way further substantiates that nobody involved in discussions of her or her role in sending Mr. Wilson had the slightest inkling she was in classified status."

Cheers!