A New York Timesreporter is spending her first night in prison for refusing to identify a source to a grand jury.
Ms Judith Miller was jailed yesterday after she refused to divulge a confidential source to a grand jury investigating the Bush administration's leak of an undercover CIA operative's name.
"I do not view myself as above the law," Ms Miller told US District Judge Thomas Hogan. "You are right to send me to prison."
But she said she had an obligation to protect a confidential source: "I do not make confidentiality pledges lightly, but when I do I must honor them."
Judge Hogan was adamant that Ms Miller comply with the court's order to testify. "If she [Ms Miller] was given a pass on this, the next person who comes up might refuse to cooperate as well, he said. "There is still a realistic possibility that confinement might cause her to testify."
Another reporter, Matthew Cooper of Timemagazine, agreed to talk and avoided jail.
Mr Cooper agreed to cooperate with prosecutors after disclosing that his source had given him permission to do so hours earlier. The about-face came after nearly two years of refusals to disclose the information.
Judge Hogan held the reporters in civil contempt of court in October, rejecting their argument that the First Amendment shielded them from revealing their sources. Last month the Supreme Court refused to intervene.
Ms Miller will be jailed until the grand jury ends its work in October. Judge Hogan speculated her confinement might cause her source to give her a more specific waiver of confidentiality, as Mr Cooper's source had.