Native of Sanbornton interviewed soldier
Concord Monitor
January 4, 2007

By KATE DAVIDSON
Monitor staff

A Sanbornton native has found herself among dozens of journalists facing court subpoenas that would force them to testify about conversations with sources, a movement that threatens the rights of reporters across the country, press advocates say.

Sarah Olson, now a freelance journalist and radio producer in San Francisco, gained widespread attention for an interview she conducted last May with the first Army soldier to publicly refuse his Iraq deployment orders. As that soldier faces a court-martial for his refusal to go to Iraq, Olson may be forced to testify about her conversations with him or go to jail for six months and pay a $500 fine.

Although Olson has declined to say whether or not she will testify, she has spoken out over the past few weeks about her objection to the subpoena and has gained support from journalism-rights groups. A judge ruled she did not have to testify at a pretrial hearing today at Fort Lewis - the Washington state Army base where the soldier is stationed - but she is still a potential witness for the February court-martial.

"I hope that they can find some way to leave me out of it, and I'm hoping that I won't have to make a decision as to whether or not I have to testify," Olson said.

The Army has charged First Lieutenant Ehren Watada with four counts of conduct unbecoming an officer, a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. At least two of those counts are based on comments Watada made during the interview with Olson, which she recorded at an Oakland studio last May. The transcript was posted on the independent news website, Truthout.org, and Olson also produced several radio pieces based on that interview.

Watada joined the military after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. When he returned from his first duty assignment in South Korea and found out he would be deployed to Iraq, Watada said he began to educate himself about the war. What he discovered was disturbing, he said.

"As I read about the level of deception the Bush administration used to initiate and process this war, I was shocked," Watada told Olson. "I became ashamed of wearing the uniform. How can we wear something with such a time-honored tradition, knowing we waged war based on a misrepresentation and lies?"

Watada told his commander last January that he would refuse the deployment order and went public with his decision June 7.

The "charge sheet" outlining Watada's alleged offenses said those comments, and others made at public appearances in June and August, dishonored the Armed Forces.

The charges are based solely on Watada's political speech about his opposition to the war, Honolulu attorney Eric Seitz said yesterday. Seitz is representing Watada at his pre-trial hearing today, and will ask the judge to dismiss all charges, a move that could eliminate the need for Olson's testimony.

"Our position is that the charges should not be brought, that the statements are protected by the First Amendment and that they should not be subject to any kind of disciplinary action," he said.

"If they want to pursue this charge so badly that they want to pit themselves against reporters," Seitz added, "we think that's kind of a statement in and of itself as to how seriously they view this as an effort to prevent people from making the kinds of statements that my client is making."

The subpoena threatens to erode the necessary barrier between the press and government, Olson said, and could discourage dissenting voices from speaking to reporters, either anonymously or with full disclosure, as is the case with Ehren Watada.

"You literally have a person facing four years in prison just for saying that the Iraq war is illegal, and obviously that would never happen in a civilian court," Olson said, citing military rules that restrict some civil rights of its members. "But when you haul a journalist in front of a court and make that journalist basically provide the evidence in a prosecution of speech, it really stifles . . . the notion of a free press."

In order to introduce Watada's comments as evidence, the Army must authenticate what Olson wrote through her testimony, she said. A copy of the news article or transcript of the interview is not admissible on its own.

But without the testimony, the Army may not have much of a case, according to Lucy Dalglish, the executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

Reporters are often asked to verify the accuracy of a story by testifying, and many of them do it - absent the involvement of a confidential source - because fighting the subpoena would be too expensive and time-consuming, Dalglish said.

What makes this situation unusual is that this is a military proceeding, which is not governed by federal court rules and is not subject to guidelines set forth by the attorney general's office, Dalglish said.

"They can pretty much do what they want and any case law built up that might back up a reporter in this case would not exist," she said. "The other thing that is highly unusual about this case is that, absent these stories, I don't think they'd have a case against the guy."

Several reporters have been issued subpoenas by the military in recent years, but Dalglish said this is the only one she can recall in which speech was the crime.

Although Olson's testimony would not have an immediate devastating effect on press freedom, Dalglish said it sends the message that reporters can be forced to testify against sources.

"The public has a much better chance of truthful information getting out to the public if sources have the confidence that reporters will no be turned into witnesses against them," she said.

Olson graduated from Sant Bani School in Sanbornton in 1993, and received her bachelor's degree in women's studies from Simmons College in Boston. She moved to the San Francisco Bay area and began freelancing in radio and print journalism, and in 2003 she started writing about conscientious objectors and other war protesters.

Her mother, Colleen Olson, said her daughter grew up emulating journalists like New Hampshire Public Radio's Laura Knoy, and Terry Gross, the host of National Public Radio's Fresh Air program.

Colleen Olson said she was both proud of her daughter and terrified at the prospect of jail time.

"It's going to be very difficult for her father and I should this develop into something awful, but we support her 100 percent," Colleen Olson said. "Her lawyer is top-notch, and it's amazed me all the people that have come out of the woodwork to support her and to support the Lt. Watada case."

Watada's court-martial is scheduled for Feb. 5. The government is flying Olson to Fort Lewis, Wash., from San Francisco to testify. She could not discuss her legal strategy but hopes the military will be able to secure whatever evidence they need without calling her to the stand.

"I feel like they're putting me in a position where I'm having to weigh my journalistic ethics versus my freedom," she said. "As melodramatic as that sounds, that's really where it's at. That's a position I don't like being in."