Wen Ho Lee, the scientist whom the FBI accused of giving nuclear secrets to China, has agreed to a settlement of his invasion of privacy lawsuit. The amount is more than $1.6 million.
In the suit, Dr. Lee claimed the government violated privacy laws by telling reporters about his employment history, finances, travels and polygraph tests.
Five reporters had been held in contempt of court in the case and ordered to pay fines of $500 a day for refusing to disclose the identities of their sources.
Though the reporters were not defendants in the privacy suit, the settlement included a $750,000 contribution from their employers. Specialists in media law said that such a payment by news organizations to avoid a contempt sanction is almost certainly unprecedented. Some said it was troubling.
In a joint statement, the five news organizations — The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Associated Press, The Washington Post and ABC — said they made the payment reluctantly.
"We did so," the news organizations explained, "to protect our confidential sources, to protect our journalists from further sanction and possible imprisonment, and to protect our news organizations from potential exposure."
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