The Strange Case of Catherine Herridge & A Triangulation of a Civil Privacy v. The DOJ

A judge has sentenced the reporter $800/day for contempt in a Privacy Act violations case. The plot may thicken if Herridge counters with Privacy Protection Act case herself if she martials an appeal.

UPDATE 3/5/24 : “House Judiciary Committee launches probe into CBS firing, seizing files of veteran reporter covering Hunter Biden’s laptop scandal”

EDITORIAL

PRC national, Yangpin Chen married into US citizenship and went into US aerospace industry. Much later, an internal leak at the DOJ, authenticated by investigative reporter, Catherine Herridge revealed that Chen later applied for a position with China’s space program competing with the US national space program. Chen later filed civil suit against the DOJ over the leak for violation of the Privacy Act.

Federal judge, Christopher Cooper, ruled Herridge in contempt. Herridge has been sentenced 800$ a day for contempt charges, on reporting filed at FOX News pending on appeal.  She would never suffer this way unless a US privacy law had no precedence to be twisted to award monetary damage from the defendant, The DOJ.

The Department of justice has lost cases similar to Chen’s privacy claims in civil cases to awarding millions in reputation damages to other plaintiffs for violations of the Privacy Act, applicable to US citizens. However, these claims were not won without a very serious harangue to reporters held in contempt of other leaking cases.

It is unusual because it pits one privacy grieved party, exposed by the US Government against another privacy grieved party, coerced by court powers to expose protected sources as The Press.  It is suddenly a contest for legal approaches to balance two different US privacy laws: the Privacy Act of 1974 and the Privacy Protection Act.