Decision goes against New York Times reporter in leak case

A federal court of appeals ordered New York Times reporter James Risen to testify at the trial of ex-CIA agent Jeffrey Sterling facing charges of leaking classified information in violation of the Espionage Act. Risen has said he will go to jail rather than betray the confidence of his sources. (Bloomberg News, July 19, 2013, by Tom Schoenberg)

Risen’s lawyer said the new Justice Department guidelines would exempt Risen from testifying. In a July 12 report on the guidelines, the Department said that forcing reporters to testify should be “an extraordinary measure and a “last resort.”(National Public Radio, July 18, 2013, by Carrie Johnson)

The Washington Post’s Eric Wemple, July 20, 2013, said the Risen case should wind up in the Supreme Court given that courts can’t agree on when reporters must testify in court about their sources.

The Obama administration says it did not plan to unleash such a concerted effort to prosecute leakers of classified information and claimed that Obama does not order investigations and prosecutions allowing Holder to make independent decisions. But a number of things converged to account for the heightened activity, including the overlap of investigations begun by the Bush administration, Congressional pressure to pursue leaks, and the greater ease of acquiring evidence through e-mails and other electronic media. (The New York Times, July 19, 2013, by Scott Shane and Charlie Savage)

The government may also be reacting to the facts of their leak crackdown scorecard: 150 cases and no indictments over a four year period. (The New York Times, July 20, 2013, by Sharon La Franiere with Ashley Southall)