Exclusive Glenn Greenwald Interview: "I Won't Be Kept Out of My
Country for Doing Journalism!"
Monday, 26 August 2013 10:14
By Jonathan Franklin, Truthout | Interview
<http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/18402-i-wont-be-kept-out-of-my-country-for-doing-journalism-exclusive-glenn-greenwald-truthout-interview>
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<http://www.theguardian.com/law/2013/aug/27/obama-administration-james-risen-no-privilege>
Obama administration asks court to force NYT reporter to reveal source
Previous ruling said reporters have no privilege to safeguard
confidentiality leaving Risen to reveal his source or go to jail
Ed Pilkington in New York
theguardian.com, Tuesday 27 August 2013
The Obama administration is trying to dissuade federal judges from
giving the New York Times reporter James Risen one last chance to
avoid having to disclose his source in a criminal trial over the
alleged leaking of US state secrets.
The Department of Justice has filed a legal argument with the US
appeals court for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Virginia, in which
it strongly opposes any further consideration of Risen's petition.
Risen's lawyers have asked the court to convene a full session of the
15-member court to decide whether the journalist should be granted
First Amendment protection that would spare him from having to reveal
the identity of his source to whom he promised confidentiality.
A three-member panel of the same court last month issued a 2-1
majority ruling in which they found that reporters had no privilege
that would safeguard the confidentiality of their sources in a
criminal trial. The judgement leaves Risen, a prominent investigative
reporter specialising in national security issues, facing the
prospect of having to break his promise to his source or go to jail.
The legal crunch emerged from Risen's 2006 book, State of War, in
which the author reveals details of the CIA's attempts to foil Iran's
nuclear programme. James Sterling, a former CIA employee, is being
prosecuted under the Espionage Act for the criminal disclosure of the
information - one of seven officials to face the severe charges under
the Obama administration including Chelsea Manning who has been
sentenced to 35 years in military jail as the WikiLeaks source.
In a 26-page filing, the US prosecutor Neil Macbride and his team
argue that Risen has no grounds to be offered a full hearing of the
appeals court because there is no such thing as a reporters'
privilege in a criminal trial. They insist that the New York Times
journalist was the only eyewitness to the leaking crimes of which
Sterling has been charged and under previous case law has no right to
claim First Amendment protection.
"Risen's eyewitness testimony is essential proof of the disputed
identity of the perpetrator that cannot be duplicated or replaced by
other evidence in the case," MacBride writes.
The DoJ's robust attempt to block any further legal discussion about
Risen's plight will add to the impression that the Obama
administration is determined to stamp on official leaking regardless
of its implications for press freedom - a syndrome that some critics
have dubbed a "war on whistleblowing". Risen's lawyers argue that the
hardline approach conflicts with the Justice Department's own recent
guidelines in which it talks of a need for balance between pursuing
leakers while "safeguarding the essential role of a free press in
fostering government accountability in an open society".
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