James Risen

Battle Royale On Piers Morgan: Glenn Greenwald, James Risen And Jeffrey Toobin (Video)

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– Battle Royale on Piers Morgan: Glenn Greenwald, James Risen and Jeffrey Toobin (Liberty Blitzkrieg, Aug 3, 2013):

“That’s the thing I don’t understand about the climate in Washington these days. People want to have debates on television and elsewhere, but then you want to throw the people that start the debates in jail.”
– James Risen, New York Times Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist (he now faces jail time)

The above quote occurred during an excellent discussion between Glenn Greenwald, James Risen and Jeffrey Toobin on Piers Morgan’s show. While pretty much everyone on planet earth knows who Glenn Greenwald is at this point, most people do not know who James Risen is. This is a situation that must change. Mr. Risen is at the center of another very important case that threatens the future of freedom of the press in these United States.

In his book State of War, James Risen published information leaked to him by former CIA agent Jeffrey Sterling, who is currently being charged under the Espionage Act by President Transparency, Barrack Obama. While a lower court had previously ruled Mr. Risen should be afforded reporter privilege to not testify against Mr. Sterling, a federal appeals court last month saw it differently in a 2-1 decision.

Read moreBattle Royale On Piers Morgan: Glenn Greenwald, James Risen And Jeffrey Toobin (Video)

Investigative Journalism In America: Court Rules That Reporters Have No First Amendment Protection That Would Safeguard The Confidentiality Of Their Sources

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– H/t reader M.G.:

“On a more important issue, the courts have just denied a journalist his rights of confidentiality. Since it is a “criminal” case, no protection. What in the hell is going on here?
Why are Americans sitting on their backsides watching tabloid TV while all our rights are erased?
Found it on the Guardian (of course).”

One of many reasons why Americans are doing nothing about this is that 70% of the public drinking water is fluoridated. America has become just one big Nazi concentration camp (or Russian gulag).

“There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.”
– Aldous Huxley, 1961

Appeals court rules that reporters have no first amendment protection that would safeguard confidentiality of their sources


New York Times reporter James Risen has said in previous comments that he will rather go to prison than reveal the identity of his source. Photograph: AP

– Journalist James Risen ordered to testify in CIA leaker trial (Guardian, July 19, 2013):

A federal appeals court has delivered a blow to investigative journalism in America by ruling that reporters have no first amendment protection that would safeguard the confidentiality of their sources in the event of a criminal trial.

In a two-to-one ruling from the fourth circuit appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, two judges ruled that a New York Times reporter, James Risen, must give evidence at the criminal trial of a former CIA agent who is being prosecuted for unauthorised leaking of state secrets.

The ruling, written by chief judge William Traxler, states in stark terms that even when a reporter has promised confidentiality to a source, “there is no first amendment testimonial privilege, absolute or qualified, that protects a reporter from being compelled to testify … in criminal proceedings”.

The ruling comes at a time of increasing tension between news organisations and the US government in the context of an unparalleled clamp down by the Obama administration on official leakers. Jeffrey Sterling, the former CIA employee in whose trial Risen must now testify or face possible jail time, is the seventh former government employee to face prosecution under the stringent Espionage Act since Obama took office, alongside former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning, currently on trial for passing documents to WikiLeaks.

Read moreInvestigative Journalism In America: Court Rules That Reporters Have No First Amendment Protection That Would Safeguard The Confidentiality Of Their Sources