When does jail time start? I hope he isn't getting an ankle bracelet and a call in schedule.

What bothers me most after the fact of causing increased danger to millions attending the Olympics, is the fact they tried to set up President Obama as a dishonest man.

This was a leak intended to destroy President Obama's reputation. It had nothing to do with integrity of journalism. It is about the lousiest stunt I have witnessed by the New York Times.

The 'idea' Mr. Risen put forward in willing disclosure was that President Obama was hiding his record from the people at the time of an election.

Mr. Risen is either dimwitted, pressured or disdains the President or any combination, because, President Obama could no more disclose the activities in this article than he could circle the moon while riding the cow that was jumping over it. President Obama, if he disclosed the information, would be compromising national security and the lives of millions attending the Olympics. So, Mr. Risen did President Obama a favor by disclosing in a way that would make him look like a dishonest man only to have him refute the same. 

Two men made the same decision. President Obama and Mr. Risen has the information to disclosure a CIA operation that found a threat to airline safety. The disclosure would result in outing a valuable CIA Agent. One made the correct decision in opting for silence and the safety of millions while the other played politics with lives hanging in the balance. THE TRUTH seems obvious to me. President Obama was not dishonest or hiding anything, he simply was the President. Why didn't Mr. Risen come to the same conclusion?

I find Mr. Risen's article, the willingness to print it and now to defend it more than reprehensible. Mr. Risen needs to do another disclosure and out a CIA agent that started this entire disaster, only this time the DOJ doesn't have to make it public.

I sincerely hope the profession of journalism is not shedding tears over this one. This is terrible journalism cloaked in martyrdom.

July 19, 2013
Charlie Savage

WASHINGTON — In a major ruling (click here) on press freedoms, a divided federal appeals court on Friday ruled that James Risen, an author and a reporter for The New York Times, must testify in the criminal trial of a former Central Intelligence Agency official charged with providing him with classified information.

In a 118-page set of opinions, two members of a three-judge panel for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va., ruled that the First Amendment does not protect reporters who receive unauthorized leaks from being forced to testify against the people suspected of leaking to them. A district court judge who had ruled in Mr. Risen’s case had said that it did. 

“Clearly, Risen’s direct, firsthand account of the criminal conduct indicted by the grand jury cannot be obtained by alternative means, as Risen is without dispute the only witness who can offer this critical testimony,” wrote Chief Judge William Byrd Traxler Jr., who was joined by Judge Albert Diaz in Friday’s ruling. 

Mr. Risen has vowed to go to prison rather than testify about his sources and to carry any appeal as far as the Supreme Court. But some legal specialists said an appeal to the full appeals court was a likely first step. Mr. Risen referred a request to comment to his lawyer, Joel Kurtzberg, who wrote in an e-mail: “We are disappointed by and disagree with the court’s decision. We are currently evaluating our next steps."...