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I was expecting a lively exchange when Mike Gallagher invited me to debate the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter James Risen on his “No Interruptions” podcast last week. Instead, I was gobsmacked as the former New York Times reporter abruptly hung up the phone after some 15 minutes. [.....] Risen’s breaking point came when I questioned his reporting on Hunter's foreign business dealings. Before we get to that, Risen, who now reports for The Intercept, does deserve some backhanded praise: In the few minutes he spoke on Mike Gallagher’s podcast, Risen delivered a master class in concision, echoing most every major talking...

by Mark Finkelstein January 3, 2006 - 07:58 Katie Couric's just-completed interview with NY Times Reporter James Risen, who broke the NSA surveillance story and is now publishing his book on the matter, 'State of War,' offered a treasure-trove of insights into the matter. And give Katie a gentlelady's 'C' for her questioning. Couric earned the bulk of her credit by posing this seminal line of questioning: "Did [the leakers] have any sympathy or understanding about this new climate this country finds itself in and the criticism the Bush administration took prior to 9/11 for not putting the pieces together...

VIDEO If a law firm is representing at least two supposed whistleblowers, why would they have the whistleblower with only second hand information come out first versus the supposed whistleblower who claimed to have first hand information? This video examines the ABSURD dynamics of this situation. A situation in which serial whistleblowers who are all intelligence officials are blowing the whistle on something OUTSIDE their own department. When has this ever happened before?

If Donald J. Trump decides as president to throw a whistle-blower in jail for trying to talk to a reporter, or gets the F.B.I. to spy on a journalist, he will have one man to thank for bequeathing him such expansive power: Barack Obama. Mr. Trump made his animus toward the news media clear during the presidential campaign, often expressing his disgust with coverage through Twitter or in diatribes at rallies. So if his campaign is any guide, Mr. Trump seems likely to enthusiastically embrace the aggressive crackdown on journalists and whistle-blowers that is an important yet little understood component...

It was never a question of "if." It was always a matter of "when." The seizure of a New York Times reporter's phone and email records has sent a chill down the spine of every reporter concerned about protecting his or her sources. That means every serious reporter — especially those in Washington who report on politics and national security. It is disturbing because reporters need to be able to do their jobs, unfettered. But absolutely no one should be surprised. First off, the Trump administration has been all too clear about its scorn for established press rights — with...

The seizure of a New York Times reporter's email and phone records was not mentioned in a Justice Department letter addressing its use of law enforcement tools to collect journalists' communications. The letter, dated March 5, came in response to an October 2017 request by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) for the Justice Department to disclose how many times in the past five years it had used such tools. The response from Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd listed only two instances spanning from "January 2012 to the present:" one that seemed to refer to subpoenaed phone records from Associated Press reporters...

SAN FRANCISCO -- After years of wrangling over legal procedures, the lawyer for a defunct Islamic charity laid out his case Wednesday that former President George W. Bush's secret wiretapping program was illegal - an argument that an Obama administration attorney refused to discuss. "May the president of the United States break the law in the name of national security? ... We're asking this court to say, 'no,' " Jon Eisenberg, lawyer for the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, told a federal judge in San Francisco. Neither the president's constitutional powers as commander in chief nor Congress' authorization to use military force...

Meanwhile, There's A War On by John HinderakerWe noted here the mysteriously under-covered story of the three would-be terrorists who were arrested in Italy after vowing to launch an attack on America that would dwarf September 11. A reader sent us a link to this article, which has more: The mainstream U.S. media outlets have failed to report a major terrorist plot against the U.S. - because it would tend to support President Bush's use of NSA domestic surveillance, according to media watchdog groups. News of a planned attack masterminded by three Algerians operating out of Italy was widely...

For years Americans' right to privacy, as granted by the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, has come under threat as the country's surveillance systems have grown. After intelligence leaks by former National Security Agency employee Edward Snowden, however, the NSA's domestic dragnet is finally getting the attention that many people feel it deserves.

Seeing as how today’s edition of Reliable Sources was devoted to the Obama administration’s 8-year relationship with the press, it only made sense for Brian Stelter to speak with one of the White House’s chief press critics. You may remember the years-long legal battle journalist James Risen underwent in which the government was pressuring him to identify his confidential sources in a leak case. The case was finally resolved two years ago, but Risen has been on record saying the Obama White House has been “the greatest enemy of press freedom that we have encountered in at least a generation.”

Last night, radio talk show host and former US Justice Department official Mark Levin shocked many listeners when he reported that President Bill Clinton gave nuclear technology to the Iranians in a harebrained scheme. He said that the transfer of classified data to Iran was personally approved by then-President Clinton and that the CIA deliberately gave Iranian physicists blueprints for part of a nuclear bomb that likely helped Tehran advance its nuclear weapons development program. The CIA, using a double-agent Russian scientist, handed a blueprint for a nuclear bomb to Iran, according to a new book "State of War" by...

   MEDIA: HALLIBURTON PAID DICK CHENEY TO COMMIT RAPE IN IRAN August 3, 2011A front-page story by James Risen in The New York Times on Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2008, reported on a "troubling trend" of sexual assaults committed by American employees of military contractors in Iraq. The centerpiece of his story was Jamie Leigh Jones, who claimed to have been brutally gang-raped in 2005 while working in the Green Zone. (Risen also interviewed other women claiming to have been sexually assaulted in Iraq and -- for journalistic balance -- their attorneys.) Jones famously claimed that days after arriving in Iraq...

Hillary Clinton's close adviser Sidney Blumenthal did not personally author or verify any of the memos he sent her about Libya or the Benghazi siege, according to the head of a House panel investigating the 2012 attacks. "What we learned today is he’s not the author of a single one of those memos. He was passing on information authored by someone else and he has no idea about the credibility or reliability of any of the sources," House Select Committee on Benghazi Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) told reporters on Tuesday. "So, the information passed on to the secretary of State,...

A former CIA officer has been sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison for leaking details of a secret mission to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Jeffrey Sterling of O’Fallon, Missouri, was facing a recommended sentence of 20 years or more under federal sentencing guidelines for violations of the Espionage Act. …

<p>WHEN: Monday, July 3 at 12 p.m.</p> <p>WHERE: 1627 I Street NW, Washington, D.C.</p> <p>The D.C. Chapter of FreeRepublic.com, an independent grassroots conservative organization, and Accuracy in Media (AIM) will hold a demonstration at noon, Monday, July 3, at the Washington, D.C., bureau of The New York Times, 1627 I St., NW, to call for the prosecution of New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., Executive Editor Bill Keller and reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau for giving aid and comfort to al Qaeda by publishing stories exposing national security intelligence programs.</p>

Bill Maher is throwing some shade on President Obama's credentials as a supposed champion of freedom of the press. The host of HBO's "Real Time" sat down Friday to discuss media coverage of secret government work with documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras, one of the journalists centrally involved in bringing revelations from former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden to light. "I don't understand why he is perhaps the worst president we've had on clamping down on the press," Maher said. "He's used the Espionage Act more than any other president, right?" Maher added. Other members of the media have blasted...

Risen: No, they haven't printed it, but again, I don't want to get into The New York Times, one way or the other. Mitchell: But did you have concerns about putting it into your book? Risen: I thought about it, you know. I thought about everything. one way or the other, but I thought that this story was so old, that it no longer really mattered. As I said, goes back to the Clinton years. Mitchell: How do you balance your own role finally? You've broken some major stories here, and critics, the administration will say that it compromises American...

Last night John rendered his "Verdict: The New York Times blew the story." The "story" was the testimony of five federal judges -- Magistrate Judge Allan Kornblum and four former FISA court judges -- on Senator Specter's proposed revision of the FISA statute. According to yesterday's New York Times story by Eric Lichtblau: In a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the secretive court, known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, several former judges who served on the panel...voiced skepticism at a Senate hearing about the president's constitutional authority to order wiretapping on Americans without a court order. They...

Are the NYT's and James Risen at fault here? Investigators of the failed car bombing in Times Square are looking for a money courier they say helped funnel cash from overseas to finance a Pakistani-American's preparations to blow up the crude gasoline-and-propane bomb in the heart of New York, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. Investigators have the name of the courier they believe helped Faisal Shahzad pay for the used SUV and other materials to rig up a car bomb that would have caused a huge fireball in Times Square if it had gone off, the official...

Eric Lichtblau, one of two New York Times' reporters who broke today's story of a secret government monitoring of private banking records - which the Bush Administration sought to block - said the White House arguments to halt the story were not as strong as those that had kept a previous report on secret wiretapping out of the paper for a year. "They were similar in terms of the objections raised not to publish," Lichtblau told E&P today. "That the bad guys knew we were listening to them, but they don't know exactly how." But he said the objections "did...