york times writer and author of the book state of war was subpoenaed to testify at the trial of jeffrey sterling former central intelligence agency officer sterling was indicted in late two thousand and ten on ten felony charges relating to alleged disclosures to rise and for his book state of war i think accused of leaking information about the u.s. efforts to sabotage the iranian nuclear program something which almost seems quite now we have presidential candidates openly calling for offing iranian nuclear scientists now rising was quote commanded to testify and the prosecution described him as an eye witness to serious crimes the crime being the leak of national security secrets now in july u.s. district court judge ruled that the new york times reporter did not identify his sources during the trial that cia officer jeffrey sterling and the government isn't taking no for an answer they've now formally appealed that decision so now in response a coalition of twenty nine news organizations including the new york times the a.p. newsweek am bloomberg are all coming to rise and surfactants they fi

cia officer jeffrey sterling but the government isn't taking no for an answer they've now formally appealed that decision so now in response a coalition of twenty nine news organizations including the new york times the a.p. newsweek and bloomberg are all coming to rise as defense they filed an abacus brief yesterday the asks the u.s. court of appeals for the fourth circuit to conclude that a so-called reporter's privilege applies to rise in and rule. the government of the brief points out that countless major news stories were broken in the past several decades as a result of leaks from the pentagon papers to the abuses at abu ghraib so that's a move that i think we need to applaud because journalists have to stick together they have to defend each other fight for their rights if they want to be able to keep the public informed without fearing government backlash but even here we have to remember that there's obviously some picking and choosing going on this is after all the same new york times that used leaks from wiki leaks and it later turned against them but at the obama administration