Judge to decide if reporter must testify at trial

[xchrom]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CIA_LEAK?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-07-07-15-04-01

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) -- Lawyers for a New York Times reporter argued Thursday that the First Amendment should shield him from having to testify about his sources when prosecutors put a former CIA officer on trial for allegedly leaking classified information about Iran.

Only when a journalist's testimony is absolutely critical to a government's case can prosecutors subpoena a reporter and require him to testify about anonymous sources, said lawyer Joel Kurtzberg, who represents Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter James Risen.

"A reporter should be the last resort, if even at all, not the first resort" when the government puts on a criminal case, Kurtzberg told U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema.

Prosecutors have subpoenaed Risen to testify at the September trial of Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA officer from O'Fallon, Mo. The government alleges that Sterling was a key source for a chapter in Risen's 2006 book "State of War," which details a botched CIA effort during the Clinton administration, dubbed Operation Merlin, to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions by secretly giving the Iranians intentionally flawed blueprints through a Russian intermediary.