Federal Judge Orders Reporter to Divulge Confidential Sources

A federal judge in California who has ordered a prominent reporter to divulge his confidential sources for an article about a spying investigation is now planning unusual and potentially open-ended questioning of the journalist's reporting techniques, prompting concern from First Amendment advocates.

In May, Judge Cormac Carney, who sits in Orange County, ordered a national security reporter for the Washington Times, William Gertz, to appear in court and identify his sources for an article about planned charges in a case involving suspected espionage on behalf of China. The judge said the articles appeared to disclose secret grand jury information.

Lawyers for Mr. Gertz moved to quash the subpoena, arguing that no protected grand jury information was disclosed and that forcing the reporter to give up his sources could interfere with his ability to gather news. In response, Judge Carney said he plans to go forward with the hearing next week and wants to hear directly from the journalist about why confidential sources are essential to his reporting.

"The Court gathers from Mr. Gertz's brief in support of his motion to quash that he may be unwilling to disclose the identity of the source(s)," the judge wrote in an order filed Monday. "Regardless of whether Mr. Gertz discloses his sources, the Court expects that Mr. Gertz will be prepared to testify regarding the newsworthiness of this case and, more particularly, the reasons why maintaining the confidentiality of his sources is critical to his ability to engage in investigative reporting."

A lawyer for Mr. Gertz, Charles Leeper, said the reporter would appear at next week's hearing. The attorney said he was not concerned that the judge's inquiry would become a free-ranging exploration of the techniques employed by Mr. Gertz, a journalist who has made a specialty of obtaining and publishing classified information. "I can't imagine the judge has that in mind," Mr. Leeper said.

Other advocates for journalists were less sanguine. "It is very, very troubling," the executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Lucy Dalglish, said. She said journalists often submit affidavits about their work, but are rarely subjected to live questioning by a judge about amorphous concepts such as newsworthiness.