Reporters' sources have occasionally been exposed and punished.
It is vital that documentation of reporters' sources remain.
Coats said the hunt for reporters' sources would go well beyond the intelligence agencies.
Subpoenas seeking reporters' sources are on the rise, according to experts in news media law.
On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to send a bill to protect reporters' sources to the Senate floor.
WASHINGTON, Jan . 28— Jeffrey T. Kuhner, whose Web site published the first anonymous smear of the 2008 presidential race, is hardly the only editor who will not reveal his reporters' sources.
All of the security firms that Weinstein hired were also involved in trying to ferret out reporters' sources and probe their backgrounds.
In Freedom's rendition of those conversations, the reporters' sources were not named, perhaps to shield Scientologists from the shock of seeing familiar names publicly denouncing the organization.
Even more improbably, the administration has put its weight behind enacting a federal shield law that would offer some protection for the confidentiality of reporters' sources.
The indictment suggests the Obama administration may be no less aggressive than the Bush administration in pursuing whistleblowers and reporters' sources who disclose government secrets.
WASHINGTON — Jeffrey Kuhner, whose Web site published the first anonymous smear of the 2008 presidential race, is hardly the only editor who will not reveal his reporters' sources.
