A petition with over 100,000 signatures backing Pulitzer-winning journalist James Risen was handed to the Department of Justice in Washington, urging an end to legal action against him for refusing to reveal a source about a CIA operation in Iran.
The petition demands that the US government not pursue an “illegal case” against Risen, an author and two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter, as his supporters believe that it will be in violation of his First Amendment freedom of speech rights. The appeal was put together by Roots Action. The petition handed in to the DoJ contained 4,000 pages of signatures and was decked out in red, white and blue ribbons.