Regarding the whole Novack/CIA thing.

three words.

Wen Ho Lee.

This may ultimately decide the fate of Novak's precious confidentiality.

quote:
Journalists Ordered to Give Sources to Scientist

WASHINGTON — A federal judge has ordered five journalists, including a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, to identify government sources for their articles about former nuclear weapons scientist Wen Ho Lee......
If upheld on appeal, the decision by U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson could also play into the furor surrounding allegations that the Bush administration leaked the name of a CIA operative to journalists to retaliate against her husband, a critic of the administration's Iraq policy.

The CIA employee and her husband, former State Department envoy Joseph C. Wilson IV, are considering legal action against the government, alleging that the leak invaded their privacy and caused emotional and other distress.

An attorney for the Wilsons, Christopher Wolf, said Jackson's ruling in the Lee case could strengthen the family's hand in any civil suit in trying to pinpoint the person who unmasked Wilson's wife.

"If we ever get a reporter in the witness chair under oath, and there is no other way to get the information, I think it is likely a court would order disclosure of the source," Wolf said, adding that no decision had yet been made about filing such a suit.