By host Tom Ashbrook:

Talk about a tangled web. The President of the United States ordered unprecedented domestic spying on Americans, without warrants, to meet what was seen as a terrible threat. Many believe that act was illegal, even unconstitutional. But it was classified, and someone leaked it to the New York Times.

Now Bush’s Department of Justice is investigating that leak looking for a leaker or whistleblower, depending on how you see it. It could mean leakers and reporters in jail — and a free press on trial — even as the White House itself is called on the carpet for potential lawbreaking.

Hear about the criminal probe to punish exposure of domestic spying and the high-stakes standoff in Washington.

Guests:

Victoria Toensing, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the U.S. Justice Department’s Terrorism Unit (1984 -1988) and founding partner, diGenova and Toensing

Geoffrey Stone, Professor at the University of Chicago Law School, author of “Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime: From the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism”

Orville Schell, Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley

Jim Goodale, General Counsel to The New York Times during the Pentagon Papers case