To the Editor:

Re “Why The Times Published Details of the Whistle-Blower’s Identity” (Reader Center, nytimes.com, Sept. 26):

I was appalled by The Times’s decision to publish crucial details about the patriotic whistle-blower who outed the Trump corruption.

The whistle-blower had already been vetted by the intelligence community’s inspector general, as had the content of the complaint, within the structure of a policy that ensures confidentiality.

By lighting the path to the person’s identity, you have not only put that person’s career, life and, perhaps, family in danger, but also given yet another reason no one in his or her right mind should come forward to expose government wrongdoing. He or she might want to do the right thing, but not at the severe cost that public exposure entails.

I fully understand the desire for the big scoop. It drives all journalists and editors. Yet as I read the excellent “She Said,” by your reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, I was struck by how well they and their editors also understood the need to protect people who did not want to subject themselves to personal and professional attacks. Your editors and reporters should have exercised the same restraint here.