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DOJ Secretly Obtains Months Of AP Phone Records; AP Condemns 'Unprecedented Intrusion'
AP | By By MARK SHERMAN Posted: 05/13/2013 4:20 pm EDT | Updated: 05/13/2013 6:00 pm EDT
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/13/ap-phone-records-government-intrusion-unprecedented_n_3268569.html
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news.
The records obtained by the Justice Department listed outgoing calls for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and the main number for AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP. It was not clear if the records also included incoming calls or the duration of calls.
In all, the government seized the records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown but more than 100 journalists work in the offices where phone records were targeted, on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.
In a letter of protest sent to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday, AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt said the government sought and obtained information far beyond anything that could be justified by any specific investigation. He demanded the return of the phone records and destruction of all copies.
"There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP's newsgathering operations, and disclose information about AP's activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know," Pruitt said.
The government would not say why it sought the records. U.S. officials have previously said in public testimony that the U.S. attorney in Washington is conducting a criminal investigation into who may have provided information contained in a May 7, 2012, AP story about a foiled terror plot. The story disclosed details of a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an al-Qaida plot in the spring of 2012 to detonate a bomb on an airplane bound for the United States.
In testimony in February, CIA Director John Brennan noted that the FBI had questioned him about whether he was AP's source, which he denied. He called the release of the information to the media about the terror plot an "unauthorized and dangerous disclosure of classified information."
Prosecutors have sought phone records from reporters before, but the seizure of records from such a wide array of AP offices, including general AP switchboards numbers and an office-wide shared fax line, is unusual.
In the letter notifying the AP received Friday, the Justice Department offered no explanation for the seizure, according to Pruitt's letter and attorneys for the AP. The records were presumably obtained from phone companies earlier this year although the government letter did not explain that. None of the information provided by the government to the AP suggested the actual phone conversations were monitored.
Among those whose phone numbers were obtained were five reporters and an editor who were involved in the May 7, 2012 story.
The Obama administration has aggressively investigated disclosures of classified information to the media and has brought six cases against people suspected of providing classified information, more than under all previous presidents combined.
Justice Department published rules require that subpoenas of records from news organizations must be personally approved by the attorney general but it was not known if that happened in this case. The letter notifying AP that its phone records had been obtained though subpoenas was sent Friday by Ronald Machen, the U.S. attorney in Washington.
William Miller, a spokesman for Machen, said Monday that in general the U.S. attorney follows "all applicable laws, federal regulations, and Department of Justice policies when issuing subpoenas for phone records of media organizations" but he would not address questions about the specifics of the AP records. "We do not comment on ongoing criminal investigations," Miller said in an e-mail.
The Justice Department lays out strict rules for efforts to get phone records from news organizations. A subpoena can only be considered after "all reasonable attempts" have been made to get the same information from other sources, the rules say. It was unclear what other steps, in total, the Justice Department has taken to get information in the case.
A subpoena to the media must be "as narrowly drawn as possible" and "should be directed at relevant information regarding a limited subject matter and should cover a reasonably limited time period," according to the rules.
The reason for these constraints, the department says, is to avoid actions that "might impair the news gathering function" because the government recognizes that "freedom of the press can be no broader than the freedom of reporters to investigate and report the news."
News organizations normally are notified in advance that the government wants phone records and enter into negotiations over the desired information. In this case, however, the government, in its letter to the AP, cited an exemption to those rules that holds that prior notification can be waived if such notice, in the exemption's wording, might "pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation."
It is unknown whether a judge or a grand jury signed off on the subpoenas.
The May 7, 2012, AP story that disclosed details of the CIA operation in Yemen to stop an airliner bomb plot occurred around the one-year anniversary of the May 2, 2011, killing of Osama bin Laden.
The plot was significant both because of its seriousness and also because the White House previously had told the public it had "no credible information that terrorist organizations, including al-Qaida, are plotting attacks in the U.S. to coincide with the (May 2) anniversary of bin Laden's death."
The AP delayed reporting the story at the request of government officials who said it would jeopardize national security. Once government officials said those concerns were allayed, the AP disclosed the plot because officials said it no longer endangered national security. The Obama administration, however, continued to request that the story be held until the administration could make an official announcement.
The May 7 story was written by reporters Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman with contributions from reporters Kimberly Dozier, Eileen Sullivan and Alan Fram. They and their editor, Ted Bridis, were among the journalists whose April-May 2012 phone records were seized by the government.
Brennan talked about the AP story and investigation in written testimony to the Senate. "The irresponsible and damaging leak of classified information was made ... when someone informed the Associated Press that the U.S. Government had intercepted an IED (improvised explosive device) that was supposed to be used in an attack and that the U.S. Government currently had that IED in its possession and was analyzing it," he said.
He also defended the White House's plan to discuss the plot immediately afterward. "Once someone leaked information about interdiction of the IED and that the IED was actually in our possession, it was imperative to inform the American people consistent with Government policy that there was never any danger to the American people associated with this al-Qa'ida plot," Brennan told senators.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/13/ap-phone-records-government-intrusion-unprecedented_n_3268569.html
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'UNPRECEDENTED INTRUSION': Justice Department Secretly Obtains Months Of AP Reporter Phone Records
Pamela Engel|May 13, 2013, 4:39 PM|2,963|30
Tax Fix / Flickr, CC
Don't use this.
The U.S. Justice Department has secretly obtained two months of AP reporters' phone records, and the news organization is speculating that it's tied to an investigation into how the AP found out about an al-Qaida bomb plot in Yemen.
The plot involved smuggling a bomb concealed in underwear onto a plane bound for the U.S. The AP first reported on plans for the attack, but it was later revealed that the plans involved a double agent working for a British intelligence service and the CIA.
Prosecutors seized records for incoming and outgoing calls for both work and personal numbers for reporters and general AP offices in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn. The Justice Department informed the AP of the seizure on Friday.
Although the letter did not give a reason, the AP cites the FBI's investigation into the Yemen leaks.
The AP calls this move "an unprecedented intrusion into newsgathering."
AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday, demanding the government return the phone records and destroy all copies.
He said "there can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection" of the records and that the records "potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period."
This news comes at a time when the White House is being criticized for the administration's response to the Benghazi attacks and the IRS admission that it targeted Tea Party groups for extra scrutiny.
The AP reports that "the Obama administration has ... brought six cases against people suspected of leaking classified information, more than under all previous presidents combined."
Such a broad government seizure of phone records could hurt AP reporters' relationships with confidential sources who provide information off the record.
This isn't the first time the government has seized reporters' phone records without much explanation. The New York Times published a story in 2008 about the FBI admitting to improperly obtaining phone records of New York Times and Washington Post reporters in Indonesia in 2004.
The FBI didn't say what was being investigated or why the phone records were relevant, but the NYT said it was apparently related to a terrorism investigation.
In that case, the FBI apparently ignored the requirement that it obtain permission from the deputy attorney general to obtain the records. As a result, the records were wiped from the FBI's databases.
It's not clear in the AP case whether such permission was obtained. The AP says the letter of notification it received came from Ronald Machen, the U.S. attorney in Washington.
The Justice Department sent Business Insider this statement:
We take seriously our obligations to follow all applicable laws, federal regulations, and Department of Justice policies when issuing subpoenas for phone records of media organizations. Those regulations require us to make every reasonable effort to obtain information through alternative means before even considering a subpoena for the phone records of a member of the media. We must notify the media organization in advance unless doing so would pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation. Because we value the freedom of the press, we are always careful and deliberative in seeking to strike the right balance between the public interest in the free flow of information and the public interest in the fair and effective administration of our criminal laws.
Here's the full letter from the AP to the DOJ:
Letter to Eric Holder by Adam Taylor
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/justice-department-secretly-obtains-ap-phone-records-2013-5#ixzz2TDbSxh8l
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Journalists reacted with shock and outrage at the news that the Justice Department had secretly obtained months of phone records of Associated Press journalists.
The AP broke the news on Monday about what it called an "unprecedented intrusion" into its operation. It said that the DOJ had obtained detailed phone records from over 20 different lines, potentially monitoring hundreds of different journalists without notifying the organization. The wire service's president, Gary Pruitt, wrote a blistering letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, accusing the DOJ of violating the AP's constitutional rights.
Reporters and commentators outside the AP professed themselves to be equally angered. "The Nixon comparisons write themselves," BuzzFeed's Ben Smith tweeted. Margaret Sullivan, the public editor for the New York Times, called the story "disturbing." Washington Post editor Martin Baron called it "shocking." CNN's John King described it as "very chilling."
Speaking to the Washington Post's Erik Wemple, a lawyer for the AP called the DOJ's actions "outrageous," saying they were "a dagger to the heart of AP's newsgathering activity."
BuzzFeed's Kate Nocera was perhaps more pithy, writing simply, "what in the f--k."
There was also widespread speculation, not least from the AP itself, that the Justice Department was conducting such a broad operation because it was investigating national security leaks. The Obama administration has waged an unprecedented war on leaks and whistleblowers. On Monday, the Freedom of the Press Foundation echoed the sentiments of many when it tweeted that "the Obama admin's crackdown [on] leakers has long been a direct attack on the press," and added, "This is an important wake-up call."
Click below to see a further sampling of some of the reaction to the AP story.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/13/journalists-ap-government-phone-records_n_3269001.html
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Talk about a bad month for the Obama administration. Will be interesting to see his next press conference.
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Gov't obtains wide AP phone records in probe
By MARK SHERMAN
— May. 13 7:50 PM EDT
The screen on the phone console at the reception desk at The Associated Press Washington bureau, Monday, May 13, 2013. The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)
FILE - In this April 18, 2013 file photo, Attorney General Eric Holder testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington. The Justice Department has secretly obtained two months of telephone records of journalists for The Associated Press in what AP's top executive says is an unprecedented intrusion into newsgathering. (AP Photo/Molly Riley, File)
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news.
The records obtained by the Justice Department listed outgoing calls for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, for general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP. It was not clear if the records also included incoming calls or the duration of the calls.
In all, the government seized the records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown, but more than 100 journalists work in the offices where phone records were targeted, on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.
In a letter of protest sent to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday, AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt said the government sought and obtained information far beyond anything that could be justified by any specific investigation. He demanded the return of the phone records and destruction of all copies.
"There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP's newsgathering operations and disclose information about AP's activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know," Pruitt said.
The government would not say why it sought the records. Officials have previously said in public testimony that the U.S. attorney in Washington is conducting a criminal investigation into who may have provided information contained in a May 7, 2012, AP story about a foiled terror plot. The story disclosed details of a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an al-Qaida plot in the spring of 2012 to detonate a bomb on an airplane bound for the United States.
In testimony in February, CIA Director John Brennan noted that the FBI had questioned him about whether he was AP's source, which he denied. He called the release of the information to the media about the terror plot an "unauthorized and dangerous disclosure of classified information."
Prosecutors have sought phone records from reporters before, but the seizure of records from such a wide array of AP offices, including general AP switchboards numbers and an office-wide shared fax line, is unusual.
In the letter notifying the AP, which was received Friday, the Justice Department offered no explanation for the seizure, according to Pruitt's letter and attorneys for the AP. The records were presumably obtained from phone companies earlier this year although the government letter did not explain that. None of the information provided by the government to the AP suggested the actual phone conversations were monitored.
Among those whose phone numbers were obtained were five reporters and an editor who were involved in the May 7, 2012, story.
The Obama administration has aggressively investigated disclosures of classified information to the media and has brought six cases against people suspected of providing classified information, more than under all previous presidents combined.
The White House on Monday said that other than press reports it had no knowledge of Justice Department attempts to seek AP phone records.
"We are not involved in decisions made in connection with criminal investigations, as those matters are handled independently by the Justice Department," spokesman Jay Carney said.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the investigative House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said on CNN, "They had an obligation to look for every other way to get it before they intruded on the freedom of the press."
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in an emailed statement: "The burden is always on the government when they go after private information, especially information regarding the press or its confidential sources. ... On the face of it, I am concerned that the government may not have met that burden. I am very troubled by these allegations and want to hear the government's explanation."
The American Civil Liberties Union said the use of subpoenas for a broad swath of records has a chilling effect both on journalists and whistleblowers who want to reveal government wrongdoing. "The attorney general must explain the Justice Department's actions to the public so that we can make sure this kind of press intimidation does not happen again," said Laura Murphy, the director of ACLU's Washington legislative office.
Rules published by the Justice Department require that subpoenas of records of news organizations must be personally approved by the attorney general, but it was not known if that happened in this case. The letter notifying AP that its phone records had been obtained through subpoenas was sent Friday by Ronald Machen, the U.S. attorney in Washington.
William Miller, a spokesman for Machen, said Monday that in general the U.S. attorney follows "all applicable laws, federal regulations and Department of Justice policies when issuing subpoenas for phone records of media organizations." But he would not address questions about the specifics of the AP records. "We do not comment on ongoing criminal investigations," Miller said in an email.
The Justice Department lays out strict rules for efforts to get phone records from news organizations. A subpoena can be considered only after "all reasonable attempts" have been made to get the same information from other sources, the rules say. It was unclear what other steps, in total, the Justice Department might have taken to get information in the case.
A subpoena to the media must be "as narrowly drawn as possible" and "should be directed at relevant information regarding a limited subject matter and should cover a reasonably limited time period," according to the rules.
The reason for these constraints, the department says, is to avoid actions that "might impair the news gathering function" because the government recognizes that "freedom of the press can be no broader than the freedom of reporters to investigate and report the news."
News organizations normally are notified in advance that the government wants phone records and then they enter into negotiations over the desired information. In this case, however, the government, in its letter to the AP, cited an exemption to those rules that holds that prior notification can be waived if such notice, in the exemption's wording, might "pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation."
It is unknown whether a judge or a grand jury signed off on the subpoenas.
The May 7, 2012, AP story that disclosed details of the CIA operation in Yemen to stop an airliner bomb plot occurred around the one-year anniversary of the May 2, 2011, killing of Osama bin Laden.
The plot was significant both because of its seriousness and also because the White House previously had told the public it had "no credible information that terrorist organizations, including al-Qaida, are plotting attacks in the U.S. to coincide with the (May 2) anniversary of bin Laden's death."
The AP delayed reporting the story at the request of government officials who said it would jeopardize national security. Once officials said those concerns were allayed, the AP disclosed the plot, though the Obama administration continued to request that the story be held until the administration could make an official announcement.
The May 7 story was written by reporters Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman with contributions from reporters Kimberly Dozier, Eileen Sullivan and Alan Fram. They and their editor, Ted Bridis, were among the journalists whose April-May 2012 phone records were seized by the government.
Brennan talked about the AP story and investigation in written testimony to the Senate. "The irresponsible and damaging leak of classified information was made ... when someone informed The Associated Press that the U.S. government had intercepted an IED (improvised explosive device) that was supposed to be used in an attack and that the U.S. government currently had that IED in its possession and was analyzing it," he wrote.
He also defended the White House decision to discuss the plot afterward. "Once someone leaked information about interdiction of the IED and that the IED was actually in our possession, it was imperative to inform the American people consistent with government policy that there was never any danger to the American people associated with this al-Qaida plot," Brennan told senators.
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AP's probably stunned by the backstab.
After years of sucking Obama's cock, they probably can't believe he would turn on them like this.
hahaha
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AP's probably stunned by the backstab.
After years of sucking Obama's cock, they probably can't believe he would turn on them like this.
hahaha
Yup - but payback is going to be a bitch and obama probably just shit on his best ally - the media
Wait - now the flood of stories they have been covering up for him will start leaking out.
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Yup - but payback is going to be a bitch and obama probably just shit on his best ally - the media
Wait - now the flood of stories they have been covering up for him will start leaking out.
Doubt it. This will be 'resolved' as a 'misunderstanding', and the AP will be right back to fighting Strawman and Blacken for a spot on Barry's cock.
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Talk about a bad month for the Obama administration. Will be interesting to see his next press conference.
he'll start a war or piggyback a conflict or something. "We have strong indication that Iceland has been harboring al-quida and is also in possession of a whole lot of oil, but cannot confirm blah blah blah.". Or syria. Or iran. This will be old news in a week once the hearings are all over. Obama will get away with it.
Why?
Because repubs are too wimpy to call for his impeachment.
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AP's probably stunned by the backstab.
After years of sucking Obama's cock, they probably can't believe he would turn on them like this.
hahaha
lol
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Cue the "holder/obama didnt know anything about it"
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Front page of Huffington Post. :o
ASSOCIATED MESS!
DOJ SNOOPED ON PRESS
(http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1135556/thumbs/r-DEPARTMENT-OF-JUSTICE-AP-huge.jpg)
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Front page of Huffington Post. :o
ASSOCIATED MESS!
DOJ SNOOPED ON PRESS
(http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1135556/thumbs/r-DEPARTMENT-OF-JUSTICE-AP-huge.jpg)
;D
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Alan Dershowitz: Justice May Have Violated First Amendment in AP Case
Monday, 13 May 2013 06:15 PM
By Bill Hoffmann
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The Justice Department may have violated the First Amendment when it secretly obtained the phone records of the Associated Press in an apparent bid to ferret out its sources on a terrorism story, according to civil-rights lawyer Alan Dershowitz.
"I’m very concerned about that,'' Dershowitz told "The Steve Malzberg Show'' on Newsmax TV.
Story continues below.
"I mean, yes, the government has the right to investigate who might have leaked this classified information but they have to do it with a sensitivity toward the First Amendment right not only of newspapers and of newsgathering sources, but also of the readers.''
The renowned Harvard Law professor said the Supreme Court had determined that the same rules don’t apply to news operations as they do to ordinary businesses when it comes to freedom of the press.
"The parameters of the First Amendment extend to the business of newsgathering differently than they do to other businesses,'' he said.
"Obviously, I want to find out more about it and what the justification is. But there’s almost never a justification for pervasive monitoring of how journalists gather news.
"They have to have much more precise targeting of particular leaks. So I’m concerned about it.''
Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/ap-phone-records-justice/2013/05/13/id/504269#ixzz2TE2vkfMy
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Wheres the liberal goof troop to blame bush?
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http://weaselzippers.us/2013/05/13/white-house-propaganda-minister-jay-carney-asked-about-doj-seizing-ap-phone-records-no-comment/
Walls are caving in ;D
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Remember the enemies list before the election, where they tried to find and publish dirt on Romney donors? Looking at that, together with this IRS investigating political opponents, and the DOJ spying on the AP looks like something out of a movie already. :-\
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Remember the enemies list before the election, where they tried to find and publish dirt on Romney donors? Looking at that, together with this IRS investigating political opponents, and the DOJ spying on the AP looks like something out of a movie already. :-\
Yup - and in the end obama ended up [aying the same rate as romney
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AP's probably stunned by the backstab.
After years of sucking Obama's cock, they probably can't believe he would turn on them like this.
hahaha
Exactly. Not that anything will change. You can already see it on here with all the Obama cocksuckers trying to rationalize it.
This guy is Bush x 100 and they sit there making excuses, haha. Imagine if Bush's DOJ was doing this? Code Pink would be rioting in Washington, DC. ::)
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Why wouldn't this thug regime do this? Why would Obama have any reason to fear the media when they've spent the last 4+ years sucking his cock?
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Why wouldn't this thug regime do this? Why would Obama have any reason to fear the media when they've spent the last 4+ years sucking his cock?
True - however - the reality will sink in that obama will be gone after 2016 and these media outlets , if they want to go on, need cred.
As such, they have nothing at all to lose now by taking on obama and his criminal organization
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Most moral and transparent administration evar.
They'll tell you, just ask them.
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Most moral and transparent administration evar.
They'll tell you, just ask them.
yup all transparency and good vibes from the admin
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Talk about a bad month for the Obama administration. Will be interesting to see his next press conference.
I don't watch the news but it would be really funny if the press boycotted them for a week or longer.
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I don't watch the news but it would be really funny if the press boycotted them for a week or longer.
Interesting tactic. I like it.
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http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-doj-ap-phones-2013-5
LOL!!!! Obama plays dumb again.
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Even John Stewart nailed Obama to the cross last night over this.
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Even John Stewart nailed Obama to the cross last night over this.
Do you think Blacken or whork, aka the board's retards, will post a video of it? They post every other Stewart video supporting Obama.
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Do you think Blacken or whork, aka the board's retards, will post a video of it? They post every other Stewart video supporting Obama.
Even some in the media are waking up to this vermin in the wh.
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Inside the AP: Fear, determination
By: Dylan Byers and Katie Glueck
May 14, 2013 11:49 AM EDT
Reporters across The Associated Press are outraged over the Justice Department’s sweeping seizure of staff phone records - and they say such an intrusion could chill their relationships with confidential sources.
In conversations with POLITICO on Tuesday, several AP staffers in Washington, D.C., described feelings of anger and frustration with the DOJ and with the Obama administration in general.
“People are pretty mad — mad that government has not taken what we do seriously,” one reporter said on Tuesday. “When the news broke yesterday…people were outraged and disgusted. No one was yelling and screaming, but it was like, “Are you kidding me!?”
“People are ticked,” said another. “Everyone supports the reporters involved.”
(Also on POLITICO: Scandal politics sweep Capitol Hill)
The behind-the-scenes anger - and heads-down determination of the AP staff to keep doing their jobs amid the extraordinary public flap - comes as top executives from the wire service have mounted an aggressive public pushback against DOJ, calling its snooping a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” in a letter fired off to Attorney General Eric Holder. And yet something of a bunker-like atmosphere has taken hold at the AP in Washington with no bureau-wide meetings or announcements about the DOJ’s action, AP sources told POLITICO.
The AP employees interviewed by POLITICO did not want to be identified because, according to several sources, at least some journalists have been asked not to speak to the press.
“It’s a sensitive matter, our reporters aren’t giving interviews,” AP spokeswoman Erin Madigan told POLITICO when asked about the order.
(Also on POLITICO: Journalists fume over DOJ raid on AP)
Early Tuesday afternoon, an individual at the AP Washington bureau who identified himself as the facilities manager told POLITICO to stop questioning reporters outside the office and address questions to corporate communications. “You have to understand our position,” he said. “We have to have a clear and consistent message.”
The chief concern about the government probe, according to many of those journalists, is that the DOJ’s intrusion will compromise their relationships with confidential sources, some of whom now fear that their private correspondence could be obtained by the federal government.
“We all know that confidential sourcing is the lifeblood of what we do, and people can’t come to us if they think they’re going to be compromised,” one reporter said. “It’s hard enough getting sources, now we’re afraid this is going to have a chilling effect.”
“I had a source today who contacted me and joked about meeting on a park bench, but he was half-serious,” the reporter continued. “How bizarre would that be in 2013?”
(WATCH: AP exec editor: We're "distressed" DOJ seized records)
AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt described on Monday as a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” by the Justice Department. (Madigan said the company had nothing to add to yesterday’s statement.)
But reporters have not lost their resolve. If anything, they seem to feel invigorated.
“Nobody is downtrodden,” an AP reporter told POLITICO. “We really are just pushing ahead with our jobs. It’s not like we are all sitting around watching the front office meetings fretting about how we will go forward.”
The AP’s leadership has not addressed the newsroom yet. There have been no staff-wide meetings to discuss the nature of the Justice Department’s investigation, nor what the AP plans to do going forward.
“Today seemed kind of normal, we’re all working on chasing down the story,” said another reporter. “We’re kind of taking it in stride; we’re used to getting hit like this. We’re always working on stories with a degree of sensitivity.”
But both Pruitt and AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll have been very public in their opposition to the Justice Department’s move. DOJ has not disclosed its reasons for seeking the phone records, though it is believed to be in connection to a criminal investigation into the source for the AP’s May 7, 2012, story about the foiled “underwear bomber” plot.
In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday, Pruitt called the seizure of records “a serious interference with AP’s constitutional rights to gather and report the news.” On Tuesday, Carroll told MSNBC’s Morning Joe that the AP was “distressed” by the news.
Other members of the media have rallied to the AP’s defense as well.
“It’s chilling and they owe us an explanation,” NBC News Political Director and White House correspondent Chuck Todd said on Tuesday. “This is intimidation and that’s what it feels and looks like and unless they have a different explanation, there is no other conclusion to draw than a way to intimidate whistle blowers.”
“It is outrageous, totally inexcusable,” Carl Bernstein, the famous investigative reporter, said on MSNBC. “This administration has been terrible on this subject from the beginning. The object of it is to intimidate people who talk to reporters. This was an accident waiting to become a nuclear event and now it’s happened. There’s no excuse for it whatsoever. There’s no reason for this investigation, especially on this scale.”
© 2013 POLITICO LLC
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Inside the AP: Fear, determination
By: Dylan Byers and Katie Glueck
May 14, 2013 11:49 AM EDT
Please, the only thing the AP is determined to do is get back on Obama's good side so they get right back on his cock.
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Editorial
Spying on The Associated Press
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Published: May 14, 2013 125 Comments
The Obama administration, which has a chilling zeal for investigating leaks and prosecuting leakers, has failed to offer a credible justification for secretly combing through the phone records of reporters and editors at The Associated Press in what looks like a fishing expedition for sources and an effort to frighten off whistle-blowers.
Justice Dept. Defends Seizure of Phone Records (May 15, 2013)
For Op-Ed, follow @nytopinion and to hear from the editorial page editor, Andrew Rosenthal, follow @andyrNYT.
On Friday, Justice Department officials revealed that they had been going through The A.P.’s records for months. The dragnet covered work, home and cellphone records used by almost 100 people at one of the oldest and most reputable news organizations. James Cole, a deputy attorney general, offered no further explanation on Tuesday, saying only that it was part of a “criminal investigation involving highly classified material” from early 2012.
Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. said he could not comment on the details of the phone records seizure, which he said was an open investigation — although he was happy to comment on the open investigation into the tax audits of conservative groups, which he said might have been criminal and were “certainly outrageous and unacceptable.”
Both Mr. Holder and Mr. Cole declared their commitment — and that of President Obama — to press freedoms. Mr. Cole said the administration does not “take lightly” such secretive trolling through media records.
We are not convinced. For more than 30 years, the news media and the government have used a well-honed system to balance the government’s need to pursue criminals or national security breaches with the media’s constitutional right to inform the public. This action against The A.P., as the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press outlined in a letter to Mr. Holder, “calls into question the very integrity” of the administration’s policy toward the press.
The records covered 20 phone lines, including main office phones in New York City, Washington, Hartford, and the Congressional press gallery. The guidelines for such subpoenas, first enacted in 1972, require that requests for media information be narrow. The reporters’ committee said this action is so broad that it allowed prosecutors to “plunder two months of news-gathering materials to seek information that might interest them.”
Mr. Holder said the leak under scrutiny, believed to be about the foiling of a terrorist plot in Yemen a year ago, “put the American people at risk,” although he did not say how, and the records sweep went far beyond any one news article. Gary Pruitt, the president of The A.P., said two months’ worth of records could provide a “road map” to its whole news-gathering operation.
Under the guidelines, the administration should have sought information from other sources. Mr. Cole said it did. But the administration made the troubling and discrediting decision not to inform The A.P. in advance. The guidelines require investigators to provide notice unless it would “pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation.” That is intended to prevent destruction of evidence, an impossibility in this case.
The Obama administration has indicted six current and former officials under the Espionage Act, which had previously been used only three times since it was enacted in 1917. One, a former C.I.A. officer, pleaded guilty under another law for revealing the name of an agent who participated in the torture of a terrorist suspect. Meanwhile, President Obama decided not to investigate, much less prosecute, anyone who actually did the torturing.
The Justice Department is pursuing at least two major press investigations, including one believed to be focused on David Sanger’s reporting in a book and in The Times on an American-Israeli effort to sabotage Iranian nuclear works. These tactics will not scare us off, or The A.P., but they could reveal sources on other stories and frighten confidential contacts vital to coverage of government.
Meet The New York Times’s Editorial Board »
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The Post’s View
Damage to press freedom likely outweighs national security gain
By Editorial Board,
Published: May 14
WHEN THE Justice Department launched its investigation of alleged leaks of national security information by the Obama administration a year ago, we were skeptical. The history of such probes is mainly a tale of dead ends and unintended negative consequences. That this effort to criminalize a leak was launched amid an election-year uproar seemed especially inauspicious.
Our forebodings have been borne out with the revelation that federal prosecutors have undertaken a broad sweep of the Associated Press’s phone records. Whatever national-security enhancement this was intended to achieve seems likely to be outweighed by the damage to press freedom and governmental transparency.
Damage to press freedom likely outweighs national security gains.
The Justice Department’s apparent purpose is to track down the person or persons who told AP about the Central Intelligence Agency’s disruption of a Yemen-based terrorism plot. Federal prosecutors subpoenaed records for 20 separate office, home and cellular phone lines belonging to the AP and its reporters or editors. The subpoenas covered a two-month period in the first half of 2012. Crucially, they did not follow the usual Justice Department policy, which is to give news organizations a chance to negotiate or contest such a subpoena ahead of time.
That policy is rooted in sound respect for the First Amendment. It’s not legally binding — in part because the Justice Department and the press have recognized a mutual interest in resolving such matters without potentially counterproductive Congressional or judicial intervention.
In a letter to AP President and CEO Gary B. Pruitt yesterday, Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole explained that the department had no alternative means of gathering essential information. He also intimated that Justice had kept AP in the dark until a few days ago so as to avoid “a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation.” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who recused himself from the investigation after he was interviewed by the FBI, fleshed that assertion out at a press conference Tuesday, saying at issue is one of “the top two or three most serious leaks that I have ever seen” which “put the American people at risk, and that is not hyperbole.”
Perhaps that’s so — we have no independent means of verifying Mr. Holder’s claim, though we hope reporters are working on it. As Mr. Pruitt responded Tuesday, “We held that story until the government assured us that the national security concerns had passed. Indeed, the White House was preparing to publicly announce that the bomb plot had been foiled.”The usual reason for keeping a subpoena secret is that the target would otherwise try to destroy documents. In this case, AP could not have done so even if it wanted to, since the relevant records were in the possession of its phone service providers. Without even giving AP a chance to weigh in, we don’t see how the department could intelligently weigh its prosecutorial needs against this broad subpoena’s chilling effect on reporters and their sources
Of course, if Justice Department officials are overreacting, they aren’t alone. The investigation of AP began in response to Republican outrage about the purported fact that White House officials were leaking secret information and spinning it to make President Obama look good for reelection purposes. In response, the Obama administration launched the present investigation, on top of the six (mostly unsuccessful) ones it had attempted previously — which, judging on costs and benefits visible to date, was probably six too many.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/15/obama-nixon-doj-ap-pentagon-papers_n_3278303.html
On Tuesday, White House spokesman Jay Carney batted away the notion that the Obama administration is behaving like Richard Nixon's.
"People who make those kinds of comparisons need to check their history," Carney said.
Try as he might, though, Carney has not been able to tamp down the idea that there is something "Nixonian" about the Justice Department's secret probe of the Associated Press.
Brian Williams, for example led off Tuesday's "NBC Nightly News" this way:
"As a lot of American adults not so fondly remember, the last time the government was found looking into the phone calls of reporters and using the IRS for political purposes, it was the Nixon era, and while times have changed and circumstances are different that subject came up at the Obama White House today as the administration now scrambles on several fronts."
Tuesday also saw james Goodale, who was the lawyer for the New York Times in the Pentagon Papers case, flatly say that Obama was worse than Nixon in his dealings with the press.
"Obama has all these things that he's done to the press on national security matters that Nixon never did," Goodale told the New York Observer.
Goodale also wrote a piece for the Daily Beast in which he drove the point home. He cited, among other things, Obama's unprecedented use of the Espionage Act to prosecute whistleblowers.
Obama, he said, "is fast becoming the worst national security press president ever, and it may not get any better."
The New York Times editorial board also weighed in on Tuesday night, harshly criticizing Obama:
The Obama administration, which has a chilling zeal for investigating leaks and prosecuting leakers, has failed to offer a credible justification for secretly combing through the phone records of reporters and editors at The Associated Press in what looks like a fishing expedition for sources and an effort to frighten off whistle-blowers.
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Eric Holder's Justice Department Hammered By Democrats Over AP Subpoenas
Posted: 05/14/2013 5:37 pm EDT | Updated: 05/15/2013 10:12 am EDT
WASHINGTON -- Members of President Barack Obama's own party slammed his Justice Department's secret gathering of reporters' phone records as inexcusable and sickening on Tuesday, suggesting that Congress may have to act to protect the freedom of the press.
The Associated Press on Monday revealed that in April and May of last year, the Justice Department had seized phone records for at least six individual AP journalists and at least 20 AP phone lines, used by up to 100 reporters, as part of a leak investigation. Sally Buzbee, the AP's Washington bureau chief, was among those targeted.
AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt said the department's actions represented "a serious interference with the AP's constitutional rights to gather and report the news."
The leak investigation involved publicly revealed details of a thwarted terrorist attack, but even with the potential national security concerns, many Democrats were not giving the commander-in-chief or Attorney General Eric Holder the full benefit of the doubt.
"First let me say, it made me sick to my stomach how broad the subpoenas were," Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) told The Huffington Post. "I do think in fairness, which I know that journalists would want, I want to hear the rationale by the Department of Justice, and I want to hear the explanation. But I think under any scenario, it would appear to have a chilling effect."
"I have trouble defending what the Justice Department did," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters on Capitol Hill. "I really believe in the First Amendment. I think it's one of the great things we have as a country. I don't know who did it, why it was done, but it's inexcusable. There's no way to justify this."
Reid added that he would "look further into whether more legislative action is needed in this regard to secure freedom of the press."
Asked if Holder's claims that national security justified the secret subpoenas mattered, Reid said bluntly, "No."
"I think someone from the Justice Department could have gone to the AP and said, 'Will you help us with this?' If they said no, fine, then they could have maybe gone a step further, but I don't think this is fair to just start subpoenaing records," said Reid.
"In my career, I've stood consistently for freedom of the press from encroachment by the national security community. I'm gonna continue to do that," he added.
Other Senate Democrats were just as quick to condemn the Justice Department's actions, while demanding an explanation.
Sen. Dick Durbin, the chamber's No. 2 Democrat, said he was "troubled" by the news. "This really goes into an area of constitutional protection," he said in a response to a question from HuffPost. "Obviously I knew nothing about this. I would certainly like to hear the administration's rationale."
Durbin added that the administration was dabbling in a "delicate area."
"We're talking about national security, we're talking about classified information, protecting sources who may be risking their lives to help us," he said. "And that's up against the principle of freedom of the press."
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) told HuffPost that the matter warranted further investigation, but declined to comment on what steps should be taken absent more information about the circumstances of the probe. "[I'm] very, very concerned about it. [We] need to get more information, but it causes a significant and grave concern," he said.
"I think it's important to try and keep security leaks from occurring, and that was the context in which this occurred," Kaine added. "That is a very important and serious thing when security leaks occur, but going after the records of the press makes me very, very worried."
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was among the few senators of either party who refused to go after the Justice Department just yet. "I want to see the details -- what was their rationale, why did they do it -- before offering an opinion," he told reporters. "For me to rush to a judgment without knowing all the facts is just not appropriate."
Some Democrats pointed out that Republicans like McCain might be hesitant to criticize Holder because last year many of them called for an investigation into who was behind national security leaks to the press.
"Ironically, some of my Republican colleagues were calling on the Department of Justice to get the leakers, go after the leakers," McCaskill said. "If this was classified information that was leaked, most of the Republicans have been saying for a long time, 'You need to go after people who leak classified information.'"
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/15/eric-holder-records_n_3278841.html
WTF!
Amid an unprecedented effort by the Obama administration to crack down on leaks of classified information, Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday said he was unsure how many times he'd signed off on subpoenas to seize reporter records.
"I'm not sure how many of those cases that I have actually signed off on," Holder told NPR's Carrie Johnson. "I take them very seriously. I know that I have refused to sign a few, pushed a few back for modifications."
The comments from Holder are bound to stir up additional criticism of the Obama administration's approach to First Amendment protections for reporters. The president and his staff are already under intense scrutiny over the Department of Justice's decision to subpoena the phone records for over 100 journalists at the Associated Press. That Holder could not recall how many times he has done something similar in the past will only fan those flames.
Holder revealed Tuesday that he had recused himself from an FBI investigation into the alleged leak of classified intelligence to the AP. The leak revealed a would-be suicide bomber who was also a CIA undercover agent. The department seized records for more than 20 phone lines from AP offices in Washington, New York and Hartford, Conn., from April 2012 and May 2012.
Holder, in his press conference, remained vague about the scope of the subpoenas. "The people who are involved in this investigation who I’ve known for a great many years and who I’ve worked with for a great many years followed all the appropriate Justice Department regulations and did things according to DOJ rules,” he said. “Based on the people that I know -- I don’t know about the facts -- but based on the people that I know, I think that subpoena was done in accordance with DOJ regs."
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Holder Isn't Sure How Often Reporters' Records Are Seized
by Mark Memmott
May 15, 2013 7:00 AM
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/05/15/184138253/holder-isnt-sure-how-often-reporters-records-are-seized?ft=1&f=1001
From 'Morning Edition': Attorney Gen. Eric Holder talks with NPR's Carrie Johnson
As his Justice Department faces bipartisan outrage for searching phone records of Associated Press reporters and editors, Attorney Gen. Eric Holder says he is not sure how many times such information has been seized by government investigators in the four years he's led Justice.
During an interview with NPR's Carrie Johnson on Tuesday, Holder was asked how often his department has obtained such records of journalists' work.
"I'm not sure how many of those cases ... I have actually signed off on," Holder said. "I take them very seriously. I know that I have refused to sign a few [and] pushed a few back for modifications."
On Morning Edition, Carrie added that Holder declined to say whether there will be a review of the Justice Department's policy on searches of reporters' records.
Tuesday, NPR and other media organizations joined in a letter sent to Holder by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. In it, the news outlets ask that the Justice Department:
— "Immediately return the telephone toll records obtained and destroy all copies, as requested by The Associated Press."
— "Announce whether it has served any other pending news media-related subpoenas that have not yet been disclosed."
At a news conference Tuesday, Holder said the AP records were seized as part of an investigation into leaks about a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an airliner bombing plot.
He will be asked about the search of the reporters' phone logs at a House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday afternoon. Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., says "Congress and the American people expect answers and accountability."
Holder will also be questioned about the Justice Department's plan to investigate whether IRS personnel broke any laws when they gave extra scrutiny to some conservative groups' applications for tax exempt status.
Related posts from It's All Politics:
— Goodbye, Again, To Obama's Most Audacious Hope.
— Controversies Risk Starving Obama's Agenda Of Air.
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James Cole Authorized AP Subpoenas, Eric Holder Confirms
Posted: 05/15/2013 3:09 pm EDT | Updated: 05/15/2013 5:07 pm EDT
Deputy Attorney General James Cole attends a Martin Luther King Jr. commemorative event at the Justice Department on Jan. 11, 2011, in Washington. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Attorney General Eric Holder confirmed Wednesday that Deputy Attorney General James Cole, a longtime friend of Holder's and the number two official at the Justice Department, signed off on subpoenaing a wide range of Associated Press phone records.
Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, Holder at first said he had to "assume" that Cole signed off on the subpoenas, which came out of an investigation run from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia. But after being handed a note from an aide, Holder said he could confirm that Cole was responsible for signing off on the subpoenas because Holder had recused himself from the investigation into a leak about an undercover al Qaeda sting involving the CIA.
The AP had revealed Monday that the Justice Department informed the news organization last week that it had obtained phone records for more than 20 different AP phone lines over the course of a two-month period last year.
Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said the AP subpoenas appeared to be "very broad" and described the panel as anxious for an explanation. Several committee members from both sides of the aisle pressed Holder on the issue.
Holder, for his part, pledged an "after-action" review of the AP subpoena process because of the amount of attention and criticism the decision has received. It's unclear when the leak investigation will end, so such a review could be months, or even years, down the line.
In a press briefing Tuesday, Holder noted that he had recused himself from that leak investigation. In an interview with NPR the same day, the attorney general said he didn't know how many times he had otherwise signed off on subpoenaing journalists or their phone records, but said he had rejected a number of requests and required others to be modified.
Also on Tuesday, Cole wrote a letter to the AP justifying the subpoenas as "limited in both time and scope." Cole was appointed deputy attorney general in late 2010 through a recess appointment and was confirmed after a tough battle in the summer of 2011.
Holder confirmed during his testimony Wednesday that the Obama administration is backing a federal press shield law that would provide greater protections for reporters who refuse to provide information on confidential sources. He said he didn't support going after journalists or news outlets for publishing information.
"The focus should be on those people who break their oaths and put the American people at risk, not the reporters who gather this information," Holder said.
This story has been updated with Eric Holder's comments on a proposed federal press shield law.
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Yeah and holder did not know, LMFAO!!!!
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Holder: No Written Recusal on AP Phone Record Grab
Breitbart ^ | May 15, 2013 | Matthew Boyle
Posted on Wednesday, May 15, 2013 5:27:20 PM by LucianOfSamasota
During his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Attorney General Eric Holder said there is nothing in writing verifying he actually recused himself from the Associated Press phone records seizure scandal.
“We looked,” Holder said when being questioned by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA). “I don’t think there is anything in writing with regard to my recusal.”
Lofgren was asking Holder to explain why Deputy Attorney General James Cole had the authority to authorize the subpoena to secretly seize phone records of at least 20 AP reporters and editors over a two month period when federal code requires the Attorney General himself to sign off on such a subpoena.
Holder said that upon his recusal, the power was technically delegated to Cole, who became the acting Attorney General on this investigation.
But later in the hearing, during questioning from Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), Holder said he does not remember when he recused himself. “I’m not sure,” Holder answered when Smith asked him on which date he recused himself. “I think it was the beginning of – I don’t know exactly when. Holder said the only person he told he told about his recusal was Cole. When Smith asked whether he did that “formally, or in writing,” Holder replied “no.”
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
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So, we've now got a DOJ who can't police themselves going out and policing the IRS.
lol...what a fucking comedy fest.
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So, we've now got a DOJ who can't police themselves going out and policing the IRS.
lol...what a fucking comedy fest.
And soon to be enforcing Obamacare!
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And soon to be enforcing Obamacare!
Oh hell it's easy now. They'll just claim that failure to implement Obamacare jeopardizes our National Security so they're justified in doing anything they want. :D
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Oh hell it's easy now. They'll just claim that failure to implement Obamacare jeopardizes our National Security so they're justified in doing anything they want. :D
death panels
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/16/jake-tapper-obama-leaks-ap_n_3287454.html
tells it like it is
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My question is this: if the were leaks coming from the Obama administration, why didn't he get his own friggin house in order instead of spying on the AP?
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My question is this: if the were leaks coming from the Obama administration, why didn't he get his own friggin house in order instead of spying on the AP?
Because that is what obama does - blame everyone else for his failures and divide and conquer
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Some question whether AP leak on al-Qaeda plot put U.S. at risk
By Carol D. Leonnig and Julie Tate, Published: May 15
For five days, reporters at the Associated Press had been sitting on a big scoop about a foiled al-Qaeda plot at the request of CIA officials. Then, in a hastily scheduled Monday morning meeting, the journalists were asked by agency officials to hold off on publishing the story for just one more day.
The CIA officials, who had initially cited national security concerns in an attempt to delay publication, no longer had those worries, according to individuals familiar with the exchange. Instead, the Obama administration was planning to announce the successful counterterrorism operation that Tuesday.
AP balked and proceeded to publish that Monday afternoon. Its May 2012 report is now at the center of a controversial and broad seizure of phone records of AP reporters’ home, office and cellphone lines. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said the unauthorized disclosure about an intelligence operation to stop al-Qaeda from detonating explosives aboard a U.S. airliner was among the most serious leaks he could remember, and justified secretly obtaining records from a handful of reporters and editors over a span of two months.
Now, some members of Congress and media advocates are questioning why the administration viewed the leak that led to the May 7 AP story as so grave.
The president’s top counterterrorism adviser at the time, John O. Brennan, had appeared on “Good Morning America” the following day to trumpet the successful operation. He said that because of the work of U.S. intelligence, the plot did not pose an active threat to the American public.
Holder said this week that the unauthorized disclosure “put the American people at risk.”
The White House and CIA declined to comment for this article. But former White House national security spokesman Tommy Vietor, recalling the discussion in the administration last year, said officials were simply realistic in their response to AP’s story. They knew that if it were published, the White House would have to address it with an official, detailed statement.
“There was not some press conference planned to take credit for this,” Vietor said in an interview. “There was certainly an understanding [that] we’d have to mitigate and triage this and offer context for other reporters.”
AP’s story about the foiled plot was at odds with the calming message the White House had been conveying on the eve of the first anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden. On April 30, the Department of Homeland Security issued a statement saying that there was “no indication of any specific, credible threats or plots against the US tied to the one-year anniversary of Bin Laden’s death.”
AP reporters had learned in the spring of 2012 that the CIA had infiltrated the al-Qaeda branch behind the plot, according to the individuals familiar with the story, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak for the record. The plot centered on an attempt to get a bomb into an assailant’s underwear, like the bomb that failed to detonate on a Christmas Day 2009 flight to Detroit.
The news service was prepared to publish its scoop on May 2, 2012. But in discussions with government officials, the CIA stressed to AP that publishing anything about the operation to obtain the bomb and thwart the plot would create grave national security dangers and compromise a “sensitive intelligence operation.”
Michael J. Morell, the CIA’s deputy director, gave AP reporters some additional background information to persuade them to hold off, Vietor said. The agency needed several days more to protect what it had in the works.
Then, in a meeting on Monday, May 7, CIA officials reported that the national security concerns were “no longer an issue,” according to the individuals familiar with the discussion.
When the journalists rejected a plea to hold off longer, the CIA then offered a compromise. Would they wait a day if AP could have the story exclusively for an hour, with no government officials confirming it for that time?
The reporters left the meeting to discuss the idea with their editors. Within an hour, an administration official was on the line to AP’s offices.
The White House had quashed the one-hour offer as impossible. AP could have the story exclusively for five minutes before the White House made its own announcement. AP then rejected the request to postpone publication any longer.
An AP spokeswoman declined to discuss details of the meeting, AP discussions with government sources or the agencies to which the reporters spoke.
“As we told Reuters a year ago, at no point did AP offer or propose a deal in relation to this story,” said spokeswoman Erin Madigan White. “We did not publish anything until we were assured by high-ranking officials with direct knowledge of the situation, in more than one part of the government, that the national security risk was over and no one was in danger. The only deal was to hold the story until any security risk was resolved.”
Vietor said that it would be a mistake to dismiss the unauthorized disclosure because al-Qaeda failed to carry out its plot.
“We shouldn’t pretend that this leak of an unbelievably sensitive dangerous piece of information is okay because nobody died,” he said.
Sari Horwitz contributed to this report.
Discuss this topic and other political issues in the politics discussion forums.
© The Washington Post Company
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Five questions about the AP surveillance
By Jennifer Rubin, Published: May 17, 2013 at 10:45 amE-mail the writer
Attorney General Eric Holder- J.Scott Applewhite/A.P.
As is their pattern, defenders of the president offer a straw man in regard to the subpoena of Associated Press phone records: Shouldn’t we investigate leaks?
Duh, yes. The entire question, however, revolves around the extent of the probe and its necessity. Only the Richard Nixon fan club would argue, for example, that it is okay to willy-nilly conduct surveillance of the press on a leak that wasn’t actually a threat to national security.
The AP issue revolves around several issues.
Did the AP endanger national security?
The Post reported:
For five days, reporters at the Associated Press had been sitting on a big scoop about a foiled al-Qaeda plot at the request of CIA officials. Then, in a hastily scheduled Monday morning meeting, the journalists were asked by agency officials to hold off on publishing the story for just one more day.
The CIA officials, who had initially cited national security concerns in an attempt to delay publication, no longer had those worries, according to individuals familiar with the exchange. Instead, the Obama administration was planning to announce the successful counterterrorism operation that Tuesday.
In this vein the investigation looks like a peevish retaliation against the A.P. for ruining the administration’s bragging when it finally published after the all-clear advisory. It looks even worse for the administration when you consider:
When the journalists rejected a plea to hold off longer, the CIA then offered a compromise. Would they wait a day if AP could have the story exclusively for an hour, with no government officials confirming it for that time?
The reporters left the meeting to discuss the idea with their editors. Within an hour, an administration official was on the line to AP’s offices.
The White House had quashed the one-hour offer as impossible. AP could have the story exclusively for five minutes before the White House made its own announcement. AP then rejected the request to postpone publication any longer.
Under these circumstances, it is hard to believe that the AP’s release of the story on Monday threatened national security. In fact, the news organization was explicitly told at that point that it did not. Foiling the ability of the administration to chest-thump is not the same as endangering national security.
What direction did the White House give?
We know this administration is leak-obsessed. It has prosecuted more leaks than any administration while self-leaking favorable data on the Osama bin Laden assassination to the dismay of then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Was there a standing order (or one given in this case) to go after leaks without regard to First Amendment concerns and in contravention of standing Department of Justice rules for limiting the scope of investigations invading reporters’ privacy? Did the president ever make clear (as he has in self-serving speeches after the fact) that there had to be a balance between First Amendment rights and national security?
What’s up with Eric Holder?
He needs to fess up about what actions he took before allegedly recusing himself, whom he put in charge, what direction that person was given, how others in DOJ were made aware of the recusal and whether that recusal was compromised in any way.
What was the deputy attorney general James Cole thinking?
As detailed in their letter to Cole and Holder, about 50 news organizations assert that DOJ did not follow legal guidelines on investigations that impair First Amendment rights:
Subpoenas of the news media for testimony and evidence are governed by the Attorney General’s guidelines found at 28 C.F.R. § 50.10 and incorporated into the U.S. Attorney’s Manual (See § 9-13.400). These guidelines were enacted in 1972 and were expanded specifically to cover telephone records in 1980. They were developed to accommodate both the interests of the government in prosecuting crime and the First Amendment interests in reporting on issues of public concern. We know this to be true because the Reporters Committee played a role in their promulgation. In this instance, where the department subpoenaed two months of records related to 20 telephone lines, including records from major AP bureaus and the home phone and cellphone records of individual journalists, the department appears to have ignored or brushed aside almost every aspect of the guidelines.
The news organizations then detailed the ways in which the A.P. investigation did not conform to the guidelines designed to protect the First Amendment. Cole’s reply was as amateurish as it was unilluminating. He claims narrowing the time period to two months was sufficient. He said the massive surveillance was taken after 550 interviews, but says he can’t say anything more. Why should we trust him? His squirrely response includes no mention of the negotiation with the AP described above.
With whom did Cole consult, and did the White House have knowledge about spying on the AP?
It is hard to fathom that a deputy attorney general would take on an unprecedented intrusion into a news organization on his own without consulting anyone. It is important to know with whom he consulted and if any political appointees inside or outside of the DOJ were involved.
The Justice Department obviously can’t and won’t investigate itself. This is precisely the reason for an independent prosecutor to be appointed. Otherwise a gross abuse of power and Holder’s own testimony can’t be investigated.
Congress can certainly conduct hearings, but I suspect Holder et. al won’t cooperate.
There is another way of getting at this: Sue the Justice Department. That’s right. In the Bivens case from 1971, the Supreme Court found there was an implied right of action for individuals to sue authorities who violated their Fourth Amendment rights. Bivens was subsequently held to apply to a variety of other constitutional violations, including the First Amendment. This is precisely the sort of case in which a Bivens action against Holder, Cole and/or others can be used both to remedy the wrong done to the AP and its employees and to conduct discovery into what occurred. I am sure attorneys would line up around the block to take the case pro bono.
In short, the AP case is serious and an affront to a free press. If the president won’t appoint a prosecutor independent from the Justice Department and won’t cooperate with Congress, the AP and/or the affected reporters and editors should take to the courts. Indeed, I would suggest it is their ethical obligation to do so.
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Question 6: Why didn't the White House find the person in their own backyard who leaked info?
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Question 6: Why didn't the White House find the person in their own backyard who leaked info?
This is par for the course. The reason I'm not big on all the TSA crap. If they kind hide behind the National Security moniker for minutiae, then they can hide behind it for this. And then nothing ever has to be explained. It's always gonna be, you just have to 'trust' us.
In many aspects of NS, that's fine, but they need to give a much better justification and explanation as to how the American people were in such jeopardy.
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This is par for the course. The reason I'm not big on all the TSA crap. If they kind hide behind the National Security moniker for minutiae, then they can hide behind it for this. And then nothing ever has to be explained. It's always gonna be, you just have to 'trust' us.
In many aspects of NS, that's fine, but they need to give a much better justification and explanation as to how the American people were in such jeopardy.
ain't that the truth.
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AP CEO calls government seizure of phone records unconstitutional, says chill already felt
By Associated Press, Updated: Sunday, May 19, 7:02 PM
WASHINGTON — The president and chief executive officer of The Associated Press on Sunday called the government’s secret seizure of two months of reporters’ phone records “unconstitutional” and said the news cooperative had not ruled out legal action against the Justice Department.
Gary Pruitt, in his first television interviews since it was revealed the Justice Department subpoenaed phone records of AP reporters and editors, said the move already has had a chilling effect on journalism. Pruitt said the seizure has made sources less willing to talk to AP journalists and, in the long term, could limit Americans’ information from all news outlets.
Pruitt told CBS’ ”Face the Nation” that the government has no business monitoring the AP’s newsgathering activities.
“And if they restrict that apparatus ... the people of the United States will only know what the government wants them to know and that’s not what the framers of the Constitution had in mind when they wrote the First Amendment,” he said.
In a separate interview with the AP, Pruitt said the news cooperative had not decided its next move but had not ruled out legal action against the government. He said the Justice Department’s investigation is out of control and President Barack Obama should rein it in.
“It’s too early to know if we’ll take legal action but I can tell you we are positively displeased and we do feel that our constitutional rights have been violated,” Pruitt said.
“They’ve been secretive, they’ve been overbroad and abusive — so much so that taken together, they are unconstitutional because they violate our First Amendment rights,” he added.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said the government needs to stop leaks by whatever means necessary.
“This is an investigation that needs to happen because national security leaks, of course, can get our agents overseas killed,” he said.
Republican Sen. John Cornyn, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said the government should focus on those who leak sensitive national security matters and not on journalists who report on them. The Texas Republican said his committee should hold hearings on how the Justice Department obtained phone records from AP reporters and editors.
“What confuses me is the focus on the press, who have a constitutional right here and we depend on the press to get to the bottom of so many issues that we, as individuals, cannot,” Cornyn said.
Cornyn said the Justice Department’s actions were part of a pattern for Obama’s administration to quiet its critics.
“It’s a culture of cover-ups and intimidation that is giving the administration so much trouble,” Cornyn said.
He also renewed his call for Attorney General Eric Holder to resign, citing the contempt citation the House of Representatives voted against him last year for refusing to turn over documents in a failed government gun smuggling sting.
White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer said the president “has complete faith in Attorney General Holder.” He also insisted the White House was not involved in the decision to seek AP phone records.
“A cardinal rule is we don’t get involved in independent investigations. And this is one of those,” Pfeiffer said.
Although the Justice Department has not explained why it sought phone records from the AP, Pruitt pointed to a May 7, 2012, story that disclosed details of a successful CIA operation in Yemen to stop an airliner bomb plot around the one-year anniversary of the May 2, 2011, killing of Osama bin Laden.
The AP delayed publication of that story at the request of government officials who said it would jeopardize national security.
“We respected that, we acted responsibly, we held the story,” Pruitt said.
Pruitt said that only after officials from two government entities said the threat had passed did the AP publish the story. He said the administration still asked that the story be held until an official announcement the next day, a request the AP rejected.
The news service viewed the story as important because White House and Department of Homeland Security officials were saying publicly there was no credible evidence of a terrorist threat to the U.S. around the one-year anniversary of bin Laden’s death.
“So that was misleading to the American public. We felt the American public needed to know this story,” Pruitt said.
The AP has seen an effect on its newsgathering since the disclosure of the Justice Department’s subpoena, he said.
“Officials that would normally talk to us and people we talk to in the normal course of newsgathering are already saying to us that they’re a little reluctant to talk to us,” Pruitt said. “They fear that they will be monitored by the government.”
The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of personal and work telephone records for several reporters and editors, as well as general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery.
“It was sweeping and broad and beyond what they needed to do,” Pruitt said.
He objected to the “Justice Department acting on its own being the judge, jury and executioner in secret,” saying the AP would not back down.
“We’re not going to be intimidated by the abusive tactics of the Justice Department,” he said.
McConnell and Pfeiffer were interviewed on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Cornyn appeared on “Face the Nation.”
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
© The Washington Post Company
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CBS' Sharyl Attkisson: My Computers Were Compromised, 'Could Be Some Relationship' To DOJ Scandals
The Huffington Post | By Jack Mirkinson Posted: 05/21/2013 11:30 am EDT | Updated: 05/21/2013 12:25 pm EDT
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CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson said on Tuesday that her personal and work computers have been "compromised" for over two years.
Attkisson told a local Philadelphia radio station that she has been working with investigators to discover the source of the activity.
"There has been an issue in my house and there has been an issue with my computers that's gone on for quite a long time that we're looking into," she said.
Attkisson has long been a thorn in the side of the White House, and a hero to conservatives, for her aggressive reporting on the incident in Benghazi and on the "Fast and Furious" controversy.
In 2011, she made waves when she claimed that a White House official had screamed and cursed at her for her reporting on "Fast and Furious."
Host Chris Stigall asked if Attkisson thought that she had been the victim of a government operation, as the Associated Press and Fox News' James Rosen were. Attkisson was careful not to make any specific allegations about who had been targeting her, but she said it was possible there was a connection.
"I think there could be some relationship between these types of things and what happened to me," she said, adding that something suspicious had been happening since "at least February of 2011 and I think probably a significant period of time before that."
(h/t Politico; audio via Hot Air)
If she can prove Commiebama tapped her computer - send him to gitmo
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Spot on. Chilling.
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Committee To Protect Journalists Condemns Obama Administration's Media Investigations
The Huffington Post | By Jack Mirkinson Posted: 05/21/2013 4:13 pm EDT | Updated: 05/21/2013 4:40 pm EDT
AP Scandal , Committee To Protect Journalists , Committee To Protect Journalists Ap , Committee To Protect Journalists Holder Letter , Cpj , Cpj Justice Department , Eric Holder Ap , Justice Department Media , Media News
The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the Obama administration's media investigations on two fronts on Tuesday.
The CPJ board sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and Deputy Attorney General James Cole protesting the Justice Department's secret probe into the Associated Press. The board--whose members include Christiane Amanpour, Lara Logan, Tom Brokaw, Victor Navasky, Michael Massing and the Huffington Post Media Group's editor-in-chief, Arianna Huffington--said that it was doing something rare:
Our board of directors rarely has seen the need to raise its collective voice against U.S. government actions that threaten newsgathering. Today, however, we do see that need: We write you to vigorously protest the secret seizing of phone records of The Associated Press. The overly broad scope of the secret subpoena and the lack of notification to the AP by the Justice Department represent a damaging setback for press freedom in the United States.
The CPJ added that the Justice Department had "set a terrible example for the rest of the world, where governments routinely justify intervention in the media by citing national security." The letter also demanded, as the AP has, that any materials obtained in the DOJ probe be returned immediately to the AP. (Read the full letter here.)
In a separate release, the CPJ said it was "alarmed" at the Justice Department's secret investigation into Fox News reporter James Rosen.
"U.S. government efforts to prosecute leakers by obtaining information from journalists has a chilling effect domestically and sends a terrible message to journalists around the world who are fighting to resist government intrusion," CPJ head Joel Simon said in a statement.
(h/t Johnny Dollar)
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The Obama Administration Has Managed To Unite Fox News And The New York Times
Brett LoGiurato|14 minutes ago|328|
The New York Times editorial board defended Fox News and blasted the Obama administration in the leak investigation involving Fox News reporter James Rosen.
In an editorial entitled, "Another Chilling Leak Investigation," the Times editorial board wrote that the Obama administration's overreach in the case was nearly unprecedented.
Here are the key paragraphs:
With the decision to label a Fox News television reporter a possible “co-conspirator” in a criminal investigation of a news leak, the Obama administration has moved beyond protecting government secrets to threatening fundamental freedoms of the press to gather news. [...]
Obama administration officials often talk about the balance between protecting secrets and protecting the constitutional rights of a free press. Accusing a reporter of being a “co-conspirator,” on top of other zealous and secretive investigations, shows a heavy tilt toward secrecy and insufficient concern about a free press.
On Monday, the 2009 case involving Rosen earned renewed scrutiny and almost universal condemnation from members of the press.
In the case, federal prosecutors sought a search warrant to examine Rosen's personal emails and other communications with Stephen Kim, a former State Department official who had disclosed information to Rosen. In an application for a search warrant, Reyes wrote that Rosen was an "aider and abettor and/or co-conspirator" in the case.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/nyt-fox-news-leak-investigation-obama-administration-2013-5#ixzz2U1mHhiBE
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Newly uncovered court documents show the Justice Department seized phone records associated with several Fox News lines as part of a leak investigation -- a revelation that comes as the White House Correspondents' Association spoke out against the administration's monitoring of reporters.
Documents filed in October 2011 appear to show exchanges that match the specific locations of Fox News' White House, Pentagon, State Department and other operations. The last four digits of each of the phone numbers listed are redacted in the government filing so it is impossible to know the full numbers. The seizure was ordered in addition to a court-approved search warrant for Fox News correspondent James Rosen's personal emails.
Among the numbers listed were several that start with the area code and exchange, 202-824 -- which is an area code and exchange for the Fox News Washington bureau. The phone number for Rosen's parents also falls within one of the exchanges listed in the document, though other numbers could fall within that exchange.
The phone information was included in a long list of numbers, email addresses and other details that prosecutors shared with defense attorneys shortly after the alleged leaker was indicted. The document said the government had already obtained a trove of material from the defendant, Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, including his passport applications, State Department badge records, emails, computer and hard drive.
Asked about the documents, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told Fox News he "can't comment on an ongoing criminal investigation."
Click to read the documents.
The case is being prosecuted by U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ronald Machen Jr.
Meanwhile, the Correspondents' Association spoke out on incidents involving two news organizations. The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of phone records from the Associated Press and obtained a search warrant for the personal emails of Fox News' James Rosen. The information about the phone records was uncovered Tuesday.
In the latter case, an FBI agent also claimed in an affidavit that Rosen was possibly a criminal "co-conspirator."
Though no charges were brought against Rosen, the White House Correspondents' Association said no journalist should even face that threat for doing their job.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/21/correspondents-association-concerned-government-too-aggressive-in-tracking/?test=latestnews#ixzz2U25OC0eD
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/22/nytimes-obama-white-house-doj-investigations_n_3318748.html#comments
Full meltdown
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http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/23/18451142-holder-okd-search-warrant-for-fox-news-reporters-private-emails-official-says?lite
Disgraceful.
FUEH!!!
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Obama Orders DOJ Review of Leak Investigations
Jonathan Karl
By Jonathan Karl
@jonkarl
Follow on Twitter
May 23, 2013 5:12pm
President Obama is a little uneasy with the way journalists have been dragged into the Justice Department’s aggressive pursuit of national security leak investigations. In fact, he has ordered Attorney General Eric Holder to conduct a 45-day review of the department’s guidelines on the issue.
That bit of news was buried in the middle of the president’s hourlong speech today at National Defense University.
“Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs,” President Obama said. “Our focus must be on those who break the law.”
And then the news: “I have raised these issues with the attorney general, who shares my concern. So he has agreed to review existing Department of Justice guidelines governing investigations that involve reporters, and will convene a group of media organizations to hear their concerns as part of that review. And I have directed the attorney general to report back to me by July 12th.”
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http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/05/how-justice-fought-to-keep-rosens-warrant-secret.html
FNG insane
Like communist russia
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http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/05/how-justice-fought-to-keep-rosens-warrant-secret.html
FNG insane
Like communist russia
Unreal. Just an absolute abuse of power.
And talk about the appearance of misconduct. They go to war with Fox News, then spy on a Fox News reporter, claiming (in secret) that he might be egnaged in espionage.
Will be interesting to see where the buck stops on this one.
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Eric Holder signed off on a Fox News search warrant: Finally, a smoking gun?
By Jon Terbush | The Week – 9 hrs ago..
The attorney general distanced himself from one controversial media snooping case. But according to NBC, he's deeply tied to another one.
The growing furor over the Obama administration's secret investigation of journalists took a sharp turn Thursday with the revelation that Attorney General Eric Holder had personally authorized a controversial search warrant targeting a Fox News reporter.
Holder signed off on the search warrant for James Rosen, Fox's chief Washington correspondent, that alleged Rosen had possibly committed espionage "either as an aider, abettor, and/or co-conspirator," according to NBC. Rosen has never been charged with any crime, and that warrant has been universally condemned by journalists of all political stripes.
"This heavy-handed business isn't chilling, it's just plain cold," declared the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson.
Rosen's case stems from a 2009 story he wrote about North Korea's nuclear program, in which he cited confidential government intelligence. The Obama administration, which has made a habit of fiercely pursuing internal leaks, quickly fingered a State Department contractor, Jin-Woo Kim, who has since been charged with violating the Espionage Act.
To build the case against Kim, the administration pulled Rosen's phone records, tracked his movement in and out of the State Department using his government-issued ID, and ultimately sought that search warrant for his emails by saying there was "probable cause" to believe that he too had broken the law.
The news of Holder's involvement comes on the heels of another unflattering story about the White House secretly obtaining phone records for Associated Press reporters. Holder has tried to remain above that fray by saying he recused himself from the decision and has virtually no insider knowledge of it.
The new Rosen revelation also came on the same day that Obama, in a sweeping speech redefining the nation's counterterror efforts, specifically said he was "troubled" by the DOJ's leak investigations because they could have a chilling effect on journalists and their sources.
"Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs," the president said. "Our focus must be on those who break the law."
Obama, who has used the AP scandal to press for a federal shield law that would protect journalists, said he'd asked Holder to review the DOJ's guidelines for investigating reporters, and to meet with media groups before reporting back in mid-July. As some have pointed out though, that means Holder will essentially be reviewing himself.
And now, with the disclosure that Holder himself signed off on the DOJ's most controversial probe yet, calls for his resignation are growing louder.
Huh, the Huffington Post says Eric Holder should go... twitter.com/RyanLizza/stat…
— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) May 24, 2013
The National Republican Congressional Committee, likewise, suggested Holder should go, launching on Friday a petition to that end.
The DOJ defended Holder's involvement in the review process, issuing this statement to NBC:
This review is consistent with Attorney General Holder's long-standing belief that freedom of the press is essential to our democracy. At the same time, the attorney general believes that leaks of classified information damage our national security and must be investigated using appropriate law enforcement tools. We remain steadfast in our commitment to following all laws and regulations intended to safeguard national security as well as the First Amendment interests of the press in reporting the news and the public in receiving it. [NBC] ::) ::) ::)
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/24/eric-holder-search-warrant_n_3333540.html
and obama never knew of this despite going on TV calling Fox news not legit?
LMFAO
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AP CEO Says DOJ Seized Records For 'Thousands And Thousands' Of Phone Calls: Staffer
Posted: 05/29/2013 2:28 pm EDT
NEW YORK -- Associated Press president and chief executive Gary Pruitt told staff at a Wednesday town hall meeting that the phone records obtained by the government included "thousands and thousands" of calls in and out of the news organization, according to a staffer who attended.
The AP revealed on May 13 that the Justice Department had seized records for 20 separate phone lines over a two-month period as part of a leak investigation, but has not mentioned how many calls may have been affected.
Pruitt said Wednesday that the Obama administration acted as "judge, jury and executioner" in secretly obtaining the news organization's records, a criticism he also leveled in a recent appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation."
During the town hall, Pruitt reiterated that the AP did not report on a CIA-thwarted terrorist plot in May 2012 out of national security concerns until sources indicated the Obama administration was going to announce it publicly.
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www.usdebtclock.orgasm
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2014/10/27/usa-todays-susan-page-obama-administration-most-dangerous-to-media-in-history/