http://bigstory.ap.org/article/govt-obtains-wide-ap-phone-records-probe
QuoteGov't obtains wide AP phone records in probe
By MARK SHERMAN
â€" May. 13 10:53 PM EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) â€" 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.
Arnie Robbins, executive director of the American Society of News Editors, said, "On the face of it, this is really a disturbing affront to a free press. It's also troubling because it is consistent with perhaps the most aggressive administration ever against reporters doing their jobs â€" providing information that citizens need to know about our government."
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a potential 2016 presidential candidate, said: "The Fourth Amendment is not just a protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, it is a fundamental protection for the First Amendment and all other Constitutional rights. It sets a high bar â€" a warrant â€" for the government to take actions that could chill exercise of any of those rights. We must guard it with all the vigor that we guard other constitutional protections."
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.
Some people will have no problem with this simply because the person currently in the White House is a Democrat.
Everyone should have a problem with this no matter who is doing it or what your political leanings are.
Quote from: stephendare on May 14, 2013, 08:51:31 AM
Quote from: carpnter on May 14, 2013, 08:41:42 AM
Some people will have no problem with this simply because the person currently in the White House is a Democrat.
Everyone should have a problem with this no matter who is doing it or what your political leanings are.
100% agree with you carpenter. This isn't 'slippery slope' this is downright dangerous.
No doubt... all should be concerned with erosions of
ANY of the original Bill of Rights... even the ones some of us do not use...
Quote from: stephendare on May 14, 2013, 09:27:02 AM
Quote from: BridgeTroll on May 14, 2013, 09:08:59 AM
Quote from: stephendare on May 14, 2013, 08:51:31 AM
Quote from: carpnter on May 14, 2013, 08:41:42 AM
Some people will have no problem with this simply because the person currently in the White House is a Democrat.
Everyone should have a problem with this no matter who is doing it or what your political leanings are.
100% agree with you carpenter. This isn't 'slippery slope' this is downright dangerous.
No doubt... all should be concerned with erosions of ANY of the original Bill of Rights... even the ones some of us do not use...
this isnt an erosion, Bridge Troll. This is an outright flouting. But since Bush and the Delay Frist Congress, this kind of thing has been written into our government. If I remember correctly you personally wrote many posts on this subject to the tune of only fools wanted the terrorists to win.
It will take decades to undo the damage wrought by those terrible six years. If we can ever truly undo it.
Blaming Bush for this one too? lol... This particular amendment seems important to you... I can see why you are passionate about it. I suppose you can also understand why some might be equally passionate about other amendments.
Whoever is using electronic media, and assuming any kind of privacy, is a big fool.
Quote from: BridgeTroll on May 14, 2013, 09:35:33 AM
Quote from: stephendare on May 14, 2013, 09:27:02 AM
Quote from: BridgeTroll on May 14, 2013, 09:08:59 AM
Quote from: stephendare on May 14, 2013, 08:51:31 AM
Quote from: carpnter on May 14, 2013, 08:41:42 AM
Some people will have no problem with this simply because the person currently in the White House is a Democrat.
Everyone should have a problem with this no matter who is doing it or what your political leanings are.
100% agree with you carpenter. This isn't 'slippery slope' this is downright dangerous.
No doubt... all should be concerned with erosions of ANY of the original Bill of Rights... even the ones some of us do not use...
this isnt an erosion, Bridge Troll. This is an outright flouting. But since Bush and the Delay Frist Congress, this kind of thing has been written into our government. If I remember correctly you personally wrote many posts on this subject to the tune of only fools wanted the terrorists to win.
It will take decades to undo the damage wrought by those terrible six years. If we can ever truly undo it.
Blaming Bush for this one too? lol... This particular amendment seems important to you... I can see why you are passionate about it. I suppose you can also understand why some might be equally passionate about other amendments.
actually, this is a rule/law/policy from the Bush admin and the Obama administration has taken full advantage of it.
If Holder isn't canned soon, it is a travesty.
Quote from: stephendare on May 14, 2013, 09:27:02 AM
this isnt an erosion, Bridge Troll. This is an outright flouting. But since Bush and the Delay Frist Congress, this kind of thing has been written into our government. If I remember correctly you personally wrote many posts on this subject to the tune of only fools wanted the terrorists to win.
It will take decades to undo the damage wrought by those terrible six years. If we can ever truly undo it.
Still blaming Bush lol.
Ignorance is bliss.
Quote from: rohicks on May 14, 2013, 09:50:05 AM
Quote from: stephendare on May 14, 2013, 09:27:02 AM
this isnt an erosion, Bridge Troll. This is an outright flouting. But since Bush and the Delay Frist Congress, this kind of thing has been written into our government. If I remember correctly you personally wrote many posts on this subject to the tune of only fools wanted the terrorists to win.
It will take decades to undo the damage wrought by those terrible six years. If we can ever truly undo it.
Still blaming Bush lol.
Ignorance is bliss.
This is very much a continuation of Bush-era secret surveillance policy.
One of the big fears when USA Today originally broke the story was that the government could use these controversial new rights to monitor the press and track down their sources.
Now, here we are with Associated Press reporters being monitored at work and at home.
With that said, if you want to assign "blame," start with the acting President who's allowing this shit to continue. He's every bit as guilty as George W. is. He ran on a platform of transparency and change, and not only has he continued the program, but he has blocked release of Bush's original justification for the program:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/08/29/obama-administration-blocks-release-bush-administration-surveillance-policy/
Ain't no good guys when it comes to this one.
Between this and the IRS fiasco, I sincerely hope people grasp just how serious and potentially devastating these revelations are.
Crap like this strikes at the heart of American freedom one billion times harder than a couple of pot heads with pressure cookers in Boston.
I agree that this is a continuation of what went on under Bush. Obama was very critical of the warrantless wiretapping program and yet he continued using the program after getting elected which Congress relaxed some of the FISA requirements in 2008, a Congress where the Democrats had control of both houses.
There are no clean hands in this fiasco, Democrats are just as dirty as the Republicans here. Blaming Bush is not addressing the issue, he left office over 5 years ago and there has been plenty of time for the current administration to change the way things are being done. It won't take decades to undo the damage, but the damage cannot be undone until the current administration stops engaging in these activities.
There has been plenty of opportunity for both parties to stop this crap, and it is sad that it took the AP being subjected to very questionable record seizures for anyone to do anything.
Every time there is a power shift in DC the party taking power promises all sorts of ethical reforms and transparency and they never deliver on it.
Justice... the IRS... State... CIA... all going rogue? Or is it more sinister?
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2006/05/fbi_acknowledge/
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2006/05/federal_source_/
Quote from: stephendare on May 14, 2013, 02:59:13 PM
Quote from: BridgeTroll on May 14, 2013, 02:49:54 PM
Justice... the IRS... State... CIA... all going rogue? Or is it more sinister?
You sat and watched all of these agencies get supercharged with breathtaking new powers via the PATRIOT ACT and its devil spawn fellow travellers and you approved of it, Bridge Troll.
Are you really surprised?
Rofl... ah... the Bush thing again... really?
Quote from: stephendare on May 16, 2013, 11:36:56 AM
Quote from: BridgeTroll on May 16, 2013, 09:19:06 AM
Quote from: stephendare on May 14, 2013, 02:59:13 PM
Quote from: BridgeTroll on May 14, 2013, 02:49:54 PM
Justice... the IRS... State... CIA... all going rogue? Or is it more sinister?
You sat and watched all of these agencies get supercharged with breathtaking new powers via the PATRIOT ACT and its devil spawn fellow travellers and you approved of it, Bridge Troll.
Are you really surprised?
Rofl... ah... the Bush thing again... really?
Back when you were supporting this, did you think that it was going to conveniently go away? Or maybe that people would forget how it happened?
There are actual consequences to your politics, Bridge Troll. Its not really all just windy bull sessions about the way things outta be.
You don't have the luxury later on of just trying to dismiss it all by calling it that 'bush thing'.
Or did you seriously not foresee that this would be the outcome? Because, freedom!?
This isn't a Bush thing any more. This is a government thing, The republicans and democrats passed it originally and the republicans were in power with overwhelming support from both parties, it was renewed once while Bush was still President and then renewed again after Obama was in office and the democrats were in power.
I wasn't here when the Patriot Act was passed so I don't know who was on which side, but this is a perfect of example of what happens when you do something right now instead of doing it right. Perhaps certain people will remember that this is what you can end up with when you let emotion take over instead of logically examining the situation to see what really needs to be done.
Quote from: stephendare on May 16, 2013, 01:01:34 PM
Quote from: carpnter on May 16, 2013, 12:53:46 PM
Quote from: stephendare on May 16, 2013, 11:36:56 AM
Quote from: BridgeTroll on May 16, 2013, 09:19:06 AM
Quote from: stephendare on May 14, 2013, 02:59:13 PM
Quote from: BridgeTroll on May 14, 2013, 02:49:54 PM
Justice... the IRS... State... CIA... all going rogue? Or is it more sinister?
You sat and watched all of these agencies get supercharged with breathtaking new powers via the PATRIOT ACT and its devil spawn fellow travellers and you approved of it, Bridge Troll.
Are you really surprised?
Rofl... ah... the Bush thing again... really?
Back when you were supporting this, did you think that it was going to conveniently go away? Or maybe that people would forget how it happened?
There are actual consequences to your politics, Bridge Troll. Its not really all just windy bull sessions about the way things outta be.
You don't have the luxury later on of just trying to dismiss it all by calling it that 'bush thing'.
Or did you seriously not foresee that this would be the outcome? Because, freedom!?
This isn't a Bush thing any more. This is a government thing, The republicans and democrats passed it originally and the republicans were in power with overwhelming support from both parties, it was renewed once while Bush was still President and then renewed again after Obama was in office and the democrats were in power.
I wasn't here when the Patriot Act was passed so I don't know who was on which side, but this is a perfect of example of what happens when you do something right now instead of doing it right. Perhaps certain people will remember that this is what you can end up with when you let emotion take over instead of logically examining the situation to see what really needs to be done.
To his credit Obama's administration removed some very egregious passages and the reauthorization declined to renew Bush/Cheney's imaginary new 'enemy noncombatant' classification, as well as the 'unitary presidency' and the 'vice presidency is actually a 4th Branch of government theory' that Cheney literally espoused.
Do you mean to say that you werent in the US when the PATRIOT ACT passed?
I meant I wasn't posting here on MetroJax so I don't know what anyone's positions here were at the time.
There really is no reason to worry... everything is under control...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/16/obama-ap-scandal_n_3287165.html
QuoteWASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama said Thursday a "balance" should be struck between national security interests and freedom of the press, in response to a question about the Justice Department's decision to subpoena the phone records of the Associated Press.
"Leaks related to national security can put people at risk, they can put men and women in uniform that I've sent into the battlefield at risk," Obama said, while declining to comment on the pending case.
"U.S. national security is dependent upon those folks being able to operate with confidence that folks back home have their backs, so they're not just left out there high and dry."
Obama said he made "no apologies" for being concerned about national security but that the free flow of information was important to him as well.
Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday that his second-in-command, Deputy Attorney General James Cole, had signed off on the AP subpoenas. Obama said Thursday he had "complete confidence" in Holder.
Obama rebuffed a comparison between his governing style and that of former President Richard Nixon.
"I'll let you guys engage in those comparisons," Obama said. "You can read the history and draw your own conclusions."
This is actually a story of the courts:
May 14, 2013
The Law Behind the A.P. Phone-Record Scandal
Posted by Lynn Oberlander
The cowardly move by the Justice Department to subpoena two months of the A.P.’s phone records, both of its office lines and of the home phones of individual reporters, is potentially a breach of the Justice Department’s own guidelines. Even more important, it prevented the A.P. from seeking a judicial review of the action. Some months ago, apparently, the government sent a subpoena (or subpoenas) for the records to the phone companies that serve those offices and individuals, and the companies provided the records without any notice to the A.P. If subpoenas had been served directly on the A.P. or its individual reporters, they would have had an opportunity to go to court to file a motion to quash the subpoenas. What would have happened in court is anybody’s guessâ€"there is no federal shield law that would protect reporters from having to testify before a criminal grand juryâ€"but the Justice Department avoided the issue altogether by not notifying the A.P. that it even wanted this information. Even beyond the outrageous and overreaching action against the journalists, this is a blatant attempt to avoid the oversight function of the courts.
It is not, again, as if the government didn’t have options. The D.C. Circuit (in a 2005 opinion upholding a finding of contempt against the Times’s Judith Miller and Time’s Matt Cooper for refusing to testify about who had disclosed Valerie Plame’s identity as a C.I.A. operative) has held that there isn’t a First Amendment privilege for journalists to refuse to testify before a criminal grand jury, as has the Second Circuit (in a 2006 case in which the government was trying to find out who told the Times about a planned raid on two foundations suspected of providing aid to terrorists). In the wake of the decisions, there was a renewed effort to pass a federal shield lawâ€"though the proposed law would not have provided absolute protection in cases of national securityâ€"but, with the rise of WikiLeaks, that discussion died.
The Times’s case provides the facts most similar to the A.P.’s. The prosecutor had asked the Times to provide phone records; when the Times refused, he threatened to get the records directly from the phone companies. The Times then went to court and sought a declaratory judgment that its records were protected by reporter’s privilege. The Second Circuit ruled that phone recordsâ€"even those held by a third party, such as a phone companyâ€"were subject to the same common-law privilege that would apply to the journalists’ own records. However, the court noted that there wasn’t a constitutional privilege to refuse to disclose such records to a criminal grand jury, and that any common-law privilege would be not absolute but “qualifiedâ€â€"meaning that it could be overcome by a compelling government interest. The Circuit, however, declined to define the privilege, other than to say that it wouldn’t stand up in the case before it.
Crucially, though the Times lost that case, 2â€"1, all of the judges agreed that government could not act unilaterally, without judicial review. As Judge Sack said in dissent:
For the question… is not so much whether there is protection for the identity of reporters’ sources, or even what that protection is, but which branch of government decides whether, when, and how any such protection is overcome.
He added, “Judge Winter’s opinion makes clear that the government’s demonstration of ‘necessity’ and ‘exhaustion’ must, indeed, be made to the courts, not just the Attorney General.â€
In the A.P.’s case, though, the latter is exactly what did happen. (Though since Eric Holder, the Attorney General, said Tuesday that he recused himself, that demonstration wasn’t even made to him, but to someone else in the Department of Justice.) The Department of Justice chose to avoid the court systemâ€"and its independent check on the Department’s powerâ€"by serving its subpoenas directly on the phone companies without telling the A.P. In so doing, it apparently relied on an exception to its own policy of notifying a media company in advance of a subpoena if doing so “would pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation.â€
If, as has been reported, the grand jury is investigating the leak of information concerning the C.I.A. foiling in Yemen of an Al-Qaeda plot to bomb an airliner heading to the United States, it is hard to understand how a later request for phone records would pose a threat to the integrity of the investigation. This request for two months of records was ostensibly made after the calls were made. If the government had a suspicion that one of its employees was the leak, it could go to a court itself and seek a wiretap of that employee. (Of course, they would have to make a showing of probable cause, which they were able to skip by going directly to the A.P.’s phone companies.) There would seem to be no reason not to let the media organization know that it wanted phone records of calls already madeâ€"after all, what was the rush? Let the courts decide whether the Justice Department really needs those records or not.
Lynn Oberlander is the general counsel of The New Yorker.
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/05/ap-phone-record-scandal-justice-department-law.html&utm_source=feedly?printable=true¤tPage=all#ixzz2TVhbpKPp
Shades of Nixon all over this.
Quote from: stephendare on May 16, 2013, 11:40:35 PM
Isn't it crazy how the 'liberal' media actually holds the 'liberal' administration accountable on the principles?
Jamie Dupree is calling it a "Rebellion in the Press Room"
Quote from: stephendare on May 16, 2013, 11:40:35 PM
Isn't it crazy how the 'liberal' media actually holds the 'liberal' administration accountable on the principles?
They've been giving Obama a pass until the administration did something that affected the press.
Regarding your other question. I wanted the government to do something, thousands of people had just been killed by a group of radicals determined to kill as many Americans as they can. At the time I was working 50-60 hours a week and was woefully uninformed on what was in the bill, but I wanted something done to help make sure this couldn't happen again. So I, like most of the public, wanted something right now instead of getting the right laws passed.
It was a flawed bill and while there were some good things in it, the items in it that infringe the rights of Americans, make it a bad bill and it should not have been passed in the form that it was in.
As you can see from the articles I posted this was already going on in 2006. So I guess no one realized at the time that these powers extended beyond the current presidency? Live and learn I guess.
Quote from: stephendare on May 17, 2013, 10:54:51 AM
Quote from: carpnter on May 17, 2013, 09:00:09 AM
Quote from: stephendare on May 16, 2013, 11:40:35 PM
Isn't it crazy how the 'liberal' media actually holds the 'liberal' administration accountable on the principles?
They've been giving Obama a pass until the administration did something that affected the press.
Regarding your other question. I wanted the government to do something, thousands of people had just been killed by a group of radicals determined to kill as many Americans as they can. At the time I was working 50-60 hours a week and was woefully uninformed on what was in the bill, but I wanted something done to help make sure this couldn't happen again. So I, like most of the public, wanted something right now instead of getting the right laws passed.
It was a flawed bill and while there were some good things in it, the items in it that infringe the rights of Americans, make it a bad bill and it should not have been passed in the form that it was in.
totally incorrect. The Press has been criticizing him all along, just not on the crazy made up nonsense like 'terrorist fist bumps' and 'actually kenyan'.
So you were for this kind of power. Ok. Thanks for being honest.
I'll admit I let my emotion affect my judgement and supported this bill, like the majority of Congress. Looking at it now I am more than willing to admit had I looked it without letting emotions get involved I would not have supported it at all, just because of the civil liberty issues alone.
^^^ Now THAT is funny. ^^^
QuoteIn an interview with Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) threw cold water on hopes that the Justice Department’s surveillance of Associated Press reporters’ phone records could lead to legislation preventing similar incidents in the future. Gowdy noted that the surveillance occurred in no small part because Republicans demanded such an investigation in 2012:
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/on-the-record/index.html#http://video.foxnews.com/v/2382334063001/american-people-at-risk-versus-freedom-of-the-press/?playlist_id=86925 (http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/on-the-record/index.html#http://video.foxnews.com/v/2382334063001/american-people-at-risk-versus-freedom-of-the-press/?playlist_id=86925)
He also goes on to say how else would they investigate leaks.
To me this is scandalous but again is not on the White House.
Quote from: stephendare on May 17, 2013, 10:54:51 AM
Quote from: carpnter on May 17, 2013, 09:00:09 AM
Quote from: stephendare on May 16, 2013, 11:40:35 PM
Isn't it crazy how the 'liberal' media actually holds the 'liberal' administration accountable on the principles?
They've been giving Obama a pass until the administration did something that affected the press.
Regarding your other question. I wanted the government to do something, thousands of people had just been killed by a group of radicals determined to kill as many Americans as they can. At the time I was working 50-60 hours a week and was woefully uninformed on what was in the bill, but I wanted something done to help make sure this couldn't happen again. So I, like most of the public, wanted something right now instead of getting the right laws passed.
It was a flawed bill and while there were some good things in it, the items in it that infringe the rights of Americans, make it a bad bill and it should not have been passed in the form that it was in.
totally incorrect. The Press has been criticizing him all along, just not on the crazy made up nonsense like 'terrorist fist bumps' and 'actually kenyan'.
So you were for this kind of power. Ok. Thanks for being honest.
Wasn't it solely Fixed News (Fox) who said those things though? Hardly what I would call "the press" in general.
The sad fact is, all the major networks & news outlets are owned by only a handful of giant corporations, who all have their own agendas, own backings, etc & are playing this little game. They back & bet on putting these people in power (all the way up & down the chain of command) like they're betting on a horse race. So they indeed want something for their money. And you can bet Obama & most of Congress wouldn't be there unless they played ball. The last guy who didn't play was JFK, and you see how that ended.
This isn't fantasy conspiracy crap, its real life. Whoever doesn't see it is either blind, or way too caught up in playing ra ra for their team. Because apparently in this country we all treat politics like its a football game between arch rivals now, talking smack & finger pointing.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/21/how-hope-and-change-gave-way-to-spying-on-the-press.html
Quote
How Hope and Change Gave Way to Spying on the Press
by Kirsten PowersMay 21, 2013 4:45 AM EDT
Much of the Fourth Estate shrugged when the Obama administration attacked Fox News, writes Kirsten Powers. But now it’s coming for them, too.
First they came for Fox News, and they did not speak outâ€"because they were not Fox News. Then they came for government whistleblowers, and they did not speak outâ€"because they were not government whistleblowers. Then they came for the maker of a YouTube video, andâ€"okay, we know how this story ends. But how did we get here?
Turns out it’s a fairly swift sojourn from a president pushing to “delegitimize†a news organization to threatening criminal prosecution for journalistic activity by a Fox News reporter, James Rosen, to spying on Associated Press reporters. In between, the Obama administration found time to relentlessly persecute government whistleblowers and publicly harass and condemn a private American citizen for expressing his constitutionally protected speech in the form of an anti-Islam YouTube video.
Where were the media when all this began happening? With a few exceptions, they were acting as quiet enablers.
It’s instructive to go back to the dawn of Hope and Change. It was 2009, and the new administration decided it was appropriate to use the prestige of the White House to viciously attack a news organizationâ€"Fox Newsâ€"and the journalists who work there. Remember, President Obama had barely been in office and had enjoyed the most laudatory press of any new president in modern history. Yet even one outlet that allowed dissent or criticism of the president was one too many. This should have been a red flag to everyone, regardless of what they thought of Fox News. The math was simple: if the administration would abuse its power to try and intimidate one media outlet, what made anyone think they weren’t next?
"What I think is fair to say about Fox … is that it really is more a wing of the Republican Party," said Anita Dunn, White House communications director, on CNN. “[L]et's not pretend they're a news network the way CNN is." On ABC’s “This Week†White House senior adviser David Axelrod said Fox is "not really a news station." It wasn’t just that Fox News was “not a news organization,†White House chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel told CNN’s John King, but, “more [important], is [to] not have the CNNs and the others in the world basically be led in following Fox, as if what they’re trying to do is a legitimate news organization …â€
These series of “warnings†to the Fourth Estate were what you might expect to hear from some third-rate dictator, not from the senior staff of Hope and Change, Inc.
Yet only one mainstream media reporterâ€"Jake Tapper, then of ABC Newsâ€"ever raised a serious objection to the White House’s egregious and chilling behavior. Tapper asked future MSNBC commentator and then White House press secretary Robert Gibbs: “[W]hy is [it] appropriate for the White House to say†that “thousands of individuals who work for a media organization, do not work for a ‘news organization’?†The spokesman for the president of the United States was unrepentant, saying: “That's our opinion.â€
Trashing reporters comes easy in Obama-land. Behind the scenes, Obama-centric Democratic operatives brand any reporter who questions the administration as a closet conservative, because what other explanation could there be for a reporter critically reporting on the government?
Now, the Democratic advocacy group Media Mattersâ€"which is always mysteriously in sync with the administration despite ostensibly operating independentlyâ€"has launched a smear campaign against ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl for his reporting on Benghazi. It’s the kind of character assassination that would make Joseph McCarthy blush. The main page of the Media Matters website has six stories attacking Karl for a single mistake in an otherwise correct report about the State Department's myriad changes to talking points they previously claimed to have barely touched. See, the problem isn’t the repeated obfuscating from the administration about the Benghazi attack; the problem is Jonathan Karl. Hence, the now-familiar campaign of de-legitimization. This gross media intimidation is courtesy of tax-deductable donations from the Democratic Party’s liberal donor base, which provides a whopping $20 million a year for Media Matters to harass reporters who won’t fall in line.
In what is surely just a huge coincidence, the liberal media monitoring organization Fairness and Accuracy in the Media (FAIR) is also on a quest to delegitimize Karl. It dug through his past and discovered that in college he allegedlyâ€"horrors!â€"associated with conservatives. Because of this, FAIR declared Karl “a right wing mole at ABC News.†Setting aside the veracity of FAIR’s crazy claim, isn’t the fact that it was made in the first place vindication for those who assert a liberal media bias in the mainstream media? If the existence of a person who allegedly associates with conservatives is a “mole,†then what does that tell us about the rest of the media?
What all of us in the media need to rememberâ€"whatever our politicsâ€"is that we need to hold government actions to the same standard, whether they’re aimed at friends or foes. If not, there’s no one but ourselves to blame when the administration takes aim at us.
I believe in the freedom of the press to investigate and present their stories. I don't believe they have any freedom from investigation. Has the administration used these investigations to bully or prosecute the press?
It appears that congress asked the justice department to investigate leaks to the press which they did. Has there been a specific illegal act here?
I am not trying to be an apologist here just trying to wrap my mind around this "scandal".
Should the media expect less from a president that got his news through the English language editions of Pravda and China Daily, while he was at the University? Since his reelection his game has been insane policy with a heavy handed 'media management.'
But hey? What do I know? The guy has the ability to run a Soviet style gulag and sell it to the public as a 'bone meal plant food factory.'