AP: Govt obtains wide AP phone records in probe

[AsburySkinsFan]

It does appear to me that the only people who have any defense of this administration on this issue reside in this thread. When Charlie Rengel of all people thinks something isn't right, and the President claims he has no clue about it, there is an issue

Charlie Rangel is a political animal who will do anything to survive, if that means he has to make some noise on this then he'll do it. Remember the father of Sir Robert the Bruce on Braveheart...that's Rangel.

Those of us who aren't all inflamed on this issue just don't believe that the press deserves special rights and protections that ordinary citizens receive. If they are trading in illegally obtained classified material then that's on them, I don't care if it is Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, or the AP. I won't make heroes out of any of them if they broke the law.

[Larry]

I also want to add that I don't like that the legislative conversations about this is a privilege for reporters. That would protect reporters but not the rest of us. What we need are some revisions to ECPA and the Patriot Act that make it a little more difficult for the government to get phone/internet records from telecom providers without prior notice to the account holder. Those types of subpoenas should be the exception rather than the rule, and the government should have the burden to show some real risk to the investigation before a judge approves them.

Frankly, I'd rather see some laws actually forbidding them from keeping most such records. (And prohibiting such broad data dump demands, for the rest.)

I don't want the government demanding all of my internet activity for the last six months.

I don't want my ISP to have records of all of my internet activity for the last six months. I don't want them handing them over to the government. I don't want them selling them to telemarketers, I don't want them collecting it in-house just in case it might be worth money, down the road.

Obviously, there are businesses who do have to retain records. My credit card company does need to retain a record of all of my purchases. Probably forever. They have to have it, for example, in case I decide to challenge a bill.

(But Best Buy doesn't need to keep records of exactly what I spent that $87.39 on, five years ago.)

[SkinsHokieFan]

Charlie Rangel is a political animal who will do anything to survive, if that means he has to make some noise on this then he'll do it. Remember the father of Sir Robert the Bruce on Braveheart...that's Rangel.

Rangel is in one of the safest D districts in the nation. He doesn't need to "make noise" about this.

Amongst those inflamed besides him are the ACLU, the NYT Editorial Board, Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Greenwald to name a few. And clearly the President since he is now trying to push through a law which he opposed in 2009

And the neat thing about ES is we can see who flip flopped in 7 years on this issue thanks to party

http://www.extremeskins.com/showthread.php?155733-FBI-Acknowledges-Journalists-Phone-Records-are-Fair-Game

My man Burgold put it best back in 2006

Regardless, this is an effort to either prosecute the media or to silence it. This is a warning shot. If you say something bad about us we will know. Leaks have been a tool of politicians including the President since the earliest days. This is a control play... a power play. It is an attempt to punish the media and undermine its ability to discover and uncover. It's a scare tactic. Or a method to create an Enemy's List.

How will this policy advance our ability to uncover terrorist plots and protect Americans? Why does this administration feel the need to spy on the media? We've had dozens of Presidents before President Bush that have had leaks. We've had dozens of Presidents before President Bush that have been fairly and unfairly criticized. Why is it cool now?

[Wrong Direction]

Those of us who aren't all inflamed on this issue just don't believe that the press deserves special rights and protections that ordinary citizens receive. If they are trading in illegally obtained classified material then that's on them, I don't care if it is Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, or the AP. I won't make heroes out of any of them if they broke the law.

I tend to agree with this, but we should recognize the moral hazard here.

This, or any administration, can leak whatever they want without recourse. The second someone they don't like leaks something, they can fall back on various arguments about the danger of leaks.

There simply isn't a good solution. Independence would be a good start, but you can't give an independent body the authority to subpoena any records they want. We've eliminated the independent prosecutor after Ken Starr, so that option isn't on the table. I don't trust Holder - a political ally of the President - to truly execute a truly independent probe. If you don' t like that statement, fill in Ashcroft/Gonzalez instead of Holder and tell me you'd trust them to perform an independent probe.

In any case, power sucks and should be used judiciously. This scandal and the IRS scandal seem to indicate a misuse of power.

---------- Post added May-15th-2013 at 05:09 PM ----------

I don't want my ISP to have records of all of my internet activity for the last six months. I don't want them handing them over to the government.

But you probably didn't mind when they could track the movement of the Tsarnaev brothers using these types of records. That's the catch-22.

[PeterMP]

Rangel is in one of the safest D districts in the nation. He doesn't need to "make noise" about this.

Amongst those inflamed besides him are the ACLU, the NYT Editorial Board, Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Greenwald to name a few. And clearly the President since he is now trying to push through a law which he opposed in 2009

And the neat thing about ES is we can see who flip flopped in 7 years on this issue thanks to party

And this is where I get irritated with Congress.

The executive branch is not going to much release information on an on going criminal investigation because you asked or you demanded.

Rangel has two options:

1. Launch a Congressional hearing, in which case, he's going to get a bunch of "witnesses" refusing to testify under oath.

Or

2. Do what Congress is actually suppossed to and pass a law to actually limit the power of the executive branch.

The fact of the matter is that they've known that this general type of thing has been going on for years and haven't done anything.

Until the likes of Rangel actually do something like start pushing for legislation, it really is no different than Rand Paul and his fillerbuster.

Its sound and fury for political gamemanship.

[twa]

Why do I feel like I moved to Chicago?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/16/us/politics/under-fire-white-house-pushes-to-revive-media-shield-bill.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

[PeterMP]

Why do I feel like I moved to Chicago?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/16/us/politics/under-fire-white-house-pushes-to-revive-media-shield-bill.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

It actually seems like the White House supported the bill:

"The version the Obama administration is seeking to revive, however, is the one that was chiefly sponsored by Mr. Schumer, which was negotiated between the newspaper industry and the White House. It was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee in a bipartisan 15-to-4 vote in December 2009. But while it was awaiting a floor vote in 2010, a furor over leaking arose after WikiLeaks began publishing archives of secret government documents, and the bill never received a vote."

Would this have been illegal under this?

[twa]

It actually seems like the White House supported the bill:

psst....I think it is a bribe

[Larry]

Would this [i assume he means the seizure of the AP phone records] have been illegal under this [i assume he means under Schumer's shield law]?

Based in the really tiny summary I read a day ago, I don't think Schumer's law would have made any difference at all, in this case, for two reasons.

1) It doesn't make newspapers (let alone newspaper's telephone companies) immune from subpoenas. It only says that individual reporters can't be sent to jail, for refusing to reveal a source.

2) It has an exception for national security, which I assume would be invoked in this case, anyway.

----------

Doesn't mean it's a bad law. But I don't think it would make any difference in this case.

[visionary]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/16/ap-doj-cia-bomb-plot_n_3285278.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003

AP Scoop That Prompted DOJ Probe Only Ran After CIA Signed Off

Attorney General Eric Holder said on Tuesday that the leak that precipitated the Justice Department's secret probe of the Associated Press had "put the American people at risk."

However, a piece in Thursday's Washington Post questioned that narrative at some length. The Post's Carol D. Leonnig and Julie Tate gave a detailed report of the 2012 negotiations between the AP and the White House over a national security story the wire service was planning to run.

[Larry]

You mean, sometimes the left hand and the right hand . . . ?

[visionary]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/15/doj-new-york-times-ap_n_3280392.html

DOJ Tactics Against AP Raise Concerns For The New York Times

When Attorney General Eric Holder took reporters' questions Tuesday afternoon, several asked about the Justice Department’s sweeping seizure of Associated Press phone records, a move condemned by prominent journalists, media outlets and civil liberties advocates.

New York Times reporter Charlie Savage had a different question for Holder, who had just announced he'd recused himself from the AP leak investigation. "Are you also recused from the Stuxnet investigation out of Maryland?" Savage asked. Holder declined to comment, as the Times noted in Tuesday's story. The DOJ also didn't comment on that other leak investigation to the Times for a Monday story on the AP seizure. Times reporters had asked "whether a similar step was taken" in the secretly obtaining journalists records in the Maryland investigation.

The Times has reason to be concerned about whether investigators are using similar tactics. The Maryland case is believed to be focused on Times chief Washington correspondent David Sanger’s reporting on how the U.S. and Israel helped derail Iran’s nuclear program through cyberattacks. Sanger’s June scoop, along with the Times’ front-page article on Obama’s terrorist “kill list,” spurred Congressional calls to investigate the leaks of classified information.

[Larry]

You mean, if the government aggressively pursues people who leak classified information, it might affect lots of media?

[ABQCOWBOY]

Personally, so long as the taps were executed legally and in pursuit of a serious security threat (which I grant is not all together clear at this point), I have no problem with it. Now, if it's show to be not so clear cut or if it's discovered that this has been going on in other areas as well, that's a problem.

Of the three major issues at play now, this one is the least of my concerns.

[SkinsHokieFan]

Of the three major issues at play now, this one is the least of my concerns.

It is funny how untrusting I am of the gov't in these matters now.

This is my highest concern. The tax thing and Benghazi are much more "meh" to me.

I blame it on reading too much Glenn Greenwald

[Predicto]

Personally, so long as the taps were executed legally and in pursuit of a serious security threat (which I grant is not all together clear at this point), I have no problem with it. Now, if it's show to be not so clear cut or if it's discovered that this has been going on in other areas as well, that's a problem.

Of the three major issues at play now, this one is the least of my concerns.

It is funny how untrusting I am of the gov't in these matters now.

This is my highest concern. The tax thing and Benghazi are much more "meh" to me.

I blame it on reading too much Glenn Greenwald

It's funny how each of us sees it. This one bothers me a little, and I want more answers, if only because the slippery slope is very slippery in the area of privacy.

The IRS thing really concerns me, and I really need to know how high it goes. Politicization of the IRS is an enormous danger. No. 1 issue for sure.

I am completely convinced that Benghazi is a joke, a truly tragic incident being spun into a "scandal" by hyper-partisans.

[ABQCOWBOY]

It's funny how each of us sees it. This one bothers me a little, and I want more answers, if only because the slippery slope is very slippery in the area of privacy.

The IRS thing really concerns me, and I really need to know how high it goes. Politicization of the IRS is an enormous danger. No. 1 issue for sure.

I am completely convinced that Benghazi is a joke, a truly tragic incident being spun into a "scandal" by hyper-partisans.

Yeah, I guess we are pretty much exactly in opposite corners. That's OK, it's good to have different view points.

[Larry]

It's funny how each of us sees it. This one bothers me a little, and I want more answers, if only because the slippery slope is very slippery in the area of privacy.

The IRS thing really concerns me, and I really need to know how high it goes. Politicization of the IRS is an enormous danger. No. 1 issue for sure.

I am completely convinced that Benghazi is a joke, a truly tragic incident being spun into a "scandal" by hyper-partisans.

Me?

Blanket demands for months of surveillance just on the chance that there might be a clue, somewhere in there? I've had a problem with that, for years. But, seems like nobody else cared about it until the GOP saw political opportunity, and The Media discovered that they aren't that special. It would really break my heart if there were some laws written that limited this. (For everybody, not just reporters.)

The IRS? I want an investigation, because if this was ordered from on high, then it's Nixon-like in it's stink. (But, the few pieces of information that I've seen reported, really suggests that it was a few "do it yourselfers", their supervisor found out about it, and put things back where they ought to be, years ago.) I still want an investigation, anyway, but for now, my gut says they don't find anything.

Benghazi has slightly more validity than the Birthers. It's a made-for-TV event.

[visionary]

http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2013/05/more-mystery-over-ap-subpoenas-process-at-justice-164202.html

More mystery over AP subpoenas process at Justice Department

Conflicting information is emerging over the process the Justice Department used to approve the subpoenas for Associated Press telephone records in connection with a national security leak investigation.

As I noted in a story Wednesday, Justice's Director of Public Affairs is supposed to be consulted on all subpoenas to the media or for media-related phone records. In the past, that consultation has prompted the narrowing of subpoenas in some cases and their rejection in other cases, though the ultimate decision rests with more senior Justice Department officials.

The Daily Beast's Daniel Klaidman reported Thursday that the head of DOJ Public Affairs at the time the request for the AP's records came through, Tracy Schmaler, recused herself from the matter because she'd been interviewed by investigators. (FBI agents also interviewed Attorney General Eric Holder, which he said this week was part of his decision to recuse himself.)

"In her absence, the job fell to a less experienced deputy," Klaidman reports.

However, a Justice Department official told POLITICO Thursday that none of the current public affairs staff was aware of or asked to offer views on the AP-related subpoenas.

[twa]

Strong words

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/300603-ap-ceo-pruitt-doj-seizure-of-phone-records-unconstitutional

Associated Press CEO Gary Pruitt on Sunday slammed the Justice Department’s (DOJ) seizure of the wire service’s phone records as an “unconstitutional act.”

“We don’t question their right to conduct these sort of investigations, we just think they went about it the wrong way. So sweeping, so secretively, so abusively and harassingly and overbroad that it is an unconstitutional act,” Pruitt said Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation.

Pruitt was commenting on DOJ’s decision to take phone records involving “thousands” of AP calls in an investigation of a security leak regarding a 2012 terrorist attack foiled by the CIA.

AP had found out about the thwarted attack and ran with the story, citing administration officials.

Pruitt said the Obama administration was aware that AP had an accurate account of the episode. He noted the White House asked the wire service to hold the story for five days out of national security concerns, to which AP agreed.

“I really don’t know what their motive is. I know what the message being sent is — it’s that, ‘If you talk to the press, we’re going to go after you,’” Pruitt said.

Pruitt said DOJ did not inform AP of its investigation, and said the agency violated its own rules by failing to narrow its records request as much as possible.

“Under their own rules, they are required to narrow this request as narrowly as possible so as to not tread upon the First Amendment. And yet they had a broad, sweeping collection. And they did it secretly,” Pruitt said.

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/300603-ap-ceo-pruitt-doj-seizure-of-phone-records-unconstitutional#ixzz2TnTC2SC4

Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook

[SkinsHokieFan]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/a-rare-peek-into-a-justice-department-leak-probe/2013/05/19/0bc473de-be5e-11e2-97d4-a479289a31f9_story.html?hpid=z2

A rare peek into a Justice Department leak probe

When the Justice Department began investigating possible leaks of classified information about North Korea in 2009, investigators did more than obtain telephone records of a working journalist suspected of receiving the secret material.

They used security badge access records to track the reporter’s comings and goings from the State Department, according to a newly obtained court affidavit. They traced the timing of his calls with a State Department security adviser suspected of sharing the classified report. They obtained a search warrant for the reporter’s personal e-mails.

The case of Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, the government adviser, and James Rosen, the chief Washington correspondent for Fox News, bears striking similarities to a sweeping leaks investigation disclosed last week in which federal investigators obtained records over two months of more than 20 telephone lines assigned to the Associated Press.

At a time when President Obama’s administration is under renewed scrutiny for an unprecedented number of leak investigations, the Kim case provides a rare glimpse into the inner workings of one such probe.

Link for rest

[Larry]

deleted post.

[visionary]

https://twitter.com/howardfineman

Fox Rosen probe as bad/worse than AP: in unprecedented move, govt says he "conspired" with leaker to get info; that's what reporters do!

10:05 AM

https://twitter.com/RyanLizza

According to search warrant, DOJ went after Rosen's personal gmail account.

11:49 AM

I've obtained a copy of the Rosen search warrant. Will tweet some excerpts…

11:50 AM

Warrant served on Google. Unclear if/when Rosen was informed.

11:54 AM

This is the most chilling section. Absolutely amazing... https://twitter.com/RyanLizza/status/336511562946838530/photo/1

11:59 AM

[Larry]

Wow.

Who knew that publishing classified material was illegal?

Or that conspiring with someone to get them to give you classified material was illegal, too?

And to think . . . the government didn't inform a suspect that they were going to be executing a search warrant?

And here's the most chilling section: The officer requesting the warrant swears under oath that he has probable cause!

[SkinsHokieFan]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/20/obama-doj-james-rosen-criminality

Under US law, it is not illegal to publish classified information. That fact, along with the First Amendment's guarantee of press freedoms, is what has prevented the US government from ever prosecuting journalists for reporting on what the US government does in secret. This newfound theory of the Obama DOJ - that a journalist can be guilty of crimes for "soliciting" the disclosure of classified information - is a means for circumventing those safeguards and criminalizing the act of investigative journalism itself. These latest revelations show that this is not just a theory but one put into practice, as the Obama DOJ submitted court documents accusing a journalist of committing crimes by doing this.

It is virtually impossible at this point to overstate the threat posed by the Obama DOJ to press freedoms. Back in 2006, Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales triggered a major controversy when he said that the New York Times could be prosecuted for having revealed the Top Secret information that the NSA was eavesdropping on the communications of Americans without warrants. That was at the same time that right-wing demagogues such Bill Bennett were calling for the prosecution of the NYT reporters who reported on the NSA program, as well as the Washington Post's Dana Priest for having exposed the CIA black site network.

But despite those public threats, the Bush DOJ never went so far as to formally accuse journalists in court filings of committing crimes for reporting on classified information. Now the Obama DOJ has.

There is simply no defense for this behavior. Obama defenders such as Andrew Sullivan claim that this is all more complicated than media outrage suggests because of a necessary "trade-off" between press freedoms and security. So do Obama defenders believe that George Bush and Richard Nixon - who never prosecuted leakers like this or formally accused journalists of being criminals for reporting classified information - were excessively protective of press freedoms and insufficiently devoted to safeguarding secrecy? To ask that question is to mock it. Obama has gone so far beyond what every recent prior president has done in bolstering secrecy and criminalizing whistleblowing and leaks.

Eli Lake of the Daily Beast tweets

Eli Lake @EliLake

Serious idea. Instead of calling it Obama's war on whistleblowers, let's just call it what it is: Obama's war on journalism.

Karen Tumulty of the Post

Karen Tumulty ✔ @ktumulty

The alternative to "conspiring" with leakers to get information: Just writing what the government tells you. @JamesRosenFNC