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Reporter Phone Records Being Used to Find Leaks
jackbird writes "Brian Ross, Chief Investigative Correspondent for ABC news says a confidential source informed him that reporter's phone records are being used by the administration to track down leaks. Apparently reporters for the New York Times, ABC News, and the Washington Post are being scrutinized. The fact that ABC News journalists are even seriously wondering about whether the warning is connected to the NSA's domestic surveillance activities indicates just how anxious many people in Washington have become."
About time they figure out who is leaking top secret information to the press! I hope they find the traitors and put them in jail for disclosing secret information that could put our troops in danger.
Leaking classified information is a crime. Obviously, the FBI is going to investigate a (potentially criminal) leak of classified inforomation, because it is part of the FBI counter-intelligence and law enforcement missions to do so. It is standard police procedure in a criminal investigation to subpoena or to get a search warrant for telephone records. Nothing new or sensational to see here, move along.
Of course there is. Fuckwad talks to his God all the time, y'know.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Divulging classified information is not "whistleblowing", no matter how you look at it. There are policies in place to report corruption or illegal activities in regards to classifired material. Leaking the info to reporters is not one of those procedures.
Honestly, people who who security clearance know better than this.
Whether or not a program is illegal or unconstittutional, leakers have to expect to take a hit. They are violating their oaths of secrecy.
I HAVE CUBIC WISDOM THAT TRANSCENDS AND CONTRADICTS ONE DAY GODS
I bet the person that marked me as a troll just wishes Bill Clinton had this power, so that he could have stopped Linda Tripp from leaking private information about the sex lives of those in the White House..
Ohh wait.. it's only good when REPUBLICANS tap our phones..
For a second there I almost ran out of Kool Aid.. continue on..
I thought someone said there was going to be free beer!
You seemed to have missed the appropriate course of action that the leaker should have pursued. Informing congress was the thing to do, not the press; checks and balances were side-stepped by the egotistical journalist.
Oh, but this is the "Permanent Republican Majority", right? AKA, the Thousand Year Right? Therefore there will never again be a non-Republican president, and therefore we can trust them all.
And I'm sure the fine and honorable Senator from Diebold will be pleased to provide any necessary oversight.
Not to be an ass, but what secret CIA prisons? The ones in Europe that Dana Priest reported on, after a leak from Mary McCarthy, that won him a Pulitzer? The ones that the EU investigated and found no proof of (http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2006/04 /21/eu_official_no_evidence_of_illegal_cia_action/ /)? Those?
And while Valerie Plame could be described as an active agent of the CIA, there is no law about divulging that info. There is a law against divulging it if she is a covert agent, but her appearance on the cover of Vanity Fair would seem to argue against that.
I HAVE CUBIC WISDOM THAT TRANSCENDS AND CONTRADICTS ONE DAY GODS
You'll notice I didn't say anything about the trustworthiness of the government. My point, and my only point, is that the leakers knew the consequences of what they were doing, and now do not want to face them. If they believe what they were doing is right, why do they hide? Why do they deny what they did?
I'll tell you why. Its to avoid the consequences of their actions.
I HAVE CUBIC WISDOM THAT TRANSCENDS AND CONTRADICTS ONE DAY GODS
Where does that belief lead, though? Who decides what is "more important than keeping damaging secrets"? Who decides what is a damaging secret, for that matter? Right now, the Republicans are in power. Eventually the Democrats or someone else will be. Where does it end? The politicization of classified information leads to a place where nothing is classified, nothing is secret.
And despite what some may think, there are times when information must be kept secret.
I HAVE CUBIC WISDOM THAT TRANSCENDS AND CONTRADICTS ONE DAY GODS
There was a time in history when some people (slavery eh) in your country possesed freedoms and rights that no other people had. That was a long long time ago. Look at any country in the European Union. Yeah, more rights, more freedom, less corruption, less wars (sad that this one is a plural eh). I for one cannot wait to see a revolution in your country.. that or democrats taking over :)
Again, I would answer that people should reply to what I wrote, not what they feel I wrote. I am not placing the oath of secrecy above anything. I am saying that people should expect to bear the consequences of their actions.
As to the "lives at stake" argument, I don't know what you're talking about, I said nothing about that.
I HAVE CUBIC WISDOM THAT TRANSCENDS AND CONTRADICTS ONE DAY GODS
What? Risk one's own career to save the proles? If I remember anything from my socialization only the financially successful are worthy of admiration. If you're leaking secrets after getting privileged access to the secrets of the wealthy, you deserve what you get. I hope they rape and acid wash all the leakers when they find them. It's not a question of if. People this stupid, those who would trade riches for praise from the proles will make mistakes and will be caught. Good riddens.
-Staunch Neo-Conservative
Snicker... and no doubt those other "news" outlets and "reporters" are only to happy to rush into print, leaks that are damaging to liberals...
asshole
Which of the following leaks have put exposed field agents and put them at potential risk?
That seems like a pretty narrow question, simply designed to prop up your argument against the current administration. A better question would be:
Which of the following did, or may have, jeapordized current field operations, including, but not limited to Joe Wilson's wife?
Both 1) and 5). If you can't fathom how publicizing possible locations of clandestine detention and interrogation sites is detrimental to national security, then there's really no point in explaining it to you. IMNSHO, jeapordizing an entire operation likely involving dozens of field agents in multiple countries and the cooperation of multiple foreign governments is a bit more severe than outing one individual, who may or may not have been in the field at the time, and may or may not have been running any operations at the moment, regardless of her location. 1) was undoubtedly great investigative reporting, but also undoubtedly damaging to national security. 1) also resulted in terrorist threats against multiple Eastern European nations.
Regardless of whether you think that secret prisons in Eastern Europe are "right," you can't sensibly argue that publicizing them put fewer field agents at risk than outing Mrs. Wilson. Unless, of course, you are a rabid Bush-hater, which, given the forum, is not implausible.
There is nothing "illegal" about dis-obeying an illegal order. FUCK!!! Didn't we go through that sufficiently back at the Nurnberg Trials?
There is nothing "illegal" about telling someone that you were given an illegal order.
If the order / operation is ILLEGAL then refusing it or revealing it cannot be illegal.
If they find a scapegoat for a leak, I find it hard to believe that they'll give them a pat on the head and praise them for being so brave as to break their security clearances. Whistleblowers should fully expect to be hung out to dry, perhaps bide their time for some kind of pardon down the line.
Of course it isn't right, but I don't see a warm reception for those who leak, even for a greater good.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
This Fucking Raghead is here on an H1b visa stealing your job!
And he is Al Qaeda to boot.
(How you like being outed Khasim?)
I missed the urls and citations in your post. Maybe one of my browser extensions was hiding it, but what reputable sources did you capture these figures from?
Someone please mod the parent up. It is important to keep in mind that, with a warrant, police have always been able to get phone records. This article doesn't mention whether the NSA is involved, or whether a warrant is used. But I'll bet most posters here are going to assume this is NSA+no warrant.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
This story is unsubstantiated. ABC will generally report anything to grab some ratings, but this one only made it so far as a blog...
Nontheless, people in DC who are leaking info about classified programs to people who then go and make headlines out of it damn well should be nervous. Treason warrants severe penalties.
If this were whistleblowing, the programs would be being 'leaked' to members of Congress. Last I checked, mass media is not part of the checks and balances system of government.
Oh, no you don't. Conservatives backed Bush through years of outrageous behaviour and are only now trying to sever him from their movement like a gangrenous limb to save their own hides.
d nt-like-nixon-_b_11735.html
If it's only now "becoming increasingly obvious" to you, then you've had your conservative head jammed up your conservative ass for years. Bush was your boy through defecits, environmental destruction, 9/11, the bullshit invasion of Iraq, torture, "extraordinary rendition", corruption and this wiretap scandal. Just because he's dropped below 30% popular support doesn't mean you can claim you never supported him.
This was beautifully expressed here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-perlstein/i-di
You're not really clear on the concept of 'Enemy', are you?
And you haven't got any clue on what it takes to deal with an enemy in our midst, either.
There are agents hostile to the US and all it's citizenry among us. They seek to make war on the United States. They are not citizens, they are enemies or traitors on our soil, like a japanese 'tourist' in WW2 scoping out San Francisco for good bombing targets.
Now, I'm not 100% on board with everything the government tries to sell as 'fighting terrorism', but I'll be damned if I'm gonna get worked up because we're monitoring the phone calls of someone in the US who has connections to know terrorists. The NSA doesn't give a shit that you ordered a che guearra T-shirt and hang out at ANSWER rallies 'speaking truth to power.' They don't care that whenever some new leak comes out of the CIA you're furiously typing away on your blog about how much this adminstration sucks and is the most evil thing since hitler killed a puppy for fun. They have more important things to do.
You know, hunt down people who want to kill us all
No, they aren't a substantial threat, and statistically you'll probably die some other way, you're right. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be hunted down and killed anyway. Would you let a rabid dog wander around town because it probably won't bite you?
This isn't some crackhead looking for his next fix. This isn't some worthless gangbanger getting gunned down by some other worthless gangbanger (~50% of murders). This isn't some piece of white trash who went too far with his latest wife beating. This isn't some crazy woman who drowned all her kids.
These are people who have made the cold, conscious decision that you need to die, and they work with others who feel the same, and they are funded by countries or entities who are hostile to us. That makes it war, and that makes their agents on our soil or elsewhere enemies who should be treated as such. Don't bring up the Geneva Convention, a reciprical agreement they never signed it and they certainly don't abide by.
Your analogy sucks.
But hey, you'd make a great dhimmi.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
The chance of a terrorist commando raid to bust out their buddies is approximately zero.
Do you get the impression that "AHumbleOpinion" masturbates to Soldier of Fortune Magazine and Ghost Recon screen caps? Or am I crazy?
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.