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US Justice Department Dug Up Reporter's Phone, Bank Records
tripleevenfall writes "A court filing provides new details about the extraordinary measures Justice Department prosecutors are using to identify government leakers. Prosecutors obtained a suspect's telephone, credit and bank records. Lucy Dalglish, of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press said, 'This tells us the Obama administration will do almost anything to figure out who is leaking government information.'"
...journalists should learn about Tor, email encryption, steganography, and other privacy protecting technologies. It is unfortunate, but if journalists wish to protect their sources, these are the lengths they will have to go to (if not now, then in the near future).
Palm trees and 8
The summary says prosecutors obtained the suspect's records. But the title has it right; DoJ pulled bank and credit records on someone not suspected of a crime. If I were the news man, I'd demand to see the warrant.
Should read
"This tells us the Obama Administration will do everything that the Bush Administration did"
And that applies to a lot more than just matters of "national security".
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
How, exactly, is this news?
I think this is supposed to be news because the President who did it wasn't named 'Bush'. Though we generally expected more from Obama (eg, less of this stuff) we're all being reminded that whomever runs the show acts more like the one they replaced then we wanted/hoped.
TFA specifically says that they haven't commented yet on which administration, Obama or Bush, was the one that actually began the investigation
Why would it matter? The two administrations have repeatedly made the same decisions at every opportunity thus far. We were led to believe that Obama was going to do things differently, instead what we see is that Obama is doing things exactly the same as Bush. Had Bush managed to steal a third term in office, we would have likely seen the exact same policies come to fruit that we've seen since Obama's inauguration in 2009.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Repeal the Patriot act? Hell, on Friday he signed a three-month extension of it.
It's news because it is yet another example of Obama's public campaign (and in-office) lies. This is yet another promise he made during his campaign and in office (protecting confidential news sources) that he broke at the first opportunity, and continues to do.
Let's face it: Obama tends to say one thing publicly, then behind everybody's back does the opposite. By now you can't convince me that it isn't his real policy, because he's done it too often.
Sorry but if someone is not prepared to take responsibility for the actions of their underlings then they are not fit to be in a position of authority. It's alright, plenty of people are not cut out for leadership just like plenty of people are not computer technicians. I don't buy the phony distinction of "conscious policies" and "unconscious policies". If you are in charge and you don't know what your underlings are doing, you're incompetent; if you're in charge and you know what your underlings are doing and you do not require them to change, it is because you approve whether this approval is stated or unstated.
Anyone who thinks that's a tough standard is free to find a job less demanding than the Presidency.
I would say that if that's all it takes to get someone to believe a lie, especially about anything important, then their love of truth and commitment to objectivity were non-existent anyway. They are soft-minded, naive, and their deceit is inevitable. The only question is who will fool them first. I wish it weren't so easy to deceive so many people but that's the reality.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Excuse me, but often today's leaker turns out to be tomorrow's hero.
For example, after the Pentagon Papers were leaked to the New York Times in 1971, it showed that a number of presidents had lied to the American people and violated their oaths to uphold the Constitution. That leak helped to end the Vietnam war.
Daniel Ellsberg, the leaker and the first person ever to be prosecuted for a leak in the United States, was prosecuted under the Espionage Act of 1917. This act had been designed for espionage and, until that time, had never been used for anything else except to prosecute spies: those who act with the express intent to harm the US or help a foreign power. However, against Ellsberg they used a clause within the act that says only those with legal authority may publish classified documents. The same clause is now being used against Bradley Manning.
Why use the Espionage Act against leakers? Because, unlike Great Britain, the US has never had an Official Secrets Act: a law that would criminalize any and all disclosure of classified information. Efforts have been made by Congress to pass one -- the last time under Bill Clinton (which he vetoed) -- but this has never succeeded, because lawmakers have always considered that it would be too much at odds with the First Amendment. Yet, that's the way the Espionage Act is now being used.
Finally, is it not highly ironic that, even as the government prosecutes Bradley Manning, the State Dept. is promoting a documentary film that celebrates Daniel Ellsberg and his leaking of the Pentagon Papers? (see this link).
You're saying that Barack Obama instructed the Justice Department to obtain this information?
Wow, that's like no other government I've ever seen, and I've lived and paid taxes in a lot of countries. Mostly, what I've seen is governments that are not under the effective control of any one person. Most large bureacracies are so ponderous that even very deliberate changes in official policy have marginal effect on entrenched attitudes and behavior. But I guess the United States must be an exception. Obama has some special power to change all this, a power that he's failing to exercise?
In a word: yes. He has. The U.S. has three branches of government. The President has no direct control over the legislative and judicial branches. However, the President is the undisputed leader of the executive branch. Every other member of the executive branch is his subordinate. If the head of an executive department will not comply with the President's wishes, the President can fire that person and replace them with someone else.
For example, Obama disagrees with what is called the "Defense of Marriage Act". Eric Holder is the Attorney General, that is, Holder is the head of the Department of Justice. The DoJ is part of the executive branch. Obama has directly instructed Holder to refuse to enforce this particular law. Holder has three choices in the matter: 1) comply with Obama's order, 2) refuse to comply and be fired and replaced, or 3) resign and be replaced. (Incidentally, this is an attack against the concept of rule of law -- the way we are supposed to deal with laws we don't like is to get them changed, not to selectively enforce them, but I digress).
Obama could absolutely require the DoJ to stop obtaining this information. He doesn't do this for one reason and one reason alone: he does not wish to.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
the reporter was caught in the splash because he was dealing with a criminal, also they would have been interested in whether or not the reported paid the leaker, in which case he would have been guilty of espionage.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.