Justice Department Seizes Reporter's Phone, Email Records In Leak Probe (thehill.com)

According to The New York Times, the Department of Justice seized a New York Times reporter's phone and email records this year in an effort to probe the leaking of classified information, the first known instance of the DOJ going after a journalist's data under President Trump. The Hill reports: The Times reported Thursday that the DOJ seized years' worth of records from journalist Ali Watkins's time as a reporter at BuzzFeed News and Politico before she joined The Times in 2017 as a federal law enforcement reporter, according to the report Thursday. Watkins was alerted by a prosecutor in February that the DOJ had years of records and subscriber information from telecommunications companies such as Google and Verizon for two email accounts and a phone number belonging to her. Investigators did not receive the content of the records, according to The Times. The newspaper reported that it learned of the letter on Thursday.

Comments

And?

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume we're supposed to be outraged at this because Trump.

Except they're going after someone leaking classified information to a reporter during a "three year relationship" with her. So basically they caught someone sending her secrets, got a warrant, and are now going after the leaker using that evidence. With due process. Like they're supposed to.

Apparently we're supposed to be outraged because she's a reporter. Except this type of stuff happened all the time under Obama and no one in the media cared then. So the sudden outrage is a bit... weird.

they got the metadata

[johnjones]

so finally will the press wake up and tell the public that metadata not necessarily the content is important ?

As a side note this would not have been such a problem if the journalist Ali Watkins had actually run their own email server like ms clinton had...
so lesson learnt dont depend on a third party like gmail/office365 if you want privacy and certainly do not depend on something like signal not to leak your metadata

       

Re:they got the metadata

[Anonymous Coward]

Mike Pence used a private server while governor of Indiana which is
legal in Indiana , it isn't legal at the federal level and he didn't do so exclusively as Hillary did. He doesn't do so as VP.

Regarding Kushner, from NPR, that noted right wing organization:

"Mr. Kushner uses his White House email address to conduct White House business. Fewer than a hundred emails from January through August were either sent to or returned by Mr. Kushner to colleagues in the White House from his personal email account. These usually forwarded news articles or political commentary and most often occurred when someone initiated the exchange by sending an email to his personal, rather than his White House, address. All non-personal emails were forwarded to his official address and all have been preserved in any event."

So some people have his personal account and he gets emails there but he forwards them to his official account so they are properly tracked and recorded. I just started a new job and folks here still have my personal email address as the first one to popup in their Outllook when they send me an email so I've received a couple of sensitive documents outside the company. Every time it happens I let the sender know so they correct it. Does that mean I'm doing company business on a personal email address?

You really need to try harder if you're going to try to find hypocrisy, your arguments are too easily knocked. Here, let me help you:

Donald Trump was attacked relentless for not denouncing David Duke, a man he never met, and someone he and Pence did denounce, yet the same media and Democrats haven't demanded that any of these 7 Democrats denounce their actual ties with Louis Farrakhan. They even buried the photo of Obama standing with him so it wouldn't come out while Obama was in office. Now that is a proper example of hypocrisy.

If you're going to leak....

[Anonymous Coward]

So, if you're going to leak material which might be in the public interest you have to be extremely careful,

Precautions like:

1) Buy a cheap used laptop for cash and keep if for a few months so there's little chance the seller will be able to identify you. Never connect this laptop to your home network.
2) Leave your mobile phone at home (cell records could show you were at a particular location)
2) Wear a hat, walk to a coffee shop in a city (your license plate might appear on CCTV if you drive). Use their free wi-fi from outside the building. (you might appear on CCTV if you enter the building)
3) Install TOR browser on your disposable laptop
4) Create a disposable e-mail account
5) Walk to a different coffee shop, use the disposable e-mail account to communicate with journalist(s).
6) After you have shared 'confidential' material take a boat trip and discreetly drop the laptop into deep water

What other precautions would the Slashdot community recommend??

so just like previous administrations then?

[ooloorie]

Good ol' Eric Holder obtained the records for more than 20 telephone lines of [the AP's] offices and journalists, including their home phones and cellphones. It said the records were seized without notice sometime this year. And this issue is hardly new.