Posted on 11/21/2013 10:16:46 AM PST by jazusamo
Weeks after Maryland State Police and federal agents seized reporting files from a former Washington Times journalist’s home, a Homeland Security agent checked the materials out of the police evidence room for an hour, according to logs that shine new light on a case that has raised First Amendment concerns.
The custody logs don’t state why the reporting materials were removed from evidence Sept. 3, about a month after they were seized from reporter Audrey Hudson’s home during a search in an unrelated investigation of her husband.
But they do show that the Homeland Security agent checked out files and notes that morning that identified confidential sources that Ms. Hudson had interviewed during a series of award-winning articles published in The Times about problems in the Homeland Security Department's Federal Air Marshal Service.
Homeland Security officials have acknowledged that their agents seized Ms. Hudson’s files during the execution of a search warrant in early August obtained by Maryland State Police in an unrelated investigation of guns owned by her husband. Her husband has not been charged with any wrongdoing in the case.
Homeland Security officials also have acknowledged that they briefly reviewed the materials to determine whether they contained any sensitive information, even though the search warrant did not authorize seizure of the documents.
The officials have not explained, however, why federal agents attended a raid that involved state laws or why police kept reporting materials for more than a month that were not covered by the judge’s order.
First Amendment advocates and professional journalists said the revelations from the evidence custody logs raise serious concerns that constitutional protections were violated.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Was the primary reason for the raid actually the confiscation of her notes to see who her sources were, and the investigation of guns owned by her husband just used as an excuse?
They'll be first purged... that's how it works in totalitarian takeovers...
the jack boots are here
First, the state police had no right to examine (let alone seize) her notes for an investigation of an alleged _firearms_ violation-- a search warrant does not authorize a fishing expedition.
Second, the fact that the notes-- and apparently nothing else-- were examined by DHS indicates that the notes were the real target of the search.
More evidence that all law enforcement agencies divide everyone in two ways: lords (themselves and other government employees), and peasants without rights.
The firearms raid seems to be bogus, too, although the Maryland State Police told Pappas that her husband’s Facebook account showed evidence of illegal possession of firearms. Hudson’s husband has a conviction for resisting arrest from 1986, and that prevents him from owning firearms in Maryland. It doesn’t prevent Hudson herself from owning them, but the police confiscated her six legally-purchased firearms anyway. There seems to be no rational reason for seizing any paperwork at all, let alone her own notes; Hudson told Pappas that she had no classified documents at all in her possession, and at any rate the search warrant doesn’t cover that kind of confiscation.
Does the Maryland State Police usually troll Facebook to find illegal possession of firearms? Or is it more likely that DHS instigated this as a way to go after a longtime critic and reporter of the agency? This certainly doesn’t look like a coincidence, and perhaps Congress might want to look into what looks like a gross abuse of power to silence reporters and punish whistleblowers.
That is strongly suspected but of course the feds and police would never admit that.
The thing about such authoritarians is that they are easy to dupe. A journalist could have a hoot, running bogus stories about anonymous government leakers, then keep a set of phony notes that implicate administration higher ups.
Imagine how quick the DHS would be to investigate if the leakers were people like Van Jones, Bill Ayers, Nancy Pelosi, etc.? Because in the final analysis, this is not about secrets, but about politics.
You can even turn the monster against itself. If you’re raided by the DHS, implicate the FBI, the NSA, the CIA, etc.
I completely agree.
No, they will be what they are. Pravda, state-run news, which other than Fox, the internet and the Washington Times, already are the de-facto propoganda wing of the DNC, Soros and Soetero.
People have been too dumbed down by the Progressives over the last 100 years to even know they are being lied to. It’s what Marx and Obama want, a dumbed-down, low-expectations mass of humanity under watchful eye of an all-powerful KGB-Centrally Planned Government.
Obama wanted to transform America, and it’s happening.
That would be a hoot.
It’ll be interesting to see how this lawsuit turns out because it looks like a slam dunk, however the government can pull tricks out of a hat on stuff like this.
**FUNDAMENTAL TRANSFORMATION**
A DOMESTIC POLICE FORCE JUST AS POWERFUL, JUST AS WELL FUNDED AS THE US MILITARY...
[at the investment firm] I FELT LIKE AN OPERATVE ACTING FROM BEHIND ENEMY LINES...
Charge DHS with theft and throw them in jail. Period.
No explanation necessary; the individuals who would be confidential journalistic sources got the message.......loud and clear.
Hastings and SEAL Team 6. Lots of quick cremations done without permission these days.
There’s an inherent problem with lawsuits against the government. A paradox that the government is *willing* to break the law, because if they lose a lawsuit, the taxpayers will be stuck with the bill, not the offenders.
This really came to the fore when protesters were protesting against various international financial gatherings in the US, and the police were told to violate their civil rights. So they put electrical tape over their badge numbers, some dressed in civilian clothes, especially if they weren’t local police, attacked citizens almost at random, those protesting and those onlooking, used *lots* of excessive force, arrested without cause, etc.
They knew there would be litigation, but were told that it didn’t matter. The suits would take six months to a year or more, and any settlements were both petty and fully funded by taxpayers. The important thing was that they were able to disrupt the protest, *now*.
In effect, they were authorized to have a “police riot”.
And even though the people they busted up were not entirely sympathetic, like anarchists, the point is that this has become the government attitude towards *all* the people. If they face no personal punishment, they *will* break the law.
This problem has been many years in coming, so it is important that when conservatives are in power, they put an end to such abuses. They would do so by creating a threshold on “the color of authority”, to distinguish honest error from criminal abuse.
Until federal, state and local officers, bureaucrats and appointed and elected officials end up behind bars, such nonsense will continue.
There is a difference in our great nation. The Jews in Germany as law abiding citizens and patriots of Germany gave up their weapons to the government. We will not.
It is ironic if you look at the history of the Jews in Germany. In WWI they were patriots and fought for Germany and the Kaiser. The scientest that built the atomic bomb for the United States were mostly German Jews. If they had not have been persecuted by Hitler, they would have built it for Germany as loyal German Citizens.
This is full out Gestapo stuff....
That is a very good point. Should it come to a showdown and we haven’t been disarmed Obama’s or a succeeding leftists brownshirts will in all probability abandon ship in a fair amount of numbers.
Maryland “Freak State” PING!
PING!
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