Exclusive: Feds confiscate investigative reporter’s confidential files during raid

The Daily Caller ^ | October 25, 2013 | Alex Pappas

[ilovesarah2012]

A veteran Washington D.C. investigative journalist says the Department of Homeland Security confiscated a stack of her confidential files during a raid of her home in August — leading her to fear that a number of her sources inside the federal government have now been exposed.

In an interview with The Daily Caller, journalist Audrey Hudson revealed that the Department of Homeland Security and Maryland State Police were involved in a predawn raid of her Shady Side, Md. home on Aug. 6. Hudson is a former Washington Times reporter and current freelance reporter.

A search warrant obtained by TheDC indicates that the August raid allowed law enforcement to search for firearms inside her home.

[Eagles6]

And so it begins...Oh wait...It started 1-21-2009.

[gaijin]

When Hastings died, he was researching intimidation of reporters by by John Brennan at the CIA.

[Dead Corpse]

Yep. Even though they were a FFL 7/SOT 2 armorer and had just had an inspection in the months leading up to the raid.

[Spok]

While the IRS becomes the KGB, Homeland Security becomes the Gestapo. For most Americans, if the well-groomed people on the evening news aren’t talking about it, it’s not happening.

[A_Tradition_Continues]

Fishing trip!

BINGO!!!!

[pepsionice]

Back in the late 1990s...I worked in an Air Force shop, and came to work early one morning around 6AM, and OSI had some guy at the door and trying to prevent me from entering our work area. I responded that I was the facility custodian and asked where was their paperwork for this ‘search’. They got hyper, but calmed down enough to ask me....where are the file cabinets. That was their big thing...they had some authorized base search paperwork and wanted out file cabinets to clean out completely. This had something to do with several contractors and the officer running their contract.

I looked at the guy and just started laughing. I responded...every single document that we generated...was digital and sitting on the base server. We had actually gotten rid of all paper documents and the cabinets. They were in disbelief and ran off to the base communications center, with the aim of confiscating the server and it’s RAIDS. The comm officer only noted they could have a back-up copy....but no one was walking out of the center with hardware or hard drives.

Based on cops and their present knowledge level...they all believe that people are still in some paper age and massive records will be gleaned. It’s just not happening.

[ilovesarah2012]

Eventually they will go after the well-groomed as well.

[G Larry]

All of them!

Where do you think they would keep them?

Do you believe they should operate from some secret hideaway?

[PowderMonkey]

"Particulary describing is important. You can't just say "whatever we find we might think is illegal".

Searching for the "elephant in a breadbox." Very true. And, nobody said they were interested in making their case in court. So, the evidence gets tossed, and you lose the case. Big deal. They still busted you up, and that's all they wanted in the first place. We had a particular state trooper back in Virginia, who was a living legend on the I-95 corridor. During one year, he seized more dope than the DEA. He did it by "profiling" a subject, and ignoring 4th amendment strictures on search and seizure. He'd make his bust, seize the dope, and get his case tossed out, in short order. Then, on to the next. Lather, rinse, repeat; all day long on I-95. Saw him one morning myself, up to his hips in bundles of cocaine on the roadside, digging through a stopped vehicle. The perp handcuffed on the guardrail.

[coloradan]

I never requested or executed a search warrant that did not include some verbiage like “or any other materials or objects evidencing violations of local, State, or Federal ordinances, statutes or laws.”, in the description of what was to be searched or seized.

I agree, this is a fishing trip. It's a circular argument. "We have a lawfully signed search warrant, describing particularly the things to be seized, including any materials evidencing violations of law, which we need to comb through in order to discover, that will provide evidence which will give us reasonable suspicion upon which to issue the original search warrant."

There oughta be a law against this sort of thing. Oh, that's right, there is - it's the Fourth Amendment. Never enforced, though.

[liberalh8ter]

The DemonRat bag of tricks is pretty shallow. I can't begin to describe the level of disgust I feel toward these people.

[coloradan]

Too bad cops making illegal busts aren’t prosecuted. He’d have a rap sheet as long as one’s arm - and should spend the rest of his days in the joint.

[Lazamataz]

Stasi ping.

[Carry_Okie]

Why does having a gun allow the SWAT team to come into your home and collect data?

Some years ago, there were 450 no-knock raids in New York City, per month. Ten percent were the wrong address. At that point, the evidence justifying such raids had to be beyond flaky. The point being, SWAT teams and police have become the domestic standing army the Founders feared.

[Spok]

That’s the real irony. Talking heads that don’t know history are destined to be stood up against a wall.

[Carry_Okie]

All investigative reporters need to keep long lists of individuals in the administration, with their names, addresses, and phone numbers, and they need to make sure they call those numbers. Maybe even meet with some of them. They also need to put their names down in appointment books on specific dates and times that they know or suspect certain individuals may potentially be available. The reporters need to lay a whole bunch of false trails to potentially incriminate administration hacks that they actually have never even met. Clog up the investigative resources. The investigators will never be able to figure out which one or two out of twenty false leads are actually whistleblowers. And if the administration ends up firing some of their own loyalists, well, that’s only good, isn’t it?

Good plan, a lot of work.

[Pecos]

The problem is that 98% of all jouranlists give the others a bad name. The true believers will continue to work for the progaganda ministry.

[bert]

If your thought were true and correct, there would be no American Republic.

We exist simply because the where’s in Europe and Asia and all over were found to be so bad that people left and founded a new nation. The mistake is to continue to wallow in the unchangeable mud

[null and void]

And what dark chill
is gath'ring still
before the storm...

Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping!

To get onto The Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping List you must threaten to report me to the Mods if I don't add you to the list...

[Hardraade]

Oh, they WILL confiscate hardware. For the disruption and intimidation value.