I'll drink to that.
Posted on 10/25/2013 3:53:11 PM PDT by jazusamo
Maryland state police and federal agents used a search warrant in an unrelated criminal investigation to seize the private reporting files of an award-winning former investigative journalist for The Washington Times who had exposed problems in the Homeland Security Department’s Federal Air Marshal Service.
Reporter Audrey Hudson said the investigators, who included an agent for Homeland’s Coast Guard service, took her private notes and government documents that she had obtained under the Freedom of Information Act during a predawn raid of her family home on Aug. 6.
The documents, some which chronicled her sources and her work at the Times about problems inside the Homeland Security Department, were seized under a warrant to search for unregistered firearms and a “potato gun” suspected of belonging to her husband, Paul Flanagan, a Coast Guard employee. Mr. Flanagan has not been charged with any wrongdoing since the raid.
The warrant, obtained by the Times, offered no specific permission to seize reporting notes or files.
The Washington Times said Friday it is preparing legal action to fight what it called an unwarranted intrusion on the First Amendment.
“While we appreciate law enforcement’s right to investigate legitimate concerns, there is no reason for agents to use an unrelated gun case to seize the First Amendment protected materials of a reporter,” Times Editor John Solomon said. “This violates the very premise of a free press, and it raises additional concerns when one of the seizing agencies was a frequent target of the reporter’s work.
“Homeland’s conduct in seizing privileged reporters notes and Freedom of Information Act documents raises serious Fourth Amendment issues, and our lawyers are preparing an appropriate legal response,” he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
I'll drink to that.
This happened in August, and we’re just now hearing about it? Something smells bad about this story.
Read link at Post #56 (through to the end).
These people should worry.
> The main stream media
Washington Times is not “main stream media”.
They have been very critical of 0dunga and his coterie of Chicago thugs.
Ooooo...Gotta get Me One o’ THOSE!
Find out who the Judge that signed the search warrant was and start calling these judges who are against the Constitution.
Use the Alinsky tactics against them.
Agreed, but the Times has no standing under the 4th cause of action, only the former Times Reporter does. Where are all the indignant news organizations rushing to join the 1st cause of action ?
There are lots of financial reasons to own a media source beyond advertising revenue.
The power to rouse the rabble is a powerful weapon in a democracy (which is what we are becoming). The more socialist that democracy becomes, the more powerful is the weapon, making the selling of influence more important than selling the advertising, especially insofar as leveraging other investments is concerned. News can deflect stock prices; and beats insider trading as a way to make money.
Any idea if they found the potato gun and/or any unregistered guns?
What a case study on the reasons to reject gun registration. It can be used as a pretext for violating every home in America.
I’m sure it was just a dreadful accident that they took the info for the whistleblowers.
Obama blasted for cracking down on free press
A letter to the White House, a laundry list of recommendations for the president and a 29-page report about the administration’s assault on free press are all compiled in the latest offering from the Center to Protect Journalists.
The CPJ, a non-profit founded over 30 years ago to promote “press freedom worldwide and defends the right of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal,” published a special report on Thursday penned by longtime Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. in which he dismantles United States President Barack Obama’s treatment of journalists with assistance from the country’s foremost national security reporters.
http://rt.com/usa/obama-cpj-press-report-991/
// The documents, some which chronicled her sources and her work at the Times about problems inside the Homeland Security Department, were seized under a warrant to search for unregistered firearms and a “potato gun” suspected of belonging to her husband, Paul Flanagan, a Coast Guard employee. //
Potato gun ping.
Who Owns the Media?
Massive corporations dominate the U.S. media landscape. Through a history of mergers and acquisitions, these companies have concentrated their control over what we see, hear and read. In many cases, these companies are vertically integrated, controlling everything from initial production to final distribution. In the interactive charts below we reveal who owns what.
http://www.freepress.net/ownership/chart
Yeah, loved it, fanciest I’ve seen! Whodda thunk we’d be reading about tato guns and freedom of the press in the same sentence?
Thanks for link
And just think about how many whistleblowers out there, thinking about blowing the whistle on Obama admin thuggery, WILL NOT now due to this raid. Obviously this is one of the goals of the raid.
I like this pretext!
I think Barry has a potato gun, in fact I have photos of it!
GET THE RECORDS FROM VALERIE JARRET'S OFFICE WHILE WE ARE AT IT........
Maybe Obama gave them a waiver. ]
After Obama threatned the agents with his own potato gun perhapse.....
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