Posted on 05/13/2013 1:49:29 PM PDT by CWW
Edited on 05/13/2013 1:56:19 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
WASHINGTON (AP) The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news.
The records obtained by the Justice Department listed incoming and outgoing calls, and the duration of each call, for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and the main number for AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP.
In all, the government seized those records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown but more than 100 journalists work in the offices whose phone records were targeted on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.
In a letter of protest sent to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday, AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt said the government sought and obtained information far beyond anything that could be justified by any specific investigation. He demanded the return of the phone records and destruction of all copies.
"There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP's newsgathering operations, and disclose information about AP's activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know," Pruitt said.
The government would not say why it sought the records. U.S. officials have previously said in public testimony that the U.S. attorney in Washington is conducting a criminal investigation into who may have leaked information contained in a May 7, 2012, AP story about a foiled terror plot. The story disclosed details of a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an al-Qaida plot in the spring of 2012 to detonate a bomb on an airplane bound for the United States.
Or could it be that this is the abort option?
He knows that Benghazi will lead to an impeachment and rather than face that, the abort option give him an escape route to resignation. Just a thought.
Yeah. “Can’t we just censure and Move On?”
Did you notice we pinged each other 4 seconds apart? Wow.
It is too soon to know, but you could be right about AP being in on it. Creation of the appearance of conflict is an old psyops trick. It’s wise to be wary.
Rosemary Woods. There’s a blast from the past I didn’t even have to look up. I can see Carney doing a tapdance under a desk to demonstrate how all the transparency was accidentally deleted.
Hopefully, soon you can put the BC issue on your list! Didn’t he go after Joe, the sheriff for this?
IMHO, this sounds like a legitimate enough investigation, that the press corps as a collective grouping of individual agendas, will justify this in the minds of a large enough majority of their membership, that this will have no long lasting effects on the relationship between DC Dems and the DC Press Corps.
It won’t even be in the news cycle for more than 3 or 4 days.
I can always get a laugh from my girlfriend with the “mistakes were made” line. She is a former college literature instructor and is amused by the m-w-m line as a classic spin, as a way of making the nefarious act seem passive and depersonalized, almost like a fact of nature rather than as a deliberate misdeed.
That actually dove tails right into their response to Benghazi. They did not want to be seen being attacked by a resurgent Al Qeada.
Our President is covering up Islamic Terrorist attacks across the globe, while at the same time supplying funding to Islamic terrorist in Syria and god knows where else.
Maybe this will be the thing that upsets the LSM enough to finally start doing their jobs...O is not their friend no matter what kind of sycophants they are
“Oh you are good OY.. They both know where each others metaphorical bodies are burried, watch for the return volley as they try to take out each other...”
“Metaphorical”, huh?
Yep, two terrorist attacks on our soil since the original 9/11 and both under Obama.
“It wont even be in the news cycle for more than 3 or 4 days.”
Don’t think so...this is the ONE SINGLE THING that the media can’t possibly tolerate.
I’ll bet the birth certificate is coming soon...
Lil Barry was more interested in the sources than the reporters. One could assume the reporters knew they were being tapped and this is all some kind of ruse.
Recall that Echelon records and archives every electronic communication. Land lines, email, cell phone, etc. Forever. If someone is identified, all their communications can be retrieved. Future calls can be tagged for review, either by software or human intervention.
It used to be that our benevolent government would have to ask the Canadians, Brits, or Aussies if they had anything on so-and-so in their files. Maintain deniability, so to speak hell no, were not spying on Americans! Foreign nationals would retrieve and forward the requested information. I suspect the keyan commie has dispensed with that step.
The unaccountable administration..... Obama has zero credibility and yet we are on the eve of allowing this big abusive government to take control over all of our healthcare....
In view of all the government malfeasance under this president Obamacare should be scrapped immediately....
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