The Bush Administration Is Spying On Reporters
It now comes to our attention via a reader in Seattle that we are not the only news blog reporting that the Bush administration's spying involves eavesdropping on reporters.
According to an ABC News blog called The Blotter, a senior federal law enforcement official tipped reporters off to the fact that the federal government was tracking the phone numbers reporters call in an effort to root out confidential sources in its leak investigations.
"It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told Brian Ross and Richard Esposito in an in-person conversation.
Josh Marshall at the Talking Points Memo is also talking about it.
Comments
But the Administration told us they're only interested in spying on al Qaeda!
They'd never, ever, ever, ever target law-abiding American citizens, right?
The disillusionment is underwhelming.
Posted by: MOsanthrope | May 15, 2006 02:24 PM
Right!
I have never met a member of al Qaeda or contacted a member of al Qaeda via e-mail or a land-line phone or a cell phone.
But I did break a big Bush AWOL story on the Internet a couple of years ago, and we blog consistently about the failures of the Bush administration. I wrote numerous columns before the 2004 elections saying a second term for Bush would be disastrous and that our freedoms would disappear the day he was reelected.
As we indicated in an e-mail message to a certain law firm that is looking into suing the phone companies for violating the law and their charters and policies by cooperating with the Bush administration in the domestic spying operations, this is not just about phone numbers. It is e-mail and Web browsing activity.
As even the USA Today story reported, the information is not just being used by the NSA. It is being passed to other law enforcement agencies, including the DEA.
We can't wait 'till the day when all of this comes out. Where are the secret memos from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales making the case that anyone who smokes hashish in America is helping to support al Qaeda?
You have to read between the news lines to understand these things. Remember, he also wrote the memos that said torturing prisoners was legal.
Now if only we could find out which agency has been secretly supporting the poppy growers in Afghanistan. Now that would be an explosive expose.
Posted by: fast2write | May 15, 2006 02:40 PM