Justice Dept. Secretly Grabs AP Phone Records

[DC Tom]

And a good explanation of how this is being blown out of proportion by the media, and shows the hypocrisy of Republicans who have complained that security leaks need to be more vigorously investigated.

 

http://www.nytimes.c...yt&emc=rss&_r=0

 

"At the time the article was published, there were strong bipartisan calls for the Justice Department to find the leaker. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. gave that assignment to Ronald C. Machen Jr., the United States attorney for the District of Columbia, who is known for his meticulous and dedicated work. Importantly, his assignment was to identify and prosecute the government official who leaked the sensitive information; it was not to conduct an inquiry into the news organization that published it.

 

His office, which has an experienced national security team, undertook a methodical and measured investigation. Did prosecutors immediately seek the reporters’ toll records? No. Did they subpoena the reporters to testify or compel them to turn over their notes? No. Rather, according to the Justice Department’s May 14 letter to The A.P., they first interviewed 550 people, presumably those who knew or might have known about the agent, and scoured the documentary record. But after eight months of intensive effort, it appears that they still could not identify the leaker.

 

It was only then — after pursuing “all reasonable alternative investigative steps,” as required by the department’s regulations — that investigators proposed obtaining telephone toll records (logs of calls made and received) for about 20 phone lines that the leaker might have used in conversations with A.P. journalists. They limited the request to the two months when the leak most likely occurred, and did not propose more intrusive investigative steps."

 

If this were 2005, you'd be a raging lunatic over this.

 

Now, you're all sorts of excuses.

 

You're such a hypocrite.

[meazza]

And a good explanation of how this is being blown out of proportion by the media, and shows the hypocrisy of Republicans who have complained that security leaks need to be more vigorously investigated.

 

http://www.nytimes.c...yt&emc=rss&_r=0

 

"At the time the article was published, there were strong bipartisan calls for the Justice Department to find the leaker. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. gave that assignment to Ronald C. Machen Jr., the United States attorney for the District of Columbia, who is known for his meticulous and dedicated work. Importantly, his assignment was to identify and prosecute the government official who leaked the sensitive information; it was not to conduct an inquiry into the news organization that published it.

 

His office, which has an experienced national security team, undertook a methodical and measured investigation. Did prosecutors immediately seek the reporters’ toll records? No. Did they subpoena the reporters to testify or compel them to turn over their notes? No. Rather, according to the Justice Department’s May 14 letter to The A.P., they first interviewed 550 people, presumably those who knew or might have known about the agent, and scoured the documentary record. But after eight months of intensive effort, it appears that they still could not identify the leaker.

 

It was only then — after pursuing “all reasonable alternative investigative steps,” as required by the department’s regulations — that investigators proposed obtaining telephone toll records (logs of calls made and received) for about 20 phone lines that the leaker might have used in conversations with A.P. journalists. They limited the request to the two months when the leak most likely occurred, and did not propose more intrusive investigative steps."

 

Partisan hack.

[3rdnlng]

And a good explanation of how this is being blown out of proportion by the media, and shows the hypocrisy of Republicans who have complained that security leaks need to be more vigorously investigated.

 

http://www.nytimes.c...yt&emc=rss&_r=0

 

"At the time the article was published, there were strong bipartisan calls for the Justice Department to find the leaker. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. gave that assignment to Ronald C. Machen Jr., the United States attorney for the District of Columbia, who is known for his meticulous and dedicated work. Importantly, his assignment was to identify and prosecute the government official who leaked the sensitive information; it was not to conduct an inquiry into the news organization that published it.

 

His office, which has an experienced national security team, undertook a methodical and measured investigation. Did prosecutors immediately seek the reporters’ toll records? No. Did they subpoena the reporters to testify or compel them to turn over their notes? No. Rather, according to the Justice Department’s May 14 letter to The A.P., they first interviewed 550 people, presumably those who knew or might have known about the agent, and scoured the documentary record. But after eight months of intensive effort, it appears that they still could not identify the leaker.

 

It was only then — after pursuing “all reasonable alternative investigative steps,” as required by the department’s regulations — that investigators proposed obtaining telephone toll records (logs of calls made and received) for about 20 phone lines that the leaker might have used in conversations with A.P. journalists. They limited the request to the two months when the leak most likely occurred, and did not propose more intrusive investigative steps."

 

Don't call it 20 phone lines, call it 20 journalists.

[OCinBuffalo]

And a good explanation of how this is being blown out of proportion by the media, and shows the hypocrisy of Republicans who have complained that security leaks need to be more vigorously investigated.

 

http://www.nytimes.c...yt&emc=rss&_r=0

 

"At the time the article was published, there were strong bipartisan calls for the Justice Department to find the leaker. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. gave that assignment to Ronald C. Machen Jr., the United States attorney for the District of Columbia, who is known for his meticulous and dedicated work. Importantly, his assignment was to identify and prosecute the government official who leaked the sensitive information; it was not to conduct an inquiry into the news organization that published it.

 

His office, which has an experienced national security team, undertook a methodical and measured investigation. Did prosecutors immediately seek the reporters’ toll records? No. Did they subpoena the reporters to testify or compel them to turn over their notes? No. Rather, according to the Justice Department’s May 14 letter to The A.P., they first interviewed 550 people, presumably those who knew or might have known about the agent, and scoured the documentary record. But after eight months of intensive effort, it appears that they still could not identify the leaker.

 

It was only then — after pursuing “all reasonable alternative investigative steps,” as required by the department’s regulations — that investigators proposed obtaining telephone toll records (logs of calls made and received) for about 20 phone lines that the leaker might have used in conversations with A.P. journalists. They limited the request to the two months when the leak most likely occurred, and did not propose more intrusive investigative steps."

So good that I just used it in my "It's Meazza's fault" post....for laughs.

 

Since we are doing "root causes" here, do you, or the morons at the NY Times, care to remember WHY the Republicans demanded investigation? (Bipartisan? Which Democrats called for this investigation? Names.)

 

What was the root cause of that? Oh, yeah, that's right: the Obama Admin purposely leaking classified information to make themselves look good politically.

 

So now we have politicization of national security by the Obama administration, causing rational demands for inquiry as to why/how that happened, turning into police state tactics after they "tried" to find the leaker after 8 months? And, if that's not enough stupidity for one sentence, now, you/the NYT wonder why they couldn't find them, when they were looking for: themselves? /facepalm

 

Yes, an "exhaustive" search that could have been handled in 5 minutes had any of this been real. Instead, we have you and the NYT being idiots, and thinking we are even dumber than you are.

 

And of course, ALL of this is the Republicans fault? WTF? Republicans aren't the ones who leaked to make themselves look good, they simply responded to it.

 

Do you understand the difference between cause and effect, and which comes first?

Edited May 22, 2013 by OCinBuffalo

[3rdnlng]

Holder set to investigate.............................Holder. What are the odds that at most a couple people low on the food chain will be held responsible for something minor?

 

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/05/obama-orders-doj-review-of-leak-investigations/

 

 

President Obama is a little uneasy with the way journalists have been dragged into the Justice Department’s aggressive pursuit of national security leak investigations. In fact, he has ordered Attorney General Eric Holder to conduct a 45-day review of the department’s guidelines on the issue.

 

That bit of news was buried in the middle of the president’s hourlong speech today at National Defense University.

 

“Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs,” President Obama said. “Our focus must be on those who break the law.”

 

And then the news: “I have raised these issues with the attorney general, who shares my concern. So he has agreed to review existing Department of Justice guidelines governing investigations that involve reporters, and will convene a group of media organizations to hear their concerns as part of that review. And I have directed the attorney general to report back to me by July 12th.”

 

 

Then again, maybe all he has to do is remember:

 

 

http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/23/18451142-holder-okd-search-warrant-for-fox-news-reporters-private-emails-official-says?lite

 

 

Attorney General Eric Holder signed off on a controversial search warrant that identified Fox News reporter James Rosen as a “possible co-conspirator” in violations of the Espionage Act and authorized seizure of his private emails, a law enforcement official told NBC News on Thursday.

Edited May 24, 2013 by 3rdnlng

[Magox]

Obama administration fought to keep the Rosen warrant a secret. ruh oh

[meazza]

Obama administration fought to keep the Rosen warrant a secret. ruh oh

 

 

I wish I was back on facebook just so I could make fun of my Liberal friends.

 

DIN where are you???

Edited May 24, 2013 by meazza

[Cinga]

Yup, sorta like telling the fox to investigate who's been getting into the hen house...

 

I wonder if they all wipe each others a$$ too....

 

no I don't... scratch that visual...

[DC Tom]

Obama administration fought to keep the Rosen warrant a secret. ruh oh

 

In Obama's defense, it was Bush's fault.

[4merper4mer]

Obama administration fought to keep the Rosen warrant a secret. ruh oh

 

Rosen? I have not been keeping up on this but for Pete's sake why is the president getting involved with some doofus who crashed a web site? Doesn't he have anything better to do?

[GG]

 

 

Rosen? I have not been keeping up on this but for Pete's sake why is the president getting involved with some doofus who crashed a web site? Doesn't he have anything better to do?

You got the wrong Rosen. Jay is the one who trains the young journalists that if they voted for a President, they should ask him tough questions.

 

I don't know this Pete guy who you are saking.

[4merper4mer]

You got the wrong Rosen. Jay is the one who trains the young journalists that if they voted for a President, they should ask him tough questions.

 

I don't know this Pete guy who you are saking.

 

I don't know what you're yammering on and on about but I think I figured out the Jay Rosen part. Didn't he changed his name to Rubeo? Now I see why he is a threat.

[3rdnlng]

I don't know what you're yammering on and on about but I think I figured out the Jay Rosen part. Didn't he changed his name to Rubeo? Now I see why he is a threat.

 

Sure, try and change the subject. You were directly accused of saking some guy named Pete. Ignoring the accusation is not an option here. We dropped the "don't ask, don't tell" copout here years ago.

[B-Man]

 

The NYT beginning to know how it feels when the one you love doesn't love you back.

 

Leak Inquiries Show How Wide a Net U.S. Cast

 

WASHINGTON — Even before the F.B.I. conducted 550 interviews of officials and seized the phone records of Associated Press reporters in a leak investigation connected to a 2012 article about a Yemen bomb plot, agents had sought the same reporters’ sources for two other articles about terrorism.

 

In a separate case last year, F.B.I. agents asked the White House, the Defense Department and intelligence agencies for phone and e-mail logs showing exchanges with a New York Times reporter writing about computer attacks on Iran. Agents grilled officials about their contacts with him, two people familiar with the investigation said.

 

And agents tracing the leak of a highly classified C.I.A. report on North Korea to a Fox News reporter pulled electronic archives showing which officials had gained access to the report and had contact with the reporter on the day of the leak.

 

The emerging details of these and other cases show just how wide a net the Obama administration has cast in its investigations into disclosures of government secrets, querying hundreds of officials across the federal government and even some of their foreign counterparts.

.

[Nanker]

I just don't know why the press can't act responsibly anymore and not dig into matters that are clearly steeped in national security and could be embarrassing to my administration. They did a fine job in 2008, and again in 2012 of ignoring such unimportant issues when my election was on the line. 2013 has been quite another matter. I think they're acting stupidly and are irresponsible. It's hard being king.

- BO

[B-Man]

Congratulations to the many media members who have showed an independence (that they rarely do) NYT, CNN, AP....etc:

 

and turned down meeting with the Attorney General "privately"

 

7 Reasons Why the Media Shouldn't Keep Eric Holder's Secrets

 

What "off the record" means and why it matters to you.

 

http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/7-reasons-why-the-media-shouldn-t-keep-eric-holder-s-secrets-20130530

 

 

Unfortunately the WaPo & Politico are still in lapdog mode.

 

 

 

The DNC wants everyone to fall in line......................lol

 

As reported, the Obama administration is now trying to summon journalists for an off-the-record meeting with Attorney General Holder.

 

Funnily enough, some journalists are refusing. Whatever happened to the most transparent administration evah?! And why would they want to privately meet with the James Rosen-targeting Holder? Would they be next?

 

The DNC’s Woodhouse decided to spin by tweeting. It’s totally the journalists’ fault, you see.

 

 

Brad Woodhouse @woodhouseb

 

POTUS asked AG to review how leak investigations are done but some in the media refuse to meet with him. Kind of forfeits your right gripe.

[Magox]

Congratulations to the many media members who have showed an independence (that they rarely do) NYT, CNN, AP....etc:

 

and turned down meeting with the Attorney General "privately"

 

7 Reasons Why the Media Shouldn't Keep Eric Holder's Secrets

 

What "off the record" means and why it matters to you.

 

http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/7-reasons-why-the-media-shouldn-t-keep-eric-holder-s-secrets-20130530

 

 

Unfortunately the WaPo & Politico are still in lapdog mode.

 

 

 

The DNC wants everyone to fall in line......................lol

 

As reported, the Obama administration is now trying to summon journalists for an off-the-record meeting with Attorney General Holder.

 

Funnily enough, some journalists are refusing. Whatever happened to the most transparent administration evah?! And why would they want to privately meet with the James Rosen-targeting Holder? Would they be next?

 

The DNC’s Woodhouse decided to spin by tweeting. It’s totally the journalists’ fault, you see.

Ron Fornier is a quality journalist.

[B-Man]

[DC Tom]

The DNC’s Woodhouse decided to spin by tweeting. It’s totally the journalists’ fault, you see.

 

That was an unbelievably stupid tweet, and the scathing responses are entirely appropriate (and rather amusing).

[Magox]

That was an unbelievably stupid tweet, and the scathing responses are entirely appropriate (and rather amusing).

Yeah, that should go over well with the media. Seriously, these guys suck at damage control.