Reporter Wrongly Subpoenaed in Hacking Probe

from the civil-rights?--who-cares! dept

A few months back there was a ton of news about Adrian Lamo's hacking of the NY Times website - and whether or not that was a "good samiritan" hacking. There hadn't been much done as a result of that, but it appears the Justice Department is gearing up to do something. They broke their own rules and subpoenaed a reporter who wrote an article about Lamo - even though all subpoenaes to reporters need to be approved by folks at the top of the Department. The Justice Department has since withdrawn the subpoena. Of course, forcing reporters to reveal sources shouldn't do much to help our concept of a free press - but since we seem to be tearing up the Bill of Rights these days, I guess that's one more item that doesn't really matter.