The War On Journalists: DOJ Claimed Fox News Reporter Was An 'Aider, Abettor, Co-Conspirator' With Leaker
from the wow dept
Following the DOJ's brazen collection of info on AP reporter phone calls, we noted that it was not the first time the DOJ had been overly aggressive in going after reporters. Now, the Washington Post has another horrifying story, talking about the DOJ's investigation into a leak from the State Department to Fox News concerning classified info on North Korea. That investigation resulted in charges against Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, a State Department security adviser, but the investigation included heavy surveillance of James Rosen, the Fox News reporter. They obtained his phone records, security-badge data and email exchanges. In order to get all this, they claimed that Rosen wasn't just a reporter, but "an aider and abettor and/or co-conspirator" in the crime itself. For doing basic reporting.By now it should be abundantly clear that this has little to do with protecting national security, and everything to do with a war on investigative reporting about the federal government. Almost everything seems to be designed to threaten reporters, and to put the fear of the federal government into any whistle blower who might have information to pass on to a reporter. As people have pointed out, what Rosen did in this case is what any national security reporter does all the time. Others have pointed out that this shatters the basic concept that those who report on the news are protected by the First Amendment in doing so.
The Reyes affidavit all but eliminates the traditional distinction in classified leak investigations between sources, who are bound by a non-disclosure agreement, and reporters, who are protected by the First Amendment as long as they do not commit a crime. (There is no allegation that Mr. Rosen bribed, threatened or coerced anyone to gain the disclosure of restricted information.)And, not surprisingly, this tactic of going to war with reporters appears to be working.
Mark Mazzetti, who covers national security for the New York Times — one of several leading investigative reporters I reached out to today — says he is experiencing a greater reluctance on the part of sources to talk to him.The end result, of course, is less ability to keep government abuses -- of which there appear to be many -- in check.
"There's no question that this has a chilling effect," Mazzetti said. "People who have talked in the past are less willing to talk now. Everyone is worried about communication and how to communicate, and [asking if there] is there any method of communication that is not being monitored. It's got people on both sides — the reporter and source side — pretty concerned."
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Filed Under: abettor, aider, co-conspirator, doj, emails, fox news, intimidation, james rosen, jin-woo kim, journalism, leaks, subpoena
Reader Comments
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Yes, the old fashioned way: meeting in parking garages wearing trench coats.
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Says who? You?
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Right?
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Naive fool. What do you think Echelon was built for?
It can intercept and monitor billions of TCP (Trench Coat Protocol) messages per second.
There's no escape man.
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So, anyone who still believes that "1984" is fiction?
And of course Google is CENTRAL to Big Brother: automates much of the monitoring.
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Re: So, anyone who still believes that "1984" is fiction?
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National Security
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At least CNN won't be a victim of this war on journalism
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"We The Citizens" need to re-gain leadership and control of our very corrupt Corporate Controlled government by any and every (legal) means possible. After all, this is supposed to be the "Land of the FREE and the Brave"!!
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Re: Re: Re: So, anyone who still believes that "1984" is fiction?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: So, anyone who still believes that "1984" is fiction?
I don't think the snark is unwarranted. I think that much like AT&T and Verizon have NSA closets in their network centers, Google almost certainly does as well.
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Makes me wonder when the first person will get arrested domestically under section 1021 of the ndaa, not that it could reported now.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: So, anyone who still believes that "1984" is fiction?
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And how, exactly, are investigators supposed to determine that? With a fucking Ouija Board?
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http://www.spyville.com/spy-coin-hollow-coin.html
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Otherwise, innocent until proven guilty. We should never make assumptions of wrong doing.
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Re: So, anyone who still believes that "1984" is fiction?
>.
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Frankly I don't care what news organization is in the Governments sights. This has a chilling effect and should not go unchallenged.
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When we are talking US intelligence and anti-crime units it is a mess of lawlessness and internal fighting. It has been so, at least since the patriot act. What the AC is doing is just spitting acid (probably LSD) and appealing to the added safety the lawlessness provides...
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"Traditional News" Only Source for Investigative Reporting?
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"Got Proof?"
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Re: So, anyone who still believes that "1984" is fiction?
Governments have their own technology (scrapers, indexers, keyword processers, etc) for monitoring the internet unrelated to how you experience it through "The Google." I know this for a fact and you boy do you look stupid for making such a ridiculous statement.
You're like someone who thinks reading People every day makes them an expert is sociology.
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Re: Re: Re: So, anyone who still believes that "1984" is fiction?
OOTB may not be too far off the mark here.
Google may not be doing the mining for the feds, but if I were the NSA, I'd have taps on all of Google's fiber and reading every last damned query.
This is NO different than feeding telephonic audio streams to farms of supercomputers and listening for threshold keywords which would then get the call popped onto the stack for a wetware analyst to listen to it.
.
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The Logical Conclusion of This:
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Re: Re: So, anyone who still believes that "1984" is fiction?
Gave you an insightful AND a funny - for that line alone.
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They're just making that up...
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The only reason they are investigating this specific person and trying to find out who leaked the information and trying to go after the exact reporter responsible is not because they had a prior suspicion that somehow that reporter is responsible for otherwise doing something illegal. Prior suspicion wouldn't exist absence of the leak. That would be a very very huge coincidence. No, the only reason they are going after this specific reporter, the same exact reporter responsible for the leak, is for vengeance.
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You'd be OK with limiting the reach of the First Amendment to respectable journalists? Like say CNN? Or NPR? Or any decent organization meeting acceptable standards for contemporary journalism?
You'd be OK with that, Alana?
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I don't think the government wants to kill the internet, it's a rich source of surveillance data.
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Perhaps, perhaps, but I don't think I like it even if that were granted.
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What's not to say if THEY getting a little too inquisitive they may find a nastygram from the IRS in their snail mail?
NOTE: My husband and I were audited last fall...and the paperwork is still flying.
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Step out of line, and YOU could be next.
Will they stand up to tyranny or shut up and wait for their next soiree invite?
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Beware the Mandarians...
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Attempts at witty comments will take far, far longer.
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You probably should have reported all of your infringing as income.
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What a boon to the economy as well now that the average income is so high!
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Wow
So anyone, using the title "reporter" can do what they like, without any risk, without any legal come back? If as the FBI is suggesting that this "reporter" was part of the operation, then he is no better than the criminals themselves. Your suggesting here is that one can cloak themselves in their profession and ignore the law, and that is just not acceptable.
Reporters who help to "create" the news rather than report it tend to cross the line.
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WOW,, amazing, they only suspect someone of a crime AFTER that crime has been committed !!!!! OMFG..... !!!!!!!
Next time, THINK before you talk.. far less people will think you are a moron then.
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Step out of line, and YOU could be next."
A good message to send too, I would say.
If by stepping out of line you mean breaking the law..
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Re: Re: So, anyone who still believes that "1984" is fiction?
this show you have NO understanding of the internet, childlike or not.
If you believe NSA who scoops up EVERYTHING on the internet, including google and facebug then you are dreaming.
NSA simple splices the data feed into ALL the major hubs and servers, and reads EVERYTHING, dumps it all into the farms of supercomputers and do word and pattern searches.
Email, Warcraft, Google, WWW, whatever information that passes over the internet in packet form (EVERYTHING) is simply copied on mass, and searched.
Get over it, it's been there for years, just about as long as the internet itself.
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so they just tap into the fibre feeds and TAKE EVERYTHING.. including Goolag
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Yes, in fact YOU ARE..
also you are NOT legally obligated to acquire said information.
Think of it like illegal drugs, you may not have taken any, but that does not mean having it in your possession is allowed.
You are also not allowed to acquire it, buy it or sell it, own it, keep it, or use it.
Or have it on any property that is in your responsibility.
It does not even matter if you know it is there, if it for example found in your car, and it's your car, you are responsible and liable.
Same with classified information.
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Re: Wow
makes sense in Mansicks world.
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You were trying to tell a joke weren't you?
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How did this reporter create news?
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That's the point of the attacks on the AP and Fox News.
Incidentally what do you think that huge complex in Utah is for?
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People in glass houses .....
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and of course all the people charged for having drugs in their car, or on their person "don't know" they had it..
Have you NEVER seen an episode of "Cops" ???
"Are these drugs yours ??? ".. "No, I never seen them before".... "But we just found them in your pocket".... "These are not my pants!!.... "..."But your wearing them !"..... "yes I found them a minute ago"...
Queue song... Bad boys bad boys, what ya gonna do !!!!..
Ok no matter you are being arrested for possession....
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Re: Re: Wow
By committing a newsworthy crime...
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yes, if by "same thing" you mean committing a crime.. yes they are both the same thing, in that they are both "committing a crime".. right!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: So, anyone who still believes that "1984" is fiction?
and if everyone did it then the government would have to make the parties aware of their intrusion before being able to decrypt anything which would make it much more difficult for them to do anything without due process and get away with not letting the public know.
Yes, the government can try to retaliate by making encryption technology illegal but the advantage of that is such laws are publicly transparent and the public has an opportunity to put public pressure at resisting such laws. Government wiretapping is not necessarily transparent to those being monitored.
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Your Post
I could read your blog all day. Intelligent, witty, &c.
Thank you,
dc
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Re: Controlling the press
The problem with the traditional fifth estate is that Silicon Valley giants, such as Google, have usurped the balancing influence by deciding what news, weather is mainstream, alternative, or fake gets page 1 Google rankings.
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