Associated Press Confirms U S Government Seized Journalists' Phone Records

[webfact]

Associated Press confirms US government seized journalists' phone records

NEW YORK: -- The Associated Press on Monday said the U.S. government seized records from phone lines assigned to AP offices and its reporters over a period of two months in 2012, which the news service described as a "massive and unprecedented intrusion."

AP Chief Executive Gary Pruitt, in a letter posted on the agency's website, said the AP was informed last Friday that the Justice Department gathered records for more than 20 lines assigned to the agency and its reporters.

Phone lines at AP bureaus in New York, Hartford and Washington were among those affected by the records seizure, as well as an AP phone at the U.S. House of Representatives, Reuters reports quoting AP.

"There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters," Pruitt said in the letter, which was addressed to Attorney General Eric Holder.

Full story: http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_05_14/US-Justice-Department-acknowledges-wide-ranging-surveillance-of-Associated-Press/

-- THE VOICE OF RUSSIA 2013-05-14

[BeforeTigers]

I can still faintly remember a time when I was optimistic about Democracy.

[Salapoo]

If they're doing no wrong then there's nothing to worry about.

Oh land of the free.

[Frank James]

This is an ominous trend. have not read this story in any US press.

[Ulysses G.]

Three major scandals in one week including targeting the media. It looks like the honeymoon is over.

[Baerboxer]

I can still faintly remember a time when I was optimistic about Democracy.

Democracy - in the US and UK. Something my grand parents told me about.

Had to go, all in the name of state security you know.

[snarky66]

This will make the 3rd scandal of the obama administration running concurrently. Of course most of it pales in comparison to abandoning 4 diplomats to die in a terrorist attack but it is a disturbing trend. No surprise to me based on Chicago politics & thuggery. Could it be that mister obama's chickens have come home to roost?

[Steely Dan]

This will make the 3rd scandal of the obama administration running concurrently. Of course most of it pales in comparison to abandoning 4 diplomats to die in a terrorist attack but it is a disturbing trend. No surprise to me based on Chicago politics & thuggery. Could it be that mister obama's chickens have come home to roost?

If the press did decide to do it's job instead of cover for the Obama administration I have zero doubt they could sink it several times over.

[chuckd]

My reading of the press articles is this is considered much more serious that Benghazi since it is such a naked show of power. The Obama administration would seem to be in the heart of the turmoil and probably deserves to be there. Chicago politics at work.

As I recall, some higher up in the Obama administration was talking about the Koch brothers tax back in 2011. He didn't get that off the internet.

Now the "most transparent administration in US history" seems to be covering up or hiding from the following scandals.

1. Fast and Furious (Yep, Ethel, F&F is still around)

2. Benghazi cover-up.

3, Health & Human Services Secretary soliciting funds from private insurers to promote registration for Obamacare.

4. Department of Justice illegally tracking telephone calls of Associated Press personnel. Just breaking now.

5. IRS targeting conservative PACs for being conservative.

Something I read tonight said one third of the House of Representatives membership are currently on committees investigating actions by this administration. Before the non-Americans get all worked up, oversight of the Executive branch is the duty of the House.

[rotary]

This will make the 3rd scandal of the obama administration running concurrently. Of course most of it pales in comparison to abandoning 4 diplomats to die in a terrorist attack but it is a disturbing trend. No surprise to me based on Chicago politics & thuggery. Could it be that mister obama's chickens have come home to roost?

Truer words were never typed

[Jingthing]

This will make the 3rd scandal of the obama administration running concurrently. Of course most of it pales in comparison to abandoning 4 diplomats to die in a terrorist attack but it is a disturbing trend. No surprise to me based on Chicago politics & thuggery. Could it be that mister obama's chickens have come home to roost?

Truer words were never typed

Or maybe it's just a bunch of overblown partisan political HYPE?:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/05/14/the-morning-plum-a-reality-check-on-beltway-scandal-mania/?hpid=z2

The Benghazi tale is mostly a bogus “scandal,” but it continues to be

treated as the real thing by reporters who should know better.

...

Republicans, who have tried to soften their image, now risk being defined by shouting matches.

[Ulysses G.]

Or maybe not:

But the president’s claim that he said “act of terrorism” is taking revisionist history too far, given that he repeatedly refused to commit to that phrase when asked directly by reporters in the weeks after the attack. He appears to have gone out of his way to avoid saying it was a terrorist attack, so he has little standing to make that claim now. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/obamas-claim-he-called-benghazi-an-act-of-terrorism/2013/05/13/7b65b83e-bc14-11e2-97d4-a479289a31f9_blog.html

[lomatopo]

You can't win for losing...Republicans accuse Obama of deliberately leaking information to make himself look tough on terrorism: stuxnet, foiled Al-Aqaeda plot, then you investigate the leaks, which are obviously serious and....

We're obviously still a long, long, long ways from the days of Richard M. Nixon (use of the FBI, Justice, CREEP), Ronald Reagan (Beirut Barracks, Iran-Contra), George W. Bush (Iraq, WMD, dismissal of U.S Attorneys, Valerie Plame, et al).

The inquiry is one of two leak investigations ordered last June by Holder. The second involves a New York Times report about the Stuxnet computer worm, which was developed jointly by the United States and Israel to damage nuclear centrifuges at Iran’s main uranium-enrichment plant.

The two leak inquiries were started after Republicans in Congress accused the Obama administration of orchestrating news stories intended to demonstrate the president’s toughness on terrorism and improve his chance for reelection. The Republicans sought a special prosecutor, but Holder instead named two veteran prosecutors to handle the inquiries.

In the AP case, the news organization and its reporters and editors are not the likely targets of the investigation. Rather, the inquiry is probably aimed at current or former government officials who divulged classified information.

[F430murci]

Though DOJ did not give the AP a specific reason for the seizure, the dates of the phone calls it targeted offered a clear tell. On May 7, 2012, AP reporters Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo, citing anonymous sources, reported that the CIA had thwarted a plot by an al-Qaeda affiliate to "destroy a U.S.-bound airliner using a bomb with a sophisticated new design around the one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden."

The AP acknowledged then that it had agreed with the White House and CIA requests "not to publish" its story "immediately because the sensitive intelligence operation was still under way." But "once officials said those concerns were allayed," the news organization went ahead with its story rather than wait for the Obama administration's official announcement.

It was later revealed that the "would-be bomber" was actually a U.S. spy planted in the Yemen-based group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. On May 18, U.S. and allied officials suggested to Reuters that the leak to the AP had forced the end of an "operation which they hoped could have continued for weeks or longer."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/2013/05/13/ap-phone-records-doj-leaks_n_3268932.html

[snarky66]

Allow me to quote the smartest woman in the world. "What difference does it make anyway?"

It is a pattern of corruption which has been evident since day one. ChuckD has outlined a few scandals allow me to submit Solyndra & hundreds more which were not stimulus but rather taxpayer money regurgitated to obama donors.

The AP has been the biggest supporter of this president. Now the worm has turned. Even the sycophants are now victims of the machine. boo hoo.

Sikking the IRS onto opponents represents a new low concerning abuse of power.

Now obama will fall back on the tried & true "we'll see where the investigation takes us" which is code talk for trying to run the clock out.

But believe me when I say that when Jonathan Karl, Jake Tapper & Sharyl Attkisson decide to go after obama & his cooked up stories the entire complexion of the narrative has changed.

Today a young woman (White House Correspondent) basically shouted down the spokeskid Jay Carney. Quite a lot of people are sick of his lies. IMHO.

[midas]

Allow me to quote the smartest woman in the world. "What difference does it make anyway?"

It is a pattern of corruption which has been evident since day one. ChuckD has outlined a few scandals allow me to submit Solyndra & hundreds more which were not stimulus but rather taxpayer money regurgitated to obama donors.

The AP has been the biggest supporter of this president. Now the worm has turned. Even the sycophants are now victims of the machine. boo hoo.

Sikking the IRS onto opponents represents a new low concerning abuse of power.

Now obama will fall back on the tried & true "we'll see where the investigation takes us" which is code talk for trying to run the clock out.

But believe me when I say that when Jonathan Karl, Jake Tapper & Sharyl Attkisson decide to go after obama & his cooked up stories the entire complexion of the narrative has changed.

Today a young woman (White House Correspondent) basically shouted down the spokeskid Jay Carney. Quite a lot of people are sick of his lies. IMHO.

[lomatopo]

IRS targeting conservative PACs for being conservative.

This activity, limited to the Cincinnati IRS office, occurred while Douglas Shulman was Commissioner of the IRS, and he was aware of the situation. Mr. Shulman was appointed to his term by George W. Bush.

I think most organizations solely focused on political change, rather than exclusively on social welfare, should not be allowed tax exempt status.

[snarky66]

Or maybe not:

But the president’s claim that he said “act of terrorism” is taking revisionist history too far, given that he repeatedly refused to commit to that phrase when asked directly by reporters in the weeks after the attack. He appears to have gone out of his way to avoid saying it was a terrorist attack, so he has little standing to make that claim now.

Does anyone else think that maybe obama has told one whopper too many?

During a press conference mister obama said "I learned of this scandal just like most of you from news reports" Concerning the AP thing.

WHAT? Who in the hell is in charge of running this railroad? Are your aides deliberately withholding information from you?

More likely a plausible deniability scheme.

Breaking News.

Holder will be dragged up to the hill tomorrow to testify. I pray they swear him in. Either way he'll be fired soon.

[Loptr]

IRS targeting conservative PACs for being conservative.

This activity, limited to the Cincinnati IRS office, occurred while Douglas Shulman was Commissioner of the IRS, and he was aware of the situation. Mr. Shulman was appointed to his term by George W. Bush.

I think most organizations solely focused on political change, rather than exclusively on social welfare, should not be allowed tax exempt status.

This has already been debunked. The trend extended to the Washington DC office also.

The fact has already been revealed that the head of the IRS knew of this behavior for over a year and never did anything about it.

It has also come out the these actions go back to 2010.

[Loptr]

Media coalition letter of protest to Attorney General Eric Holder

Letter from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press to Attorney General Eric Holder, protesting the Justice Department's subpoena of Associated Press phone records.

http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/politics/media-coalition-letter-of-protest-to-attorney-general-eric-holder/148/

Follow link for embedded document.

[Loptr]

Holder will be dragged up to the hill tomorrow to testify. I pray they swear him in. Either way he'll be fired soon.

Holder has recused himself on the AP case as he has already been questioned by the FBI.

But did say today that he will be taking the lead on the IRS case. Nice, the fox is watching the hen house, again.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/holder-recused-himself-from-leak-investigation-justice-department-says/2013/05/14/acf24cf8-bcb6-11e2-97d4-a479289a31f9_story.html

[chuckd]

IRS targeting conservative PACs for being conservative.

This activity, limited to the Cincinnati IRS office, occurred while Douglas Shulman was Commissioner of the IRS, and he was aware of the situation. Mr. Shulman was appointed to his term by George W. Bush.

I think most organizations solely focused on political change, rather than exclusively on social welfare, should not be allowed tax exempt status.

I knew it wouldn't be long for somebody to blame Bush. Mr. Shulman was in the fifth and sixth years of a six year appointment. If anybody was kept out of the loop, it was very likely Shulman.

However, if you were a friend (or relative) of this administration the approval cycle was much shorter for a tax exempt foundation approval.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

IRS official Lerner speedily approved exemption for Obama brother’s ‘charity’

5:06 PM 05/14/2013

Charles C. Johnson

Lois Lerner, the senior IRS official at the center of the decision to target tea party groups for burdensome tax scrutiny, signed paperwork granting tax-exempt status to the Barack H. Obama Foundation, a shady charity headed by the president’s half-brother that operated illegally for years.

According to the organization’s filings, Lerner approved the foundation’s tax status within a month of filing, an unprecedented timeline that stands in stark contrast to conservative organizations that have been waiting for more than three years, in some cases, for approval.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/14/irs-official-lerner-approved-exemption-for-obama-brothers-charity/#ixzz2TKbtMELT

[FDog]

I thought this was about the govt getting the records so they go do a witchunt to find who was responsible for the leak.

Some countries have laws to protect whistleblowers from leaking the wrongdoings of govts.

Instead of the US govt going after those that make their illegal activity public, why not just act legally.

Priorities are the wrong way around for the US govt in recent years. No accountability, just put all blame on those that expose the corruption.

[geriatrickid]

Government officials should not be leaking sensitive information that put the security of their nation at risk.

[Exsexyman]

This is an ominous trend. have not read this story in any US press.

These scandals seem to be coming Fast and Furious! The vast majority of the US press would appear to have been neutered in recent years, and have not been doing their job of holding this administration to account, giving them a free ride. They are now paying the price for this lack of backbone. Imagine what they would have said if a seizure of phone records had happened in the Venezuelan administration of the late Hugo Chavez, or Putin's Russia. It would have been used as evidence of Chavez's and Putin's personal involvement in restricting press freedom. Blatant double standards and hypocrisy.

As for Obama, any pretensions that he is somehow a progressive liberal have been blown out of the water by these revelations, he has been shown by his actions to be the polar opposite. What a disappointment he is to those who fell for the 'Hope and change' rhetoric. George Orwell only scratched the surface!

[Steely Dan]

Apparently Obama is now claiming the targeting of groups likely opposed to him by the IRS is 'Intolerable', which means it was tolerated till the s**t hit the fan, then on becoming public domain the search for a scapegoat to take the bullet can start in earnest. Incidentally one of the keywords the Liberals in the IRS targeted for special scrutiny was 'Patriot', how very very revealing.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22529435

[Jingthing]

Apparently Obama is now claiming the targeting of groups likely opposed to him by the IRS is 'Intolerable', which means it was tolerated till the s**t hit the fan, then on becoming public domain the search for a scapegoat to take the bullet can start in earnest. Incidentally one of the keywords the Liberals in the IRS targeted for special scrutiny was 'Patriot', how very very revealing.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22529435

Not really. Most of the Patriot orgs are Tea Party affiliates. Tea Party harbors some extremely radical right wing elements and many of them are armed.

The IRS actually should crack down on ALL of these types of political orgs of any stripe and also the religious org exemption should be totally scrapped. Why should the American people, in a SECULAR country, subsidize ANY of that?

[lomatopo]

Just a brief re-fresh on the President's Surveillance Program, which allows for the warrantless interception of telephone calls, emails, web activity.

The President's Surveillance Program (PSP) is a collection of secret intelligence activities authorized by then President of the United States George W. Bush after the September 11 attacks in 2001 as part of the War on Terrorism. The Terrorist Surveillance Program, which authorized warrantless wiretapping of international communications where one party to the communication was believed to be affiliated with al-Qa'ida, is the only part of the President's program that has been publicly disclosed. The other intelligence activities covered under the same Presidential authorizations remain classified information, although the Attorney General publicly acknowledged the existence of such activities in 2007.[1] The other activities have reportedly included data mining of e-mail messages[2] and telephone call detail records in the NSA call database.[3]

And which, when the New York Times was going to expose this, the Bush Administration threatened legal actions, and they also hunted the leakers for years and years.

The FBI agents investigating the 2005 The New York Times story eventually made their way to The Baltimore Sun story, and then to Binney, Wiebe, Loomis, Roark, and Drake. In 2007 armed FBI agents raided the houses of Roark, Binney, and Wiebe. Binney claimed they pointed guns at his head. Wiebe said it reminded him of the Soviet Union. None were charged with crimes except for Drake. In 2010 he was indicted under the Espionage Act of 1917, as part of Obama's unprecedented crackdown on leakers.[48][49] The charges against him were dropped in 2011 and he pled to a single misdemeanor.

Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts

By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU

Published: December 16, 2005

WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 - Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.

Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/politics/16program.html?pagewanted=all

[Steely Dan]

Apparently Obama is now claiming the targeting of groups likely opposed to him by the IRS is 'Intolerable', which means it was tolerated till the s**t hit the fan, then on becoming public domain the search for a scapegoat to take the bullet can start in earnest. Incidentally one of the keywords the Liberals in the IRS targeted for special scrutiny was 'Patriot', how very very revealing.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22529435

Not really. Most of the Patriot orgs are Tea Party affiliates. Tea Party harbors some extremely radical right wing elements and many of them are armed.

The IRS actually should crack down on ALL of these types of political orgs of any stripe and also the religious org exemption should be totally scrapped. Why should the American people, in a SECULAR country, subsidize ANY of that?

How many Tea Party affiliated individuals have been arrested at demonstrations in comparison to left wing radicals, such as Occupy Wallstreet? If the answer is anything to go by the IRS should have targeted Occupy affiliated groups, but then again how many of them pay tax.

[lomatopo]

FWIW, this topic seems to be more about the investigation of leaks surrounding stuxnet, and the foiled Al-Qaeda plot, than the IRS. I understand the need to vent about Obama; maybe ask for a new IRS thread to be started?

Obama Order Sped Up Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran

By DAVID E. SANGER

Published: June 1, 2012

WASHINGTON — From his first months in office, President Obama secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities, significantly expanding America’s first sustained use of cyberweapons, according to participants in the program.

Mr. Obama decided to accelerate the attacks — begun in the Bush administration and code-named Olympic Games — even after an element of the program accidentally became public in the summer of 2010 because of a programming error that allowed it to escape Iran’s Natanz plant and sent it around the world on the Internet. Computer security experts who began studying the worm, which had been developed by the United States and Israel, gave it a name: Stuxnet.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html

========

FBI is increasing pressure on suspects in Stuxnet inquiry

By Peter Finn,January 26, 2013

Federal investigators looking into disclosures of classified information about a cyberoperation that targeted Iran’s nuclear program have increased pressure on current and former senior government officials suspected of involvement, according to people familiar with the investigation.

The inquiry, which was started by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. last June, is examining leaks about a computer virus developed jointly by the United States and Israel that damaged nuclear centrifuges at Iran’s primary uranium enrichment plant. The U.S. code name for the operation was Olympic Games, but the wider world knew the mysterious computer worm as Stuxnet.

Prosecutors are pursuing “everybody — at pretty high levels, too,” said one person familiar with the investigation. “There are many people who’ve been contacted from different agencies.”

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-01-26/world/36560799_1_stuxnet-computer-virus-cia-officer

=======

Congressman claims press leak interrupted Al Qaeda bomb plot investigation

Published May 09, 2012

FoxNews.com

The chairman of the House intelligence committee claimed Wednesday that the press leak on the failed Al Qaeda-affiliate bomb plot short-circuited the counterterrorism operation being led by the U.S. and its partners -- which apparently involved infiltrating the dangerous group.

In an interview on Fox News, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said the leaks "didn't allow the operation to go ... to its full conclusion."

"There were other opportunities, I believe, (that) were lost by the fact that it was leaked on Monday," Rogers said.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/05/09/congressman-claims-press-leak-interrupted-al-qaeda-bomb-plot-investigation/

(This was back when Fox was accusing Obama of leaking this information to enhance is image.)