Obama administration spied on Fox News reporter James Rosen: Report [W:85]

Hatuey said:

Asking for information isn't illegal, the lengths to which a person goes in order to gather that information can be illegal. Kim broke the law, and in Rossen's case, his current status of innocent, hasn't stopped Republicans like Peter T. King from calling for Assange's head. Actually... here are Republicans on this issue:

Republicans prioritise WikiLeaks investigation | Media | The Guardian



WikiLeaks: Sarah Palin demands Julian Assange hunted down like Al Qaeda terrorist | Mail Online



Julian Assange cast as common enemy as US left and right unite | Media | The Guardian



It seems, a year ago, this was a crime, and hey - now, it's "freedom of the press" - by the way: here is what I posted on Assange:



Here are the right wing responses:















So if Assange was guilty, why isn't Rosen? Citizenship?

Click to expand...

apdst said:

Has Rosen been charged with a crime? If so, what classified information has he reported?

Also, were you this freaked out when Mary McCarty leaked classified info to the NYT several years ago? Or, was that ok, since Bush was president?

Click to expand...

apdst said:

Has Rosen been charged with a crime? If so, what classified information has he reported?

Also, were you this freaked out when Mary McCarty leaked classified info to the NYT several years ago? Or, was that ok, since Bush was president?

Click to expand...

Hatuey said:

Who is Mary McCarty?

Click to expand...

CHUCK TODD: So they want to criminalize journalism. And that's what it's coming down, I mean, if you end up essentially criminalizing journalism or when it comes to reporting on the federal government, particularly on national security, and the only place they can, they think they technically can do that is on the issues of national security. What it's going to do is the impact that we’ve heard, we heard the AP counsel say this over the weekend. It is going to make whistleblowers, and people that might leak, regular sources. You know, I’ve had different conversations with people over the last week who are sitting there not quite comfortable having certain conversations on the phone. I mean, it just completely, and maybe that's the intent. I can't think of any other intent of why they’re going about this in such a broad harassing sort of way.

Click to expand...

apdst said:

Are you serious? :roll:

Click to expand...

JAKE TAPPER: In "The Politics Lead," a FOX News reporter is caught in the middle of what's being sarcastically called a conspiracy to commit journalism. Not only did the Justice Department label James Rosen a conspirator for soliciting information from a State Department contractor for a story, but FOX News is now reporting that the Department of Justice even seized the phone records of Rosen's parents and of at least five other phone lines associated with FOX News.

Earlier this week, "The Washington Post" reported that the FBI sought and received a warrant to search Rosen's e-mail back in 2010 to find the source of a leak. Keep in mind, there's no allegation that James Rosen bribed, threatened, coerced anyone to get the information, which is what journalists do. We try to get information, especially information that the government doesn't want us to share with you.

In an opinion piece, "The New York Times", which is, of course, very supportive of President Obama, the editorial page accused the Obama administration of going overboard to find and muzzle insiders in the government, saying, quote, "Obama administration officials often talk about the balance between protecting secrets and protecting the constitutional rights of a free press. Accusing a reporter of being a conspirator, on top of other zealots and secretive investigations, shows a heavy tilt toward secrecy and insufficient concern about a free press," unquote.

Now, I'm a journalist. Obviously I have a bias here. But even if you side with this president over those of us in the media who challenge him in his administration, it is important to remember the precedent these actions set going forward, perhaps when it's not your guy in the White House.

Click to expand...

Court documents in the Kim case reveal how deeply investigators explored the private communications of a working journalist — and raise the question of how often journalists have been investigated as closely as Rosen was in 2010. The case also raises new concerns among critics of government secrecy about the possible stifling effect of these investigations on a critical element of press freedom: the exchange of information between reporters and their sources.

“Search warrants like these have a severe chilling effect on the free flow of important information to the public,” said First Amendment lawyer Charles Tobin, who has represented the Associated Press, but not in the current case. “That’s a very dangerous road to go down.”

Click to expand...

With the decision to label a Fox News television reporter a possible “co-conspirator” in a criminal investigation of a news leak, the Obama administration has moved beyond protecting government secrets to threatening fundamental freedoms of the press to gather news.

An affidavit filed with the judge made it clear that Mr. Rosen’s comings and goings at the State Department were carefully monitored. It said further that he tried to elicit information by “employing flattery and playing to Mr. Kim’s vanity and ego.” That would hardly be a first in the relationship between journalists and government officials, and, certainly, it is not grounds for a conspiracy charge. Though Mr. Rosen was not charged, the F.B.I. request for his e-mail account was granted secretly in late May 2010. The government was allowed to rummage through Mr. Rosen’s e-mails for at least 30 days. (The New Yorker reported Tuesday that Justice Department officials also seized phone records associated with White House staffers and Fox News as part of the Kim case.)

Michael Clemente, the executive vice president of Fox News, said on Monday that it was “downright chilling” that Mr. Rosen “was named a criminal co-conspirator for simply doing his job as a reporter.” Bruce Brown, the executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, added on Tuesday that treating “routine news-gathering efforts as evidence of criminality is extremely troubling and corrodes time-honored understandings between the public and the government about the role of the free press.”

The Rosen case follows other signs that the administration has gone overboard in its zeal to find and muzzle insiders. The Associated Press revealed last week that the government had secretly seized two months’ worth of records for telephones used by the agency’s staff, partly to determine the source of a leak about a report involving a foiled terrorist plot in Yemen.

Obama administration officials often talk about the balance between protecting secrets and protecting the constitutional rights of a free press. Accusing a reporter of being a “co-conspirator,” on top of other zealous and secretive investigations, shows a heavy tilt toward secrecy and insufficient concern about a free press.

Click to expand...

But here’s why you should care — and why this case, along with the administration’s broad snooping into AP phone records, is more serious than the other supposed Obama administration scandals regarding Benghazi and the Internal Revenue Service. The Rosen affair is as flagrant an assault on civil liberties as anything done by George W. Bush’s administration, and it uses technology to silence critics in a way Richard Nixon could only have dreamed of.

To treat a reporter as a criminal for doing his job — seeking out information the government doesn’t want made public — deprives Americans of the First Amendment freedom on which all other constitutional rights are based. Guns? Privacy? Due process? Equal protection? If you can’t speak out, you can’t defend those rights, either.

Beyond that, the administration’s actions shatter the president’s credibility and discourage allies who would otherwise defend the administration against bogus accusations such as those involving the Benghazi “talking points.” If the administration is spying on reporters and accusing them of criminality just for asking questions — well, who knows what else this crowd is capable of doing?

When Rosen and I covered the Bush White House together a decade ago, I knew him as a scrappy reporter who had a fascination with Watergate trivia. He later wrote a sympathetic biography of John Mitchell, Nixon’s disgraced attorney general. Now he’s learning just how abusive a Justice Department can be, from an administration that has launched more leak prosecutions than all previous administrations combined.

My Post colleague Ann E. Marimow, who broke the Rosen story, obtained the affidavit by FBI agent Reginald Reyes seeking access to Rosen’s private e-mails. In the affidavit, Reyes stated that “there is probable cause to believe that the reporter has committed or is committing a violation” of the law against national security leaks. The affadavit detailed how the FBI had monitored Rosen’s comings and goings from the State Department and tracked his various phone calls with the suspected leaker, analyst Stephen Jin-Woo Kim.

Rosen’s supposed crime? [FBI agent] Reyes got his evidence from an e-mail from the reporter: “I want to report authoritatively, and ahead of my competitors, on new initiatives or shifts in U.S. policy, events on the ground in [North Korea], what intelligence is picking up, etc. . . . I’d love to see some internal State Department analyses. . . . In short: Let’s break some news, and expose muddle-headed policy when we see it, or force the administration’s hand to go in the right direction, if possible.”

That is indeed compelling evidence — of good journalism.

And how did Rosen commit this crime? Kim told investigators Rosen is a “very convincing, persistent person” who “would tell me I was brilliant and it is possible I succumbed to flattery.”

Only in this Justice Department could flattery get you a prison term.

Carney told the White House press corps Tuesday that Obama doesn't think "journalists should be prosecuted for doing their jobs" (perhaps he could remind the FBI of that), and the administration has renewed its support for a media shield law (a welcome but suspicious gesture, because the White House thwarted a previous attempt to pass the bill).

If Obama really is “a fierce defender of the First Amendment,” as his spokesman would have it, he will move quickly to fix this. Otherwise, Obama is establishing an ominous precedent for future leaders whose fondness for the First Amendment may not be so fierce.

Click to expand...

The Prof said:

david ignatius, wapo: holder's gotta go

it's a long column, goes into everything eric---from ted stevens to the botched prosecution of marijuana use in states which legalized it

David Ignatius: Attorney General Eric Holder is not up to the task - The Washington Post

marc rich, the panthers, the ap recusal without record, the possible perjury pertaining to rosen...

the failure to close gitmo, the attempt to move ksm to manhatten...

fast and furious and contempt of congress...

the february 4 letter...

suing arizona without having read the bill...

he's just not very good

which is why he's safe

ignatius says holder "substitutes his political judgement for his legal judgement and his political judgement isn't very good"

he's "feckless"

fournier at the national journal concurs

What Happened to Eric Holder? - NationalJournal.com

and so long ago (19 years) with the jailing of rosty (dan rostenkowski, look it up), recounts the elite dc bureau chief for ap and now regular msnbc contributor, slim young basketball star eric shone so bright

what went so wrong

holder is "politically tone deaf" who "doesn't have the right kinds of people around him," jots the journal

"he doesn't have great political judgement and he manages those issues himself"

he's "seen as hyperpartisan, dissembling, even perjuring"

he began his generalship with the "nation of cowards" idiocy on mlk day

he's just not very good

huffpo came out 3 weeks ago

HuffPo: Is It Time for Holder to Go?

weigant is still worried about:

march 26, 2013: HuffPo: Eric Holder Admits Some Banks Are Just Too Big To Prosecute

the nyt june 1 after the rosen scandal broke reported that "the white house is apoplectic about him," so eager to see the ignorant (according to holder, time and again) ag go

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/02/u...-foes-to-foil-keep-holder-going.html?hp&_r=2&

you wanna argue with any or all of em?

knock yourself out

Click to expand...

Grant said:

Holder will not resign because he has the support of his fellow conspirators and the unstable electorate who support them. To Holder and his crowd there is nothing to see here, it's just business as usual.

Click to expand...

YEAs —75
Akaka (D-HI)
Alexander (R-TN)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Bennet (D-CO)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Bond (R-MO)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Burris (D-IL)
Byrd (D-WV)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Cardin (D-MD)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Collins (R-ME)
Conrad (D-ND)
Corker (R-TN)
Dodd (D-CT)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feingold (D-WI)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Gillibrand (D-NY)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hagan (D-NC)
Harkin (D-IA)
Hatch (R-UT)
Inouye (D-HI)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kaufman (D-DE)
Kerry (D-MA)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Kohl (D-WI)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Lieberman (ID-CT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Lugar (R-IN)
McCain (R-AZ)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Merkley (D-OR)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Sanders (I-VT)
Schumer (D-NY)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shaheen (D-NH)
Snowe (R-ME)
Specter (R-PA)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Tester (D-MT)
Udall (D-CO)
Udall (D-NM)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Warner (D-VA)
Webb (D-VA)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wyden (D-OR)

NAYs —21
Barrasso (R-WY)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Johanns (R-NE)
McConnell (R-KY)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Shelby (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Wicker (R-MS)

Not Voting – 3
Begich (D-AK) Kennedy (D-MA) Martinez (R-FL)

Click to expand...

The Prof said:

anger?

LOL!

take it out on the 56 dems...

Click to expand...

Unitedwestand13 said:

only 21 republicans voted no on holders vote. both democrats and republicans voted for holder, so both responsible for making him attornony general.

Click to expand...

OpportunityCost said:

Hate to use the i word...but Holder seems to qualify.

Click to expand...

Grant said:

Yes, if there was any justice that would be the case, and the cause goes all the way back to Mark Rich and the final days of the Clinton administration. When that goes through without much protest, and no red flags are raised, then the boldness increases until we have what we see here.

Click to expand...

The CEO of the Associated Press told an audience Wednesday that the Department of Justice has succeeded in muzzling government employees from talking to AP reporters in the weeks since the seizure of AP phone records was revealed.

“What I learned from our journalists should alarm everyone in this room and I think should alarm everyone in this country. The actions of the DOJ against AP are already having an impact beyond the specifics of this particular case[/B],” AP CEO Gary Pruitt told an audience at the National Press Club. “Some of our longtime trusted sources have become nervous and anxious about talking to us, even about stories that aren’t about national security. In some cases, government employees that we once checked in with regularly will no longer speak to us by phone, and some are reluctant to meet in person.”

After it was made public that the Justice Department took AP Washington bureau phone records as part of the Obama administration’s aggressive anti-leak operation, Pruitt said the fear among potential sources has spread to reporters from other outlets.

“I can tell you that this chilling effect is not just at AP, it’s happening at other news organizations as well,” he said. “Journalists from other news organizations have personally told me it has intimidated sources from speaking to them.”

Pruitt said he believes government officials are happy to see the process of newsgathering become more difficult in Washington.

“The government may love this. I suspect that they do,” he said. “But beware the government that loves secrecy too much.”

Click to expand...

Associated Press’ president Gary Pruitt on Wednesday slammed the Department of Justice for acting as “judge, jury and executioner” in the seizure of the news organization’s phone records and he said some of the wire service’s longtime sources have clammed up in fear.

Pruitt said the department broke its own rules with the seizure, which he said was too broad, and by failing to give the AP notice of the subpoena. Pruitt questioned the DoJ’s actions concerning the subpoena — had the DoJ come to the news organization in advance, “we could have helped them narrow the scope of the subpoena” or a court could have decided, he said.

“There was never that opportunity,” Pruitt said during a speech at the National Press Club in D.C. “Instead the DoJ acted as judge, jury and executioner in private, in secret.”

Click to expand...