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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWide Government Taps Associated Press Phone Records
WASHINGTON (AP) The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news.
The records obtained by the Justice Department listed outgoing calls for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and the main number for AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP. It was not clear if the records also included incoming calls or the duration of calls.
In all, the government seized the records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown but more than 100 journalists work in the offices where phone records were targeted, on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.
In a letter of protest sent to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday, AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt said the government sought and obtained information far beyond anything that could be justified by any specific investigation. He demanded the return of the phone records and destruction of all copies.
"There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP's newsgathering operations, and disclose information about AP's activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know," Pruitt said.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/govt-obtains-wide-ap-phone-records-probe
Hey ... its all good You know
free press and all that.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Oh how cute, a corporation claiming a right to privacy and against unwarranted searches.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)like a free press .
Like they had in east germany.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)There is a substantial number of DUers who support amending the Constitution to say this:
https://movetoamend.org/wethepeopleamendment
The rights protected by the Constitution of the United States are the rights of natural persons only.
Artificial entities established by the laws of any State, the United States, or any foreign state shall have no rights under this Constitution and are subject to regulation by the People, through Federal, State, or local law.
The AP is a corporation. If one subscribes to "corporations have no Constitutional rights" then "freedom of the press" only applies to publishing apparatus which are owned by individuals - and presumably wealthy ones.
But if you subscribe to the view that "corporations have no Constitutional rights" but draw some kind of carve-out for "press", then I'm interested to know what you include in "press". Is that, in your view, limited only to ink on paper, but does it extend to other media, like making a movie?
warrprayer
(4,734 posts)for Bush associated Chiquita. None of this suprises me.
boston bean
(36,186 posts)Hopefully, this will help pull back some of the intrusions the patriot act and any other BS law created after 911 caused.
kona808
(41 posts)The White House plumbers attempting to fix a leak.
Nothing to see here.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/govt-obtains-wide-ap-phone-records-probe
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)The Justice Department obtained the call detail records which includes the calling and called telephone numbers, the time and date, and the duration of each call. This is not a "tap", and is does not include the content of the call.
The phone records are typically obtained by means of a subpoena to the phone company.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: 212-549-2666, media@aclu.org
NEW YORK The Department of Justice secretly obtained two months' worth of phone records of Associated Press reporters and editors, according to an AP story.
The following statement can be attributed to Laura W. Murphy, director of the American Civil Liberties Union Washington Legislative Office:
"The media's purpose is to keep the public informed and it should be free to do so without the threat of unwarranted surveillance. The Attorney General must explain the Justice Department's actions to the public so that we can make sure this kind of press intimidation does not happen again."
The following statement can be attributed to Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project:
"Obtaining a broad range of telephone records in order to ferret out a government leaker is an unacceptable abuse of power. Freedom of the press is a pillar of our democracy, and that freedom often depends on confidential communications between reporters and their sources
http://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/justice-department-secretly-subpoenas-ap-phone-records
pintobean
(18,101 posts)From the ACLU
http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/fbi-if-we-told-you-you-might-sue-0
0rganism
(23,856 posts)Unlike the Benghazi BS or the IRS-vs-teaparty thing, this has the makings of a real scandal.
Puddy
(51 posts)Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)By comparisson, this is positively libertarian.