WaPo: DOJ Spied On Fox News Reporter (a perfect example of media complicity - updated) [View all]

[ProSense]

WaPo: DOJ Spied On Fox News Reporter

In its 2009 investigation of a leak related to North Korea, the Department of Justice spied extensively on Fox News Channel's chief Washington correspondent James Rosen, according to a report published in the Washington Post.

Using security badge access, the DOJ tracked Rosen's comings and goings from the State Department, according to WaPo. Moreover, the DOJ traced the timing of Rosen's phone calls with a State Department security adviser and obtained a search warrant to access his personal emails.

Read WaPo's entire report here.

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/wapo-doj-spied-on-fox-news-reporter

This is a perfect example of media complicity. In order to make the AP incident appear worse than it is, they dig up and break old news stories. Here is a very detailed 2011 report on the very incident.

WASHINGTON — Stephen J. Kim, an arms expert who immigrated from South Korea as a child, spent a decade briefing top government officials on the dangers posed by North Korea. Then last August he was charged with violating the Espionage Act — not by aiding some foreign adversary, but by revealing classified information to a Fox News reporter.

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Mr. Kim rarely spoke with reporters and sometimes expressed alarm about leaks, colleagues say. But in March 2009, a State Department press officer asked Mr. Kim to speak about North Korea to a Fox News reporter, James Rosen, and the two began to talk and exchange e-mails. Mr. Kim sent some e-mails under an online pseudonym, “Leo Grace.”

On June 11, 2009, Mr. Rosen reported that “the Central Intelligence Agency has learned, through sources inside North Korea,” that Pyongyang was likely to respond to a United Nations resolution condemning its nuclear and missile tests with more tests and other measures. The news was no surprise, but C.I.A. officials were furious that a top-secret analysis had been leaked almost instantly, according to a former government official. (A Fox News spokesman said Mr. Rosen declined to comment.)

When F.B.I. agents questioned Mr. Kim, he claimed he had spoken to Mr. Rosen only once. He admitted to more contacts only after agents confronted him with evidence, according to court filings. His trial is probably months away; if convicted, Mr. Kim, 43, could be sentenced to 15 years in prison.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/18/us/politics/18leak.html

From the current WaPo story:

Rosen instructed Kim to send him coded signals on his Google account, according to a quote from his e-mail in the affidavit: “One asterisk means to contact them, or that previously suggested plans for communication are to proceed as agreed; two asterisks means the opposite.”

He also wrote, according to the affidavit: “What I am interested in, as you might expect, is breaking news ahead of my competitors” including “what intelligence is picking up.” And: “I’d love to see some internal State Department analyses.”

Court documents show abundant evidence gathered from Kim’s office computer and phone records, but investigators said they needed to go a step further to build their case, seizing two days’ worth of Rosen’s personal e-mails — and all of his e-mail exchanges with Kim.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/a-rare-peek-into-a-justice-department-leak-probe/2013/05/19/0bc473de-be5e-11e2-97d4-a479289a31f9_story.html

This was a reporter fishing for classified information. Subpoenas and warrants were issued in the Rosen case.

For all we know Fox was going to spin us into a war. Remember this is Fox Noise's Rosen, not James Risen: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2871030

Please kick and recommend this important thread
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022857091

The AP's being investigated by a grand jury for who they coordinated with in Congress over the leak.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022848186

AP Leak ended informant's rare opportunity, why DOJ went after AP records
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022869034

Updated to add:

Brit Hume: DOJ Surveilling Fox Reporter ‘A Little Chilling’ (VIDEO)

Fox News Channel's Brit Hume sounded a note of concern on Monday following a report that the Department of Justice surveilled one of the cable news network's reporters, saying the Obama administration has set a potentially "chilling" precedent for the way government interacts with journalists.

"Where this crosses, it seems to me, a clear and bright line is when they subpoenaed the phone records on the pretext — I would call it a pretext, even indeed possibly a pretense — that this activity was criminal," Hume said during an appearance on the network. "That places this administration in the position of saying that normal news-gathering activities of journalists are possibly criminal or are criminal. That is a little chilling."

The Washington Post reported Sunday that a 2009 DOJ probe included the tracking of Fox reporter James Rosen's comings and goings at the State Department, the timing of his calls with a State Department official and the acquisition of a search warrant for his personal emails.

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http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/brit-hume-dojs-spying-on-fox-reporter-little

The United States has set a "'chilling' precedent" by considering Fox Noise journalism.