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Monday, May 15, 2024
By Steven L. Taylor

Reports ABC’s Brian Ross and Richard Esposito at the ABC News blog The Blotter:

A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we (Brian Ross and Richard Esposito) call in an effort to root out confidential sources.

“It’s time for you to get some new cell phones, quick,” the source told us in an in-person conversation.

ABC News does not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.

Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.

Now, as much as I have been clearly upset by the NSA’s phone-call database, I won’t jump off the deep end on this story just yet, as the details are as yet unconfirmed. As Jonah Goldberg notes at The Corner:

There are way too many facts not in evidence in this “story” so explanations could be anything from entirely justifiable to quite worrisome.

One would guess that if the calls are being tracked, it is probably in regards to the CIA leak case, and not the product of the NSA database–still, the entire affair is quite concerning and I hope more information is brought to light.

If strikes me that if the government needs to go after leakers, they should go after the leakers themselves, not the reporters who receive the information.

Indeed, Marshall Manson at On Tap correctly notes:

People who violate their oaths and the laws about government secrecy ought to be in jail. But not the reporters. They’re simply doing what they’re supposed to do — keeping us all informed. That’s their job. And it’s an important one because only an informed population can prevent a government from drifting inexorably towards tyranny.

[...]

you can’t have a democratic republic without a free press. Period. And that means taking the occassional lump when it comes to state secrets. For me, it’s a small price to pay.

[...]

We can debate the merits of the news that’s being broken — and we should. But we can’t debate the necessity of having a press that’s free to break the stories. And having reporters believe the government is cataloguing their calls or that they are facing jail anytime they write something that might be secret is the opposite of the kind of freedom that we need.

Indeed.

I will assume, for the moment, that the NSA program is not involved, as it simply seems more likely that this is some sort of monitoring based on a criminal investigation. My thoughts on that is that they had better have a warrant to collect that data and even then, unless they are trying to catch a specific leaker, I am not sure I understand what they are looking for. There certainly shouldn’t be open-ended monitoring of anyone’s phone, let alone a member of the press.

One thing I will note: the temptation to use a database like the one the NSA has compiled for going after, say, CIA leakers is a pretty hefty one. The idea that having trillions of phone records on file for access in criminal investigations has some serious Fourth Amendment implications.

h/t: OTB for the On Tap post.

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3 Responses to ““It’s time for you to get some new cell phones, quick.””

  • el
  • pt
    1. cagey1 Says:

      What the hell good is a new cell phone if all the numbers these dudes call are the freaking same????? HELLO???????

    2. Neo Says:

      Anybody can buy your phone records and it’s all legal. Send an e-mail with credit card number to charge and a few hours later, you got ‘em.

      Some folks have already thought of the idea of spying using this methodology.

    3. Dr. Steven Taylor Says:

      Lovely.

      Quite frankly, that should be illegal.


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