Saturday, May 8, 2021 at 1:29:00 P.M. EDT
WASHINGTON (ap) — The Trump Justice Department secretly seized the phone records of three washington post reporters who covered the federal investigation into ties between Russia and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, the newspaper said Friday.
The disclosure sets up a new clash between the federal government and news organizations and advocates for press freedom, who regard the seizures of reporters’ records as incursions into constitutionally protected newsgathering activity. Similar actions have occurred only rarely over the past decade, including a seizure of phone records of associated press reporters and editors over a 2012 story that revealed a foiled bomb plot.
[N.S.: The wapo plum forgot to mention that the 2012 seizure was by the White House of the John Doe calling himself “Barack Obama.”]
In a statement published by the newspaper, Cameron Barr, the post’s acting executive editor, said: “We are deeply troubled by this use of government power to seek access to the communications of journalists. The Department of Justice should immediately make clear its reasons for this intrusion into the activities of reporters doing their jobs, an activity protected under the First Amendment.”
The action is presumably aimed at identifying the reporters’ sources in national security stories published in the early months of Trump’s administration, as federal investigators scrutinized whether his 2016 campaign had coordinated with the Kremlin to sway the election.
The records’ seizure was approved by Justice Department leadership last year. The reporters — Ellen Nakashima, Greg Miller and Adam Entous, who has since left the post — were notified in letters dated May 3 that the Justice Department had obtained records for their home, work or cellphone numbers.
GRA: They’re in favor of the amendments they feel are in their interests, but the SECOND amendment? Not so much.
--GRA
 
No comments:
Post a Comment