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DOJ Seizes Reporter's Telephone Records

posted by takyon on Friday June 15 2018, @06:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the same-game,-different-team dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Trump's targeting of a New York Times journalist, explained by experts

The Trump administration took its war with the media to the next level this week when federal authorities seized years of phone records from New York Times reporter Ali Watkins as part of a federal investigation into leaks of classified information.

Watkins, who previously worked for BuzzFeed News and Politico, had a three-year relationship with James Wolfe, a former Senate Intelligence Committee aide who was arrested on Thursday and charged with lying to federal agents investigating the classified leaks.

The seizure set off alarm bells about the relationship between the administration and the media. The Department of Justice under Obama took phone records from Associated Press reporters and editors, named a Fox News reporter an unindicted "co-conspirator" in a leak case, and prosecuted multiple cases involving whistleblowers and leakers. So is what Trump doing more of the same? Or is a president who routinely bashes the media and threatens to jail leakers finally turning his rhetoric into reality?

"It's deeply alarming that the Trump administration has decided to build off of the worst of the Obama legacy on leak investigations and reporter-source protection," said Alexandra Ellerbeck, the North America program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists.

See also: The Justice Department Deleted Language About Press Freedom And Racial Gerrymandering From Its Internal Manual

Also at The Philadelphia Inquirer, Emptywheel, and Fox News.

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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by MostCynical on Friday June 15 2018, @10:18PM

    by MostCynical (2589) on Friday June 15 2018, @10:18PM (#693741) Journal

    So.. If Americans are breaking the law, spying on people, killing people, or otherwise doing bad stuff, it is okay to tell someone, as long as they "authorized by law to recieve it". If this information has been classified Top Secret or "ultra" secret so barely five people are "authorized", and they already know about the actions in question, who holds them accountable?

    --
    "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
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