No thread about the DOJ spying on AP?

[angrydude]

I swear, the Obama administration could start killing Americans in the street and half the left would say "what's the big deal?"

[Winehole23]

just like they did when Bush was torturing dudes. they still do, for the most part.

[Winehole23]

thanks for posting, angrydude.

[Winehole23]

link to that? where'd you see it?

[InRareForm]

link?

[SA210]

Justice Department Investigation of AP Part of Larger Pattern to Intimidate Sources and Reporters


As part of a new leak investigation, the Justice Department has secretly obtained (https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2013/05/13/us/politics/ap-us-ap-phone-records-subpoena.html) the call records for twenty phone lines owned by the Associated Press (AP), which could put sources for as many as one hundred reporters at risk. The AP called the move (http://blog.ap.org/2013/05/13/ap-responds-to-intrusive-doj-seizure-of-journalists-phone-records/) a "massive and unprecedented intrusion," saying they “regard this action by the Department of Justice as a serious interference with AP’s constitutional rights to gather and report the news.”

We agree. It’s time to stop looking at all of these leak investigations and prosecutions as ancillary to press freedom; they are a direct attack on it. This should be an important wake-up call for journalists.

While this incident has brought the Justice Department's crackdown on leakers to a new extreme, it’s important to remember, this storm has been brewing for a while now. In five years, the Obama administration has prosecuted more leakers under the Espionage Act than all other administrations combined, and virtually all (http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2012/04/more-journalists-linked-to-case-charging-excia-officer-120047.html) these (https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/25/us/25subpoena.html) prosecutions (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/23/110523fa_fact_mayer) have engulfed journalists one way or another.

As part of this current investigation, we've known the FBI has been data mining government officials’ phone and email records for months, looking for links to journalists on a systematic scale. The Washington Post reported in January (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-is-increasing-pressure-on-suspects-in-stuxnet-inquiry/2013/01/26/f475095e-6733-11e2-93e1-475791032daf_print.html), the FBI is using new, “sophisticated software to identify names, key words and phrases embedded in e-mails and other communications, including text messages, which could lead them to suspects.”

According to the Post, “The FBI also looks at officials’ phone records — who called whom, when, for how long.” Anytime the FBI found a government official has contact with the unknown number of “particular” journalists, FBI agents were “confronting” officials with this information.

As the New York Times reported on their front page in August of last year (https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/us/national-security-leaks-lead-to-fbi-hunt-and-news-chill.html?pagewanted=all), these leak investigations are “casting a distinct chill over press coverage of national security issues as agencies decline routine interview requests and refuse to provide background briefings.” The Huffington Post recently interviewed several (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/16/obama-whistleblower-prosecutions-press_n_3091137.html) of the nation’s most prominent national security journalists, all of whom confirmed it’s a perilous time for journalists who are reporting on what the government considers secret.

The Justice Department does not deny this. When asked about the Obama administration’s crackdown on leakers last June, a senior Justice Department (DOJ) official told longtime national security reporter Shane Harris (http://www.washingtonian.com/blogs/capitalcomment/news-gossip/the-obama-administrations-war-on-information-leaks.php) that the DOJ is “out for scalps.” Harris’ DOJ source also “made it clear that reporters who talked to sources about classified information were putting themselves at risk of prosecution.”

And it may be about to get worse.

In another leak case, New York Times reporter James Risen has been fighting a subpoena (https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/25/us/25subpoena.html?_r=0) from Obama’s Justice Department for years. The Obama DOJ is after his sources for a chapter in his book Bush At War. (You can read the incredible chapter at issue, about a spectacularly bungled CIA mission that allegedly handed nuclear bomb blueprints to Iran, here (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/jan/05/energy.g2).)

The Obama administration inherited the case from the Bush administration, and despite the fact that the district court judge sided with Risen during both the grand jury and trial, DOJ has continued to appeal the case. Last May, the DOJ argued before the Fourth Circuit (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/18/reporters-privilege-obama-war-leaks-new-york-times_n_1527748.html) that reporters’ privilege (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reporter%27s_privilege) does not exist at all for national security reporters. Disturbingly, the Justice Department said that Risen protecting his sources was “analogous” to refusing to testify about receiving drugs from a confidential source.

The Fourth Circuit Appeals Court decision could come down any day now, and it will undoubtedly be the most important press freedom decision in a decade or more.

And while it has curiously receded from national headlines, the Justice Department still has an active grand jury investigation open (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/07/why-wikileaks-grand-jury-important-some-members-congress-want-prosecute-new-york) against WikiLeaks for publishing classified information. If such a prosecution succeeds, it will be open season on media organizations that publish stories that touch on information the government considers secret, putting virtually every national security journalist at risk of prosecution.

In fact, the House of Representatives held a hearing just last year in which multiple Congressmen openly discussed (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/07/why-wikileaks-grand-jury-important-some-members-congress-want-prosecute-new-york) throwing New York Times journalists in jail for publishing classified information about secret cyberattacks and CIA drone strikes. By staying quiet about the WikiLeaks grand jury, journalists only increase this risk.

The White House press secretary was quick to state today (https://twitter.com/markknoller/status/334091311286210561) that "not involved in decisions" in the AP investigation and heard about it from the media. White House officials are under investigation for this particular leak (http://www.politico.com/politico44/2013/02/brennan-interviewed-in-leak-probes-156317.html) as well, so that’s no surprise. But one should not forget: the White House created this war-on-leaks monster. Congress has only encouraged its expansion (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/congressional-intelligence-committees-vow-investigate-alarming-unacceptable-leaks/story?id=16511289), instead of investigating the wrongdoing that many of the leaks exposed. And now, it’s out of control.


LINK: https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/blog/2013/05/justice-department-investigation-ap-part-larger-pattern-intimidate-sources-and



(https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/blog/2013/05/justice-department-investigation-ap-part-larger-pattern-intimidate-sources-and)

[SA210]

Associated Press says U.S. government seized journalists' phone records

By David Ingram

WASHINGTON | Mon May 13, 2013 6:48pm EDT


(Reuters) - The Associated Press on Monday said the U.S. government secretly seized telephone records of AP offices and reporters for a two-month period in 2012, describing the acts as a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into news-gathering operations.

AP Chief Executive Gary Pruitt, in a letter posted on the agency's website, said the AP was informed last Friday that the Justice Department gathered records for more than 20 phone lines assigned to the agency and its reporters.

"There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters," Pruitt said in the letter, which was addressed to Attorney General Eric Holder.

An AP story on the records seizure said the government would not say why it sought the records.

But it noted that U.S. officials have previously said the U.S. Attorney's Office in the District of Columbia was conducting a criminal investigation into information contained in a May 7, 2012, AP story about a CIA operation in Yemen (http://www.reuters.com/places/yemen) that stopped an al Qaeda plot to detonate a bomb on an airplane headed for the United States.

Five reporters and an editor involved in that story were among those whose phone numbers were obtained by the government, the AP said.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in the District of Columbia, which notified the AP of the seizure, issued a statement on Monday saying it was "careful and deliberative" when dealing with issues around freedom of the press.

"We take seriously our obligations to follow all applicable laws, federal regulations, and Department of Justice policies when issuing subpoenas for phone records of media organizations," the office said.

A Justice Department spokesman referred inquiries to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

The seized phone records were for April and May of 2012 and AP bureaus in New York, Hartford and Washington were among those affected, as well as an AP phone at the U.S. House of Representatives press gallery, the AP said.

The records seized included general AP switchboard numbers and an office shared fax line, according to the AP story on the probe.

(Additional reporting By Ben Berkowitz in Boston; Editing by Warren Strobel and Paul Simao)

LINK: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/13/us-usa-justice-ap-idUSBRE94C0ZW20130513

[SA210]

DOJ Unconcerned About The Constitution, Obtained AP Reporters' Phone Records

from the freedom-of-the-press?-ha!-what's-that? dept

We've talked quite a bit about how the federal government has been pretty aggressively shattering any remnants of the 4th amendment, and while there are some parts of the 1st amendment that are still respected, our government doesn't always seem so keen on that one either. Apparently, they've decided to kill two birds with one stone recently, in obtaining a broad collection of phone records concerning Associated Press journalists (http://blog.ap.org/2013/05/13/ap-responds-to-intrusive-doj-seizure-of-journalists-phone-records/), which is almost certainly in violation of the law. The AP only just found out about this on Friday, despite the data already being obtained, and covering more than 20 separate phone lines (including work, home and mobile phones) for multiple AP journalists -- and a period covering approximately two months in early 2012. The AP has sent a quite reasonably angry letter (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/700353-letter-to-eric-holder-tcm28-12896.html) to Attorney General Holder about this collection.


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.

That the Department undertook this unprecedented step without providing any notice to the AP, and without taking any steps to narrow the scope of its subpoenas to matters actually relevant to an ongoing investigation, is particularly troubling.

The sheer volume of records obtained, most of which can have no plausible connection to any ongoing investigation, indicates, at a minimum, that this effort did not comply with 28 C.F.R. §50.10 and should therefore never have been undertaken in the first place. The regulations require that, in all cases and without exception, a subpoena for a reporter’s telephone toll records must be “as narrowly drawn as possible.’’ This plainly did not happen



The AP also (again, quite reasonably) notes that this appears to be a "serious interference with AP's constitutional rights to gather and report the news" and demand that the government destroy all copies of the data it received.

This really is an incredibly broad move by the government. Especially when it comes to reporters, the government has generally respected the right for reporters to keep their sources private, even if this administration has been known to threaten reporters (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110702/00451614941/latest-attempt-obama-administration-to-punish-whistleblowers.shtml) if they won't reveal sources. In case you're wondering the law here is pretty clear (http://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/28/50.10) about the limitations on getting this kind of info.


There should be reasonable ground to believe that a crime has been committed and that the information sought is essential to the successful investigation of that crime. The subpoena should be as narrowly drawn as possible; it should be directed at relevant information regarding a limited subject matter and should cover a reasonably limited time period. In addition, prior to seeking the Attorney General's authorization, the government should have pursued all reasonable alternative investigation steps as required by paragraph (b) of this section.



I'm sure that Eric Holder will try to tapdance around this one as well, but the claims here are very serious. On the positive side, perhaps this will finally help the press wake up to the continued expansion of the federal government's surveillance operations and their general disdain for the constitution if it helps them go after whoever they want. The press likes to go nuts when some startup accidentally leaks some data or tracks what people are doing online, but routinely ignores how the government seems to feel entitled to any bit of private data about anyone, often without a warrant. Perhaps having the press have their records taken will wake some of them up to the fact that it impacts them as well (perhaps even more than others).

LINK: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130513/15401423065/doj-unconcerned-about-constitution-obtained-ap-reporters-phone-records.shtml

LETTER FROM AP to DOJ/AG Eric Holder: http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/700353-letter-to-eric-holder-tcm28-12896.html#document/p1

[TSA]

If this doesn't start to make liberals question their messiah I'm not sure what will. The liberal media has been his lap dog, he should tread lightly these days before they too turn on him.

[SA210]

.
AP Phone Record Probe: Obama White House Continues to Be a Disaster For Civil Liberties




http://media1.policymic.com/site/articles/41547/1_photo.jpg



A President Barack Obama once promised this his administration would be the most transparent in history, and his White House laughably continues (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/05/09/obama-administration-releases-historic-open-data-rules-enhance-governmen) to tout its commitment to government transparency. With the breaking news that his Department of Justice has secretly seized (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/13/us-usa-justice-ap-idUSBRE94C0ZW20130513) the private phone records of Associated Press reporters, the Obama administration continues to reveal itself as one of the most opaque administrations in recent history.

In the wake of the Benghazi controversy and the revelation (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/irs-apologizes-for-inappropriately-targeting-conservative-political-groups-in-2012-election/2013/05/11/ea5d5790-ba0e-11e2-b568-6917f6ac6d9d_story.html) that the IRS targeted conservative groups, and only months after Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) led a filibuster demanding more transparency in the administration's decisions to assassinate American citizens with drones, the Associated Press revealed on Monday that the Obama administration secretly seized the telephone records of Associated Press offices and reporters for a two-month period in 2012. In a letter (http://www.ap.org/Images/Letter-to-Eric-Holder_tcm28-12896.pdf) to Attorney General Eric Holder, AP CEO Gary Pruitt described the situation as a "massive and unprecedented intrusion by the Department of Justice into the newsgathering activities of The Associated Press. There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters."

The news (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/13/ap-phone-records-government-intrusion-unprecedented_n_3268569.html?igoogle=1) has drawn outrage from members of the media and has added more fuel to growing discontent with the Obama administration's complete lack of transparency. The GOP-led House of Representatives has promised (https://twitter.com/RepJudyChu/status/334063034551107585) a full investigation and the ACLU has condemned (http://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/justice-department-secretly-subpoenas-ap-phone-records) the intrusion. Left, Right, and Center vented on Twitter:




http://media2.policymic.com/6b4c4b6459fa23868d7f61843a6a9223.png
http://media2.policymic.com/1d1c226e94c10f64ee4340f8f61bf072.png
http://media2.policymic.com/0dd52a701a1ee74e7ffed871034a906c.png
http://media2.policymic.com/56209aa293cd5bdf0fcf6201e15e0173.png
http://media2.policymic.com/b8ba905c586e9e7134ec3e795d13f350.png
http://media2.policymic.com/cd7acc12aa65db5f1833249e7eae7fb7.png
http://media2.policymic.com/056ac68628fd6cef16831954247a7230.png
http://media2.policymic.com/7d5a0a02ef408af93584cb45b897980c.png



The media and the American people are right to be upset by this. The nature of this White House reeks of Nixonian arrogance with every passing controversy. From Fast and Furious to Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki, from Libya to electronic surveillance of Americans (http://www.policymic.com/articles/40993/obama-answers-an-aclu-request-for-government-transparency-with-a-blacked-out-memo), from the IRS persecuting conservatives (http://www.propublica.org/article/irs-office-that-targeted-tea-party-also-disclosed-confidential-docs) to this mess with the Associated Press, the administration of Barack Obama has consistently been one of the murkiest in recent memory. It is an administration that has claimed the power to kill American citizens without judicial review, to wage war without (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/opinion/21Ackerman.html?_r=0) congressional consent, to prosecute (http://www.salon.com/2012/04/09/journalists_casualties_in_the_war_on_whistleblower s/) whistle blowers more than any of its predecessors, and to be so combative to the press as to illegally steal the private information of journalists.

The administration of Barack Obama has been a disaster (http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/29/opinion/la-oe-turley-civil-liberties-20110929) for civil liberties, and it is high time for the president and his government to change their tune. The administration should comply with congressional investigations and take steps to ensure greater transparency to the American public into its actions and decision-making processes. Democratic and Republican should demand that the executive branch be reigned in before too many bad precedents are set for future claims to executive power. This has to stop.

LINK: http://www.policymic.com/articles/41547/ap-phone-record-probe-obama-white-house-continues-to-be-a-disaster-for-civil-liberties

[InRareForm]

Grabs popcorn

[spursncowboys]

This was something I assumed was on a page 20 troll run amok style

[ElNono]

Front page of NYTimes.com right now... Story here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/14/us/phone-records-of-journalists-of-the-associated-press-seized-by-us.html?hp

[jack sommerset]

God loves us all. God bless

[TSA]

This was something I assumed was on a page 20 troll run amok style
Even boutons has ran to the cave in hiding. Very strange.

Fuck this administration. Benghazi, the IRS, and now this. What's next and how much longer can this go on before both sides are calling for his head? (minus the free shit army of course, they still have their cell phones, healthcare, and food stamps)

[BobaFett1]

Even boutons has ran to the cave in hiding. Very strange.

Fuck this administration. Benghazi, the IRS, and now this. What's next and how much longer can this go on before both sides are calling for his head? (minus the free shit army of course, they still have their cell phones, healthcare, and food stamps)

Boutons lives in his Moms basement still.

[ChumpDumper]

Even boutons has ran to the cave in hiding. Very strange.

Fuck this administration. Benghazi, the IRS, and now this.This is the only one folks should be actually outraged about.

[Wild Cobra]

If this doesn't start to make liberals question their messiah I'm not sure what will. The liberal media has been his lap dog, he should tread lightly these days before they too turn on him.
Isn't it funny how those in charge thought leaks were a good thing when it was the bush administration being leaked about. Now they are out for blood.

I wonder if they know the definition of hypocrisy?

[Wild Cobra]

Boutons lives in his Moms basement still.
He thinks it's his moms, but it's really his grandmothers.

[TSA]

This is the only one folks should be actually outraged about.

Benghazi was handled poorly after the fact, the IRS tactic was extremely shady, and this last one is completely unacceptable.

[BobaFett1]

He thinks it's his moms, but it's really his grandmothers.

:lol


Probably been unemployed for years. Blames it on Bush.:lol

[BobaFett1]

just like they did when Bush was torturing dudes. they still do, for the most part.

Bush did what he had to do dumbass.

[TeyshaBlue]

Really? He "had to torture?"

Laughable.

[RandomGuy]

Fuck... I hate to be taking the same side as SA210, but this is bullshit.

The effective persecution of journalists and aggressive pursuing of leaks started under Cheney, and the Obama administration did NOTHING to stop the ball rolling, and is now going to reap the whirlwind.

[TeyshaBlue]

Fuck... I hate to be taking the same side as SA210, but this is bullshit.

The effective persecution of journalists and aggressive pursuing of leaks started under Cheney, and the Obama administration did NOTHING to stop the ball rolling, and is now going to reap the whirlwind.

The Obama administration not only did nothing to stop the ball rolling, they picked it up and shot a few baskets with it before sending it on it's way.

[RandomGuy]

If this doesn't start to make liberals question their messiah I'm not sure what will. The liberal media has been his lap dog, he should tread lightly these days before they too turn on him.

I know of few real liberals who think Obama is a great president. Most, including me, held our noses and voted for him because the Republican party does not let rational people through their primary process. You have to have some real whackadoo creds to get the votes in the GOP anymore.

When I got pissed at Obama in his first term, all I had to do was think... "vice-president Palin" and it all went away.

When I had to hold my nose and vote the second time, the thought "President Romney" made that stench evaporate in a similar manner.

The GOP repeatedly proves it is the part of rich white people, by rich white people, for rich white people. Sorry. You have only yourselves to blame for Obama's second term.

The sooner you take personal responsibility for that, the better off we will all be.

[RandomGuy]

The Obama administration not only did nothing to stop the ball rolling, they picked it up and shot a few baskets with it before sending it on it's way.

+1. I stand corrected.

I have been appalled by this, and should have been screaming about this as well. I must admit a bit of blame for not doing so. I try to weed out the "my guy" thoughts as much as possible, but they do slip through. I have unconsciously given him a pass on this, but it is fucking worrysome in the extreme.

[TeyshaBlue]

The thought that frustrates me most is the notion that Obama has what must be, arguably, the worst handlers in the history of the American Presidency. I'm at a loss to explain the administrative missteps that continually land at his feet. The old saw "The Buck Stops Here" applies, but seems contrived from time to time.

[Capt Bringdown]

I swear, the Obama administration could start killing Americans in the street and half the left would say "what's the big deal?"

Your intimation of "left" is erroneous. Obama does not belong to the Left.

[LnGrrrR]

Cool, I hope the media presses him on this. Between this, GTMO, prosecuting whistleblowers, etc etc, it would be nice to get some of that "sunshine" he promised way back when.

[TSA]

I know of few real liberals who think Obama is a great president. Most, including me, held our noses and voted for him because the Republican party does not let rational people through their primary process. You have to have some real whackadoo creds to get the votes in the GOP anymore.

When I got pissed at Obama in his first term, all I had to do was think... "vice-president Palin" and it all went away.

When I had to hold my nose and vote the second time, the thought "President Romney" made that stench evaporate in a similar manner.

The GOP repeatedly proves it is the part of rich white people, by rich white people, for rich white people. Sorry. You have only yourselves to blame for Obama's second term.

The sooner you take personal responsibility for that, the better off we will all be.

I didn't vote for either of these shitbags and am not a Republican, I take responsibility for nothing.

[RandomGuy]

I didn't vote for either of these shitbags and am not a Republican, I take responsibility for nothing.

Fair enough.

Let me guess.... Ron "let 'em bleed" Paul?

[TSA]

Fair enough.

Let me guess.... Ron "let 'em bleed" Paul?Haven't voted for a President since Clinton. I refuse to pick between two shitty candidates.

[boutons_deux]

Bush Used the IRS, FBI, CIA and Secret Service to Go After Opponents -- Where Was the Fox and GOP Outrage?


And here’s the even more incredible thing: the Bush cabal didn’t just use the IRS for its political hackery – it mounted a full-scale government-wide assault on its enemies, marshaling disparate agencies in its smear efforts.

Bush’s use of the IRS was but one part of that larger assault. As my Salon colleague Alex Seitz-Wald notes today in greater detail (http://www.salon.com/2013/05/14/when_the_irs_targeted_liberals/), in 2005, Bush’s IRS began what became an extensive two-year investigation (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14715290) into a Pasadena church after an orator dared to speak out against
President Bush’s Iraq War. Not coincidentally, the Los Angeles Times (http://articles.latimes.com/2007/sep/24/local/me-allsaints24) reports that the church targeted just so happened to be “one of Southern California’s largest and most liberal congregations.” That IRS church audit came a year after it launched a near-identical attack on the
NAACP (http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2004-10-29/news/0410290318_1_tax-exempt-organizations-audit-naacp) after the civil rights organization criticized various Bush administration policies.

That is not where the story ends, however. The Bush administration’s crusade against its enemies moved from the IRS into the Secret Service.

Under the Republican president, that law enforcement agency was repeatedly (http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Quarantining-dissent-How-the-Secret-Service-2816927.php) deployed (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_3619779) to physically block suspected antiwar activists from attending public presidential events. As the San Francisco Chronicle (http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Quarantining-dissent-How-the-Secret-Service-2816927.php) reported, the scheme eventually targeted some peaceful antiwar activists for arrest for the alleged crime of “holding up small handwritten protest signs outside the designated zone” of free speech (yes, the Bush White House cemented the precedent that the right to dissent is no longer a fundamental right, but is instead only allowed in certain “free speech zones” (http://www.aclu.org/free-speech/secret-service-ordered-local-police-restrict-anti-bush-protesters-rallies-aclu-charges-u)). Ultimately, in a case dealing with a man who was arrested for simply telling Vice President Dick Cheney that his “policies on Iraq are disgusting,” the Republican-dominated Supreme Court upheld the Bush administration’s use of “retaliatory arrests” (http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jun/04/news/la-pn-supreme-court-backs-secret-service-arrest-of-man-confronting-cheney-20120604) against the administration’s ideological critics.

Then, in 2010, we learned that Bush’s targeting operation was also operating inside the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Recounting findings from the Justice Department’s Inspector General, the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/20/AR2010092003100.html) reported that “the FBI improperly investigated some left-leaning U.S. advocacy groups after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks…citing cases in which agents put activists on terrorist watch lists even though they were planning nonviolent civil disobedience.”

A year later, we learned that along with the IRS, Secret Service and FBI, the Bush administration may have also been using the Central Intelligence Agency against its political enemies. As the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/us/politics/16cole.html) reported, “A former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was a top counterterrorism official during the administration of President George W. Bush, said the White House at least twice asked intelligence officials to gather sensitive information” on prominent Iraq War critic Juan Cole. That story had an eerie similarity to the Bush administration’s effort to out CIA operative Valerie Plame as retribution for her husband’s criticism of that same war.

Unlike the noisy outrage that met today’s allegations of IRS misconduct under President Obama, these earlier – and well-documented – revelations of systemic IRS, Secret Service, FBI and CIA misconduct were met with a collective shrug of the shoulders in Washington. Sure, a few newspapers wrote about them, and a few Democratic lawmakers (http://schiff.house.gov/s2005/schiff-asks-irs-for-answers-in-all-saints-episcopal-church-investigation/) tried to raise questions about the Bush administration’s actions, but compared to today’s sound and fury over the IRS allegations, there was veritable silence. Indeed, as alluded to before, so little outrage was voiced about this kind of thing during the Bush years that a Fox News’ headline this week summarizing a Karl Rove interview blared: “What if IRS Under President Bush targeted liberal groups?” (http://video.foxnews.com/v/2378580262001/what-if-irs-under-president-bush-targeted-liberal-groups/) – as if that never actually happened…even though it most certainly did.


http://www.alternet.org/bush-used-irs-fbi-cia-and-secret-service-go-after-opponents-where-was-fox-and-gop-outrage?akid=10432.187590.tnYR7V&rd=1&src=newsletter840231&t=9&paging=off

[TSA]

Bush Used the IRS, FBI, CIA and Secret Service to Go After Opponents -- Where Was the Fox and GOP Outrage?


And here’s the even more incredible thing: the Bush cabal didn’t just use the IRS for its political hackery – it mounted a full-scale government-wide assault on its enemies, marshaling disparate agencies in its smear efforts.

Bush’s use of the IRS was but one part of that larger assault. As my Salon colleague Alex Seitz-Wald notes today in greater detail (http://www.salon.com/2013/05/14/when_the_irs_targeted_liberals/), in 2005, Bush’s IRS began what became an extensive two-year investigation (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14715290) into a Pasadena church after an orator dared to speak out against
President Bush’s Iraq War. Not coincidentally, the Los Angeles Times (http://articles.latimes.com/2007/sep/24/local/me-allsaints24) reports that the church targeted just so happened to be “one of Southern California’s largest and most liberal congregations.” That IRS church audit came a year after it launched a near-identical attack on the
NAACP (http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2004-10-29/news/0410290318_1_tax-exempt-organizations-audit-naacp) after the civil rights organization criticized various Bush administration policies.

That is not where the story ends, however. The Bush administration’s crusade against its enemies moved from the IRS into the Secret Service.

Under the Republican president, that law enforcement agency was repeatedly (http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Quarantining-dissent-How-the-Secret-Service-2816927.php) deployed (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_3619779) to physically block suspected antiwar activists from attending public presidential events. As the San Francisco Chronicle (http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Quarantining-dissent-How-the-Secret-Service-2816927.php) reported, the scheme eventually targeted some peaceful antiwar activists for arrest for the alleged crime of “holding up small handwritten protest signs outside the designated zone” of free speech (yes, the Bush White House cemented the precedent that the right to dissent is no longer a fundamental right, but is instead only allowed in certain “free speech zones” (http://www.aclu.org/free-speech/secret-service-ordered-local-police-restrict-anti-bush-protesters-rallies-aclu-charges-u)). Ultimately, in a case dealing with a man who was arrested for simply telling Vice President Dick Cheney that his “policies on Iraq are disgusting,” the Republican-dominated Supreme Court upheld the Bush administration’s use of “retaliatory arrests” (http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jun/04/news/la-pn-supreme-court-backs-secret-service-arrest-of-man-confronting-cheney-20120604) against the administration’s ideological critics.

Then, in 2010, we learned that Bush’s targeting operation was also operating inside the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Recounting findings from the Justice Department’s Inspector General, the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/20/AR2010092003100.html) reported that “the FBI improperly investigated some left-leaning U.S. advocacy groups after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks…citing cases in which agents put activists on terrorist watch lists even though they were planning nonviolent civil disobedience.”

A year later, we learned that along with the IRS, Secret Service and FBI, the Bush administration may have also been using the Central Intelligence Agency against its political enemies. As the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/us/politics/16cole.html) reported, “A former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was a top counterterrorism official during the administration of President George W. Bush, said the White House at least twice asked intelligence officials to gather sensitive information” on prominent Iraq War critic Juan Cole. That story had an eerie similarity to the Bush administration’s effort to out CIA operative Valerie Plame as retribution for her husband’s criticism of that same war.

Unlike the noisy outrage that met today’s allegations of IRS misconduct under President Obama, these earlier – and well-documented – revelations of systemic IRS, Secret Service, FBI and CIA misconduct were met with a collective shrug of the shoulders in Washington. Sure, a few newspapers wrote about them, and a few Democratic lawmakers (http://schiff.house.gov/s2005/schiff-asks-irs-for-answers-in-all-saints-episcopal-church-investigation/) tried to raise questions about the Bush administration’s actions, but compared to today’s sound and fury over the IRS allegations, there was veritable silence. Indeed, as alluded to before, so little outrage was voiced about this kind of thing during the Bush years that a Fox News’ headline this week summarizing a Karl Rove interview blared: “What if IRS Under President Bush targeted liberal groups?” (http://video.foxnews.com/v/2378580262001/what-if-irs-under-president-bush-targeted-liberal-groups/) – as if that never actually happened…even though it most certainly did.


http://www.alternet.org/bush-used-irs-fbi-cia-and-secret-service-go-after-opponents-where-was-fox-and-gop-outrage?akid=10432.187590.tnYR7V&rd=1&src=newsletter840231&t=9&paging=off

You remind me of my sissy little brother growing up. "but but but mommmmmm................he did it firsssssssst. It's not faiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrrr."

My little brother was such a bitch.

[jack sommerset]

I continue to pray for my brother, boutons. His loyalty is commendable but his mind is clutter with much pain. I pray boutons will learn to forgive one day. it will be a glorious day for sure when it happens! God bless

[angrydude]

Bush Used the IRS, FBI, CIA and Secret Service to Go After Opponents -- Where Was the Fox and GOP Outrage?


And here’s the even more incredible thing: the Bush cabal didn’t just use the IRS for its political hackery – it mounted a full-scale government-wide assault on its enemies, marshaling disparate agencies in its smear efforts.

Bush’s use of the IRS was but one part of that larger assault. As my Salon colleague Alex Seitz-Wald notes today in greater detail (http://www.salon.com/2013/05/14/when_the_irs_targeted_liberals/), in 2005, Bush’s IRS began what became an extensive two-year investigation (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14715290) into a Pasadena church after an orator dared to speak out against
President Bush’s Iraq War. Not coincidentally, the Los Angeles Times (http://articles.latimes.com/2007/sep/24/local/me-allsaints24) reports that the church targeted just so happened to be “one of Southern California’s largest and most liberal congregations.” That IRS church audit came a year after it launched a near-identical attack on the
NAACP (http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2004-10-29/news/0410290318_1_tax-exempt-organizations-audit-naacp) after the civil rights organization criticized various Bush administration policies.

That is not where the story ends, however. The Bush administration’s crusade against its enemies moved from the IRS into the Secret Service.

Under the Republican president, that law enforcement agency was repeatedly (http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Quarantining-dissent-How-the-Secret-Service-2816927.php) deployed (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_3619779) to physically block suspected antiwar activists from attending public presidential events. As the San Francisco Chronicle (http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Quarantining-dissent-How-the-Secret-Service-2816927.php) reported, the scheme eventually targeted some peaceful antiwar activists for arrest for the alleged crime of “holding up small handwritten protest signs outside the designated zone” of free speech (yes, the Bush White House cemented the precedent that the right to dissent is no longer a fundamental right, but is instead only allowed in certain “free speech zones” (http://www.aclu.org/free-speech/secret-service-ordered-local-police-restrict-anti-bush-protesters-rallies-aclu-charges-u)). Ultimately, in a case dealing with a man who was arrested for simply telling Vice President Dick Cheney that his “policies on Iraq are disgusting,” the Republican-dominated Supreme Court upheld the Bush administration’s use of “retaliatory arrests” (http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jun/04/news/la-pn-supreme-court-backs-secret-service-arrest-of-man-confronting-cheney-20120604) against the administration’s ideological critics.

Then, in 2010, we learned that Bush’s targeting operation was also operating inside the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Recounting findings from the Justice Department’s Inspector General, the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/20/AR2010092003100.html) reported that “the FBI improperly investigated some left-leaning U.S. advocacy groups after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks…citing cases in which agents put activists on terrorist watch lists even though they were planning nonviolent civil disobedience.”

A year later, we learned that along with the IRS, Secret Service and FBI, the Bush administration may have also been using the Central Intelligence Agency against its political enemies. As the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/us/politics/16cole.html) reported, “A former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was a top counterterrorism official during the administration of President George W. Bush, said the White House at least twice asked intelligence officials to gather sensitive information” on prominent Iraq War critic Juan Cole. That story had an eerie similarity to the Bush administration’s effort to out CIA operative Valerie Plame as retribution for her husband’s criticism of that same war.

Unlike the noisy outrage that met today’s allegations of IRS misconduct under President Obama, these earlier – and well-documented – revelations of systemic IRS, Secret Service, FBI and CIA misconduct were met with a collective shrug of the shoulders in Washington. Sure, a few newspapers wrote about them, and a few Democratic lawmakers (http://schiff.house.gov/s2005/schiff-asks-irs-for-answers-in-all-saints-episcopal-church-investigation/) tried to raise questions about the Bush administration’s actions, but compared to today’s sound and fury over the IRS allegations, there was veritable silence. Indeed, as alluded to before, so little outrage was voiced about this kind of thing during the Bush years that a Fox News’ headline this week summarizing a Karl Rove interview blared: “What if IRS Under President Bush targeted liberal groups?” (http://video.foxnews.com/v/2378580262001/what-if-irs-under-president-bush-targeted-liberal-groups/) – as if that never actually happened…even though it most certainly did.


http://www.alternet.org/bush-used-irs-fbi-cia-and-secret-service-go-after-opponents-where-was-fox-and-gop-outrage?akid=10432.187590.tnYR7V&rd=1&src=newsletter840231&t=9&paging=off

Hey dumbshit, this thread is about the DOJ illegally spying on the AP and the chilling effect this will have on the first amendment. You know, that little thing which is basically the only freedom americans had left.

[boutons_deux]

Bush Used the IRS, FBI, CIA and Secret Service to Go After Opponents -- Where Was the Fox and GOP Outrage?

:lol

[SA210]

Bush Used the IRS, FBI, CIA and Secret Service to Go After Opponents -- Where Was the Fox and GOP Outrage?

:lol



Sorry Boutons, gotta comment on this spin. Sadly you gotta take the blue blinders off. Obama is the President right now.

Obama did a great job protecting Bush from investigations, criminal charges, etc. (Look forward, not backward). And now the Hope/Change/Transparency Nobel Peace Prize war criminal President continues Bush's work at an accelerated rate. Bush must be proud serving his fourth term.

This man needs to be impeached asap, same as his predecessor should have been.

[TeyshaBlue]

Bush Used the IRS, FBI, CIA and Secret Service to Go After Opponents -- Where Was the Fox and GOP Outrage?

:lol


lol 3rd grade.

[baseline bum]

Obama is Bush with a (D) in front of his name.

I'll continue with 'Things we have known since 2009' for $400, Alex.

[Winehole23]

it took awhile for Republicans to figure out the continuity with Bush.

they wouldn't hear it in 2009, now they bash Obama with it, since they couldn't bash Bush.

[boutons_deux]

"Obama did a great job protecting Bush from investigations"

no Presidents prosecute their predecessors

My point is that Repugs/Fox were not outraged by dubya doing the same as Barry

[boutons_deux]

http://readersupportednews.org/images/stories/article_imgs9/9676-rios-montt-ronald-reagan-051413.jpg


Indicting Reagan, Israel, and the God Squads in the Guatemalan Holocaust

http://readersupportednews.org/images/stories/alphabet/rsn-T.jpghree Guatemalan judges last week convicted General Efraín Ríos Montt, the former military dictator, of genocide and crimes against humanity for leading the "scorched earth" Plan Victoria that killed 1,771 Mayan Ixils during his 17-month rule in 1982-1983. Never before has a national judicial process found a former head of state guilty of genocide, hopefully diminishing the existing impunity of war criminals from the Congo to Crawford, Texas.

More now needs to follow, if only in the court of world opinion. Beside many still unpunished Guatemalans, Rios Montt's conviction leaves untouched a host of never indicted foreign co-conspirators, from former U.S. president Ronald Reagan to Evangelical and Pentecostal missionaries and shadowy Israelis with unspoken connections to their government.

They all played a part in making possible the killing, rape, torture and disappearances of the Ixil people and - according to the United Nations Historical Clarification Commission (http://www.refworld.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/rwmain?page=country&category=&publisher=AMNESTY&type=COUNTRYREP&coi=GTM&rid=&docid=49a651682&skip=0) - as many as 200,000 others, mostly Mayans and poor mestizos. Another 50,000 were disappeared and more than 1 million were displaced as the army razed their villages.

Legal appeals and injunctions from another court could still let the 86-year-old Rios Montt walk free from his 80-year sentence. The possibility is real, especially since the current Guatemalan president, Otto Perez Molino, a former military commander, continues to insist that there was no genocide (http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/10/world/americas/guatemala-genocide-trial/index.html), only a bloody civil war against leftist insurgents from 1962 to 1996.

Official documents (http://www.picosearch.com/cgi-bin/ts.pl?index=302953;query=Guatemala;SEARCH=Search;o pt=ALL) and the blood-chilling testimony of survivors (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/15/world/americas/in-rios-montt-trial-guatemalans-give-account-of-suffering.html?ref=guatemala&_r=0) tell a more truthful story. In brief, successive Guatemalan governments have systematically used genocide to fight the civil war and continue violence against the indigenous Mayans reaching back 500 years to the time of the European Conquest.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/17431-indicting-reagan-israel-and-the-god-squads-in-the-guatemalan-holocaust

But Ronnie is a Repug saint, which speaks volumes about what bastards the Repugs are.

[boutons_deux]

Jeff Toobin points out that 501(4)c groups with patriot and/or tea party in their names, created in the aftermath of the disastrous Citizens-United ruling, are VERY LIKELY to be mainly and/or overtly political rather than "social welfare". iow, a perfectly legit filter.

[TeyshaBlue]

We're in the AP/DOJ thread, retard.

[BobaFett1]

Bush Used the IRS, FBI, CIA and Secret Service to Go After Opponents -- Where Was the Fox and GOP Outrage?

:lol




:lol where your proof? :lol you have none

[Winehole23]

Which is why the Justice Department went after the AP's phone records. A list of numbers dialed by editors and journalists is in theory a good place to start looking (http://www.volokh.com/2013/05/13/the-non-story-of-the-ap-phone-records-at-least-so-far/). Under current wiretap law, dialed numbers are not afforded the same protection as calls, and can be obtained without a warrant.


Here's the problem. When the Supreme Court set the legal precedent back in 1979, phone records contained much less information. Nowadays, a phone record's metadata includes (http://books.google.com/books?id=W79R0niNU5wC&lpg=PA413&dq=%22Call%20detail%20record%22&pg=PA413#v=onepage&q=%22Call%20detail%20record%22&f=false) not just the phone number, but the time the call took place, the call origin, the call duration, and the carrier.


The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to the protection of digital rights, said in a statement released yesterday (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/05/doj-subpoena-ap-journalists-shows-need-protect-calling-records) that it "no longer makes sense to treat calling records and other metadata related to our communications as if they aren't fully protected by the Constitution."


Electronic communications have improved drastically since the legal precedent was set, and the amount of revealing data now transferred with a phone call is far greater than just a telephone number. But the law has yet to catch up with technology—which means the Justice Department has access to a lot more than just the numbers dialed by the AP's journalists.

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-05/what-information-can-department-justice-get-phone-records