DOJ gets reporter's phone, credit card records in leak probe

MSNBC.com

WASHINGTON — A court filing in the case of a former CIA officer accused of spilling secrets about Iran’s nuclear program provides new details about the extraordinary measures Justice Department prosecutors are using to identify government leakers.

The former CIA officer, Jeffrey Sterling, was indicted in December on charges that he disclosed “national defense information” to New York Times reporter James Risen.

In a court filing this week, Sterling’s lawyers revealed that, as part of the investigation, prosecutors obtained Risen’s telephone, credit and bank records. They also obtained credit reports on Risen conducted by three credit agencies — Equifax, TransUnion and Experian — as well as records of his airline travel, the filing states.

Those records, as well as other material, have been turned over to Sterling’s lawyers as part of pre-trial discovery in the case, the lawyers said.

“I find this very disturbing,” said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. “This tells us the Obama administration will do almost anything to figure out who is leaking government information.”

Fundamental change, eh Obama? How is this administration any different than the last? News flash: it isn't. Left and right don't matter when they're all killing our liberties.

/TOA

Deep down inside the DOJ knows they suck

Maybe, if they don't want info leaked they can fire every CIA operative that they have and they can do the job themselves. That's an option right?

Yes, there is no more freedom of the press and right to privacy of sources.

If they want to know, the Patriot Act allows them to dig into every aspect of your life to find out.

The worrisome part of this is, it will prevent people with newsworthy information from going to the press out of fear of retaliation.

Why else would they do it, if not to retaliate against the informer?

They have found ways to circumvent *everything*, and you are right, we are losing almost all of our liberties.

Know you want something that no congress will pass?

Write an executive order, hide it in a monstrous bill, or hire a czar.

Then decide you will no longer defend certain laws as it suits you, because you find them unconstitutional.

Continue to shove a bill down our throats that has been declared unconstituional.

Demand the leaders of other countries step down immediately.

It won't be long now, since we have tired of the king, that the rest of the world will too.

Some diplomacy. Some Nobel Peace Prize.

reply to post by Libertygal


Freedom and liberty are nothing more than the tools that government uses as taxes against our souls.

/TOA