The Blue State

Feds monitoring telephone calls of two ABC News reporters

The feds are tapping the phones of people working for ABC News, The New York Times and the Washington Post, a government source told Brian Ross and Richard Esposito of ABC News blog:

A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News thegovernment is tracking the phone numbers we (Brian Ross and RichardEsposito) 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 arecalling, or whether our phone records were provided to the governmentas part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phonecalls.

Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts byreporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and theWashington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leakinvestigation.

One former official was asked to sign a document stating he was nota confidential source for New York Times reporter James Risen.

Our reports on the CIA's secret prisons in Romania and Poland wereknown to have upset CIA officials. The CIA asked for an FBIinvestigation of leaks of classified information following thosereports.

Well there you go!  This looks like a typical example of payback.  The ABC News reporters reported stories unfavorable to the government, and as a result their phones are being tapped.  So much for the Executive defending the American ideal of free media.

This is precisely why many Americans, even moderate progressives such as myself, get queasy every time we hear about this warrantless domestic wiretap program.  The fear is that the NSA will use the same "terrorism" excuse to monitor groups, such as the media, that have nothing to do with terrorism at all.  And they don't believe in obtaining a warrant from a court either.  This "trust us" policy that the Administration is trying to invoke does not fly anymore.  Do people not recall Watergate?

Roberto Lovato of AlterNet went even further in his Monday article, discussing which groups will be targeted.

Qwest chose to follow 1996 privacy law, not NSA

Of all the telephone companies that were asked by the NSA to hand over phone information of its customers, QWest was the only one that refused, according to the USA Today:

In a written statement, the attorney for formerQwest CEO Joseph Nacchio said the government approached the company inthe fall of 2001 seeking access to the phone records of Qwestcustomers, with neither a warrant nor approval from a special courtestablished to handle surveillance matters.

"Mr. Nacchio concluded that these requestsviolated the privacy requirements of the Telecommunications Act,"attorney Herbert Stern said from his Newark, N.J., office.

Qwest, in its statement, referred to the Telecommunications Act passed by Congress in 1996, which says quite clearly:

"Every telecommunications carrier has a duty to protect theconfidentiality of proprietary information of, and relating to, othertelecommunication carriers, equipment manufacturers, and customers,including telecommunication carriers reselling telecommunicationsservices provided by a telecommunications carrier."

A lot of the time, progressive bloggers like myself get into the bad habit of only pointing out lawlessness on the part of big business without complimenting businesses that show some ethical backbone.  In this case, Qwest did put law and ethics ahead of caving into pressure coming from the far-right of the political spectrum.

How can the warrantless wiretap program be legal if it violates a 1978 law?

Late Friday, the news watchdog site Media Matters did a nice job of pointing out the falsehood that is being spun by the mainstream media about the warrantless wiretap program.  The myth is that all the NSA can get their hands on is your phone number, and nothing else, therefore it is legal.  Media Matters debunks that claim:

But theoriginal May 11 USA Today articleon the program made clear that phone customers' names, addresses, and"other personal information" can "easily" be obtained bycross-referencing their phone numbers with other databases..

And although this might not violate the 4th Amendment, according to a 1979 Supreme Court ruling that allows numbers to be collected by phone companies, it sure does violate a law passed by Congress, says the USA Today:

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, adopted in 1978, requiresthe government to go before a special court and obtain a warrant forelectronic surveillance related to international espionage andterrorism. The statute defines the covered communication to include anyinformation about the identity of the parties.

Just about every time we hear the President speak, he reminds us that this wiretap program is terrorism-related.  If so, then this action by the NSA should therefore be re-worked to follow that 1978 law that says the government must obtain a search warrant before a terrorist or espionage-related search.