Govt obtains wide AP phone records in probe

Originally posted by Kali74
reply to post by Alxandro

 

The Left has done far more to call attention to the BS of the Obama administration. Drooling over birth certificates, Fast and Furious and Benghazi has gotten you no where because to quote the Prez, "There's no there, there". There's plenty else, all it requires is focus and critical thinking.

edit on 14-5-2013 by Kali74 because: (no reason given)

BS, the left and right work together.

Birth Certificate? Who cares, should have checked into that before he ran, not after. Either way you believe it's a non-issue at this point.

Fast and Furious? Both the Bush admin and the Obama admin should be brought up on charges for this.

Benghazi? This is an issue, but not because of talking points or Hilary. Only DoD and WH can give orders to SOCOM. Who gave Lt. Col. Gibson and his SF tact team on stand by BEFORE Ambassador Stevens meeting with Turkey (and less than 2 hours away) the stand down order? This is huge issue to a lot of military folks, especially the SO and Combat community. We know the risks but we expect to be saved if assets are available and some of us are willing to give up our lives to save others. Period end of story.

Originally posted by Miracula

Curious your CGI character looks like a guy I suspect lost it because of the pink teddy bear. And you post right next to me. It gives me the suspicion that this is an act of Higher Power chastisement using the gov't forces to warn AP members who are doing the pink teddy bear thing.

Pink teddy bears? Chastisement from Higher Powers?

Isn't it a bit early on in the day on the east coast to start drinking?

From everything I have read, doesn't seem like anything illegal is going on here.

They got subpeonas to get these phone records, they only got phone records of the numbers of ingoing/outgoing calls, not the actual conversation. And there was no phone tapping, they got these records from the phone company. And they did all this for a specific investigation looking for an information leak within the CIA...which is a national security issue.

I just don't see the illegal activity that everyone is talking about.

reply to post by Miracula


Please go away with your TV mindset. Your part of the problem not the solution.

reply to post by flobot


Well, the "Red Files" and Police Intelligence units of the 1960's and 1970's, whose sole purpose was to infiltrate and track U.S. protest and dissident groups weren't "technically" illegal in many cases either. Much of what the CIA did, in that same time period, wasn't "technically" illegal, now that it comes up. Should all that have just been ignored and allowed to build until it reached levels that did break outright laws?

...Or perhaps it's proper to investigate where we see plenty of smoke billowing out and indicating real problems in the house. Perhaps, people who may have broken laws, don't want that found ....and it will require investigating to discover what has and has not been done in that way?

I don't know how we determine what hasn't happened when the only thing I see NOT happening is effort to investigate? Even Fast and Furious was short circuited and shut down by Executive order of privilege extended across Holder and the Justice Department, before answers could be reached. Maybe nothing did happen ...but we'll likely not know, because getting there wasn't permitted by those actually accused of the wrong doing.

reply to post by flobot


He tapped them, including their private phones. Maybe you should stop and read more.

There is a reason this even being picked up by even the Pet Peacock...

MSNBC talks AP taps

Originally posted by benrl
For someone who claimed to brin transpercy to government, Obama is setting new levels of intimidation and secrecy to the office.

Interesting take on this. After reading the full article...apparently this is the FBI who obtained the records from the phone companies. So first order of business is to confirm they had a legitimate warrant. Also interesting, this was the FBI conducting an investigation on leaked details of how a terror plot was foiled. The FBI is going after the CIA to find the leak.

In testimony in February, CIA Director John Brennan noted that the FBI had questioned him about whether he was AP's source, which he denied. He called the release of the information to the media about the terror plot an "unauthorized and dangerous disclosure of classified information."

So when the GOP went alll haywire over intelligence leaks that might have made the President look good in an election year (foiled terrorist plot)...the President actually took the GOPs complaints seriously and directed the FBI to find the leak at the CIA....despite the bragging by CIA actually working to his advantage.

Thus the FBI presumably getting a warrant for the phone records and pulling them from the phone companies.

Lot's of questions that no doubt will be answered as the AP files the legal claim...The FBI will have to show a warrant demonstrating probable cause and precisely what they were going after etc. But the phone companies wouldn't have given up the records without a warrant? I'd have to google that up to be sure.

At the end of the day...the adminstration appears to have directed the FBI to find the leak in the CIA who was leaking stories that actually made the administration look good....Just like the GOP demanded.

I have a hard time seeing this in a partisan way. A legal, 1st amendment concern? sure...but it "appears" the FBI did it on the up and up via warrants with phone providers and if not...they are going to get hammered for it in the courts.

Originally posted by thesungod
reply to post by flobot

 

He tapped them, including their private phones. Maybe you should stop and read more.

There is a reason this even being picked up by even the Pet Peacock...

MSNBC talks AP taps

A phone tap is when they listen in...

The FBI gathered phone logs...What numbers, when and how long.

Both the OP article and the one you linked to say the same?

Originally posted by thesungod
reply to post by flobot

 

He tapped them, including their private phones. Maybe you should stop and read more.

There is a reason this even being picked up by even the Pet Peacock...

MSNBC talks AP taps

I don't believe any phones were "tapped". The Justice Department recieved "phone logs" from the phone company. The article you linked even says so.

the Justice Department didn't eavesdrop on journalists' phone calls, but rather, obtained logs showing incoming and outgoing calls, as well as the duration of those phone calls.

The scope of the seized phone records is quite large, and includes not only AP phone lines but home and cell phone lines for reporters and editors (and probably people not affiliated with AP):

The AP’s president said Monday that federal authorities obtained cellular, office and home telephone records of individual reporters and an editor; AP general office numbers in Washington, New York and Hartford, Conn.; and the main number for AP reporters covering Congress. He called the Justice Department’s actions a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into newsgathering activities.

SOURCE: The Washington Post

From a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., from the AP CEO, Gary B. Pruitt:

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.

We regard this action by the Department of Justice as a serious interference with AP's constitutional rights to gather and report the news.

SOURCE: Wired.com's PDF of the letter from the AP CEO

Someone asked whether Holder would have had to approve this. According to The Washington Post:

Justice Department guidelines require that subpoenas of records from news organizations must be approved personally by the attorney general. Holder’s office did not reply to repeated requests for comment.

SOURCE: The Washington Post

Quite an interesting story, especially right on the heels of stories about the IRS, Benghazi, etc.

Just for context...again...this is the FBI investigating a leak at the CIA to journalists...Demanded by the GOP...

McCain slams White House for alleged security leaks
www.cbsnews.com...

More specifically they pulled the records concerning THIS leak...The FBI is hunting for the person at the CIA that leaked this exact story..

BOMBSHELL: Al-Qaeda Infiltrator was Working for Brits not CIA, Cover Blown for Election Year Politics
pjmedia.com...

Where the Right-Wing alledged that the "leak that very well may have come out of the White House for political gain."

So the administration directed the FBI to find the leak at the CIA...

Which in theorey should make the Right Wing happy, but in practice is more fuel for the Obama-haters...

par for the course.

Originally posted by thesungod
There is a reason this even being picked up by even the Pet Peacock...

'Pet Peacock" .... oh man ... that is so true!

If MSNBC is now openly talking about how bad it is then you know it's gotta'
be really bad. There is no way they'd expose Obama's lies and misdeeds unless
they had no choice. Wonder if Chris Matthews is missing that 'thrill up his leg'.

reply to post by flobot


reply to post by Indigo5


Wiretapping is what your referring too. Logging is a TYPE of tap. You can tap everything from people to trees, it's an Intel term. As in "to tap an asset".

Telephone tapping

Semantics. Focus people.

Click here for more information.


This transcends Republican or Democrat. They are using the FBI and the IRS to go after anyone that is "against" aka doesn't agree with them. And you think this is okay?

Would you be okay with Republicans doing this to you? I doubt it.

Originally posted by FlyersFan
TV news said that Obama's response to this was ... "this goes against the traditions of this country'.

Talk about downplaying .. trying to make it look like they just stepped on a few 'traditions'
instead of what it really is .. breaking the law and using Chicago political style tactics.

'traditions'.

Good point and remember Obamas comments to the graduating class of The Ohio State University on May 5, 2013.
What was his words of wisdom again,,,,,,, Now I remember something like Ignore the comments of people or organization that try and show you the acts of Tyranny in the Government,,, or something to that effect!
OH!! I found it,,, Obama To Grads: Reject Voices That Warn About Government Tyranny

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Unfortunately, you've grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that's at the root of all our problems. Some of these same voices also do their best to gum up the works.They'll warn that tyranny always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave, and creative, and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can't be trusted.

www.realclearpolitics.com...

In-other words,,, close your ears and mind and only listen to me, you're Sheeple, now act that way!

It's got to be a big coverup. You know what those AP employees do on the side? They moonlight as counter-terrorism and national security-type agents.

Global intelligence already knows this, which is why you sometimes hear in the news of the press being persecuted, probably not for their job work but for their under cover uses of their cameras and whatnot. They're in intelligence communities.

So when the DOJ, which is FBI and the like, go into the AP, well first of all that is strange because isn't the NSA monitoring all that in the first place? So, wouldn't the government just need to go to NSA and be the client and receive reports from that place? The government gets updates every day from NSA, all of which is more up to the minute than what those on-foot intelligence press people get from the public on the ground.

Maybe I visualize it wrong. From the story I'm thinking that AP is being ransacked by the DOJ. No maybe it's simple. It's just an operation to seize records and slap a label on it for censorship purposes.

Well now I have to know, what is the DOJ looking for?

edit: a second theory is corruption at the AP but it still wouldn't make much sense for the probe to be now and not months before.

Originally posted by thesungod

They are going after people, anyone who is "against" aka doesn't agree with them. Using the IRS, the FBI and whatever other alphabet agency you want.

You are speaking in bumper stickers. By "they" as it pertains to this OP you mean the FBI...by who they are 'going after" you mean the CIA leak. They supeoned the phone logs from the telephone companies, not the press, and presumably with a warrant. which means they have no legal case to supeona the press and apparently have no case to pursue with them.

I am all for debating the legality and credence of what occured and I have no doubt the AP will pursue it in court, but blurring the facts to fit your world-view doesn't help anyone.

FBI investigating the CIA...and they supeoned the records from the phone companies...not the AP...so they aren't challenging the press's rights to report the leak...they are challenging the CIA Leakers right to leak it.

This leak outed British agents and put lives at risk, so legality aside, I get why the administration directed the FBI to find the leak at the CIA. ....Just as the Right Wing demanded they do BTW...Since the FBI didn't serve the AP with a warrant, it's apparent that they have no beef with the 1st amendment. The FBI pulled the logs from the Telephone Service providers...and I am near certain they did so with a warrant since they will want to prosecute if they find the leaker.

Originally posted by Sandalphon

So when the DOJ, which is FBI and the like, go into the AP, well first of all that is strange because isn't the NSA monitoring all that in the first place? So, wouldn't the government just need to go to NSA and be the client and receive reports from that place? The government gets updates every day from NSA, all of which is more up to the minute than what those on-foot intelligence press people get from the public on the ground.

So first of all, it's an assumption that the NSA is monitoring press communications. Not to say they wouldn't...but it's an over-reach to assume they monitor everything and do so without oversight.

Even if by some small chance the NSA had illegal recordings of the AP regarding this specific leak...they would be unlikely to share with the FBI. That puts the NSA at risk of prosecution, ditto the FBI if they didn't OUT the NSA for the illegal activity etc. etc. And even if the NSA could covertly give the FBI the outright illegal recordings and the FBI was willing to over-look the legality of the issue and risk thier own scandal...they would never be able to use the recordings to prosecute the CIA leaker.

In short it is a mistake to assume all of the alphabet agencies are the same, share info., have the same agenda and concerns etc.....that is not the case. As this very OP proves...the FBI ivestigating the CIA.

reply to post by Indigo5


They tapped the phone companies records of multiple AP reporters, not CIA operatives. Cell phones, home phones, office phones AND their emails (not necessarily a phone company record, but could be.) If they were investigating the CIA they'd have tapped the phone companies records of CIA agents involved in the operation in question. I mean it's called a prepaid cell phone that is nigh impossible to trace if done properly.

You know what leakers are called when you agree with them? Whistleblowers protected by Whistleblower Protection Act.

Originally posted by nenothtu

Originally posted by Miracula

Curious your CGI character looks like a guy I suspect lost it because of the pink teddy bear. And you post right next to me. It gives me the suspicion that this is an act of Higher Power chastisement using the gov't forces to warn AP members who are doing the pink teddy bear thing.

Pink teddy bears? Chastisement from Higher Powers?

Isn't it a bit early on in the day on the east coast to start drinking?

Yes the pink teddy bear.



I suspect that Josh Powells felony internet behaviors were depriving him of spiritual protection.

And that felony internet behaviors is what has been the source of a lot of gun violence since the development of the internet.

I had an avatar of North Korea's new leader made by the group Anonymous and below it, it said "NUKE, NUKE, Mickey Lover". And then NK's president threatened to launch nukes against Tokyo. When my avatar got removed and I replaced it with a peace symbol the situation calmed down.

I suspect that his behavior might have been an act of divine inspiration warning people of Josh Powell like internet conduct.

And since your CGI guy looks like the guy who shot some people in Herkimer I suspect that the gov'ts actions against the AP could be an act of Divine Inspiration not unlike NK's presidents behavior.