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May 15, 2006

Government Tracking Reporters' Phone Records Politics

The administration would never use phone records for political purposes, right? ABC (via Atrios):

A senior federal law enforcement official tells us the government is tracking the phone numbers we 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.

We do not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.

Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation. [...]

Under Bush Administration guidelines, it is not considered illegal for the government to keep track of numbers dialed by phone customers. [...]

A pattern of phone calls from a reporter...could provide valuable clues for leak investigators. [Emphasis added]

People who think they can trust the government to use phone records solely for combatting terrorism are fools.

Posted by Jonathan at May 15, 2006 10:35 AM  del.icio.us digg NewsVine Reddit YahooMyWeb

Comments

This about sums up our Big Brother:

"Under Bush Administration guidelines, it is not considered illegal..."

Posted by: Jeff at May 15, 2006 03:41 PM

Let me put that another way.

This is out of context, or is it?

"Under Bush Administration guidelines, it is not considered illegal..."

Posted by: Jeff at May 16, 2006 01:50 PM