"Obtaining a broad range of telephone records in order to ferret out a government leaker is an

[midnight]

unacceptable abuse of power"


NEW YORK – The Department of Justice secretly obtained two months' worth of phone records of Associated Press reporters and editors, according to an AP story.

The following statement can be attributed to Laura W. Murphy, director of the American Civil Liberties Union Washington Legislative Office:

"The media's purpose is to keep the public informed and it should be free to do so without the threat of unwarranted surveillance. The Attorney General must explain the Justice Department's actions to the public so that we can make sure this kind of press intimidation does not happen again."

The following statement can be attributed to Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project:


http://ggsidedocs.blogspot.com.br/2013/05/aclu-on-dojap-phone-story.html

[alc]

1. it's not intimidation if they can explain it

"The Attorney General must explain the Justice Department's actions to the public so that we can make sure this kind of press intimidation does not happen again."

They need to come out quick with a good explanation. Like "we have facts that we can't currently release but indictments are coming very soon and you'll see that we had good cause". And those indictments better come VERY soon so this doesn't look like a fishing expedition that led to some other info that led to someone who helped create a case. This needs to be what sealed the case or it will definitely look like a statement to potential informants that it's not safe to talk to the press.

Or, "here are the facts we had. we were wrong (the facts were wrong. the facts weren't sufficient. whatever). we screwed up. Mr X has been fired. Holder will be on TV tonight apologizing for his lack of oversight of the department and giving a lesson on the importance of the press and how the government should avoid this kind of thing even when they have facts that would be sufficient for other wire taps".

Or better yet, Holder should resign for lack of oversight and Obama should give the apology and lesson (assuming there's not a good explanation and there's any appearance of intimidation)

[madokie]

4. Whether its quick or not it needs to be Factual

Quickness for the expediency of it is not necessarily always good. In fact many times its bad. Get them ducks in a row first.

[Yo_Mama]

7. Very good point!!!!

We don't want people scapegoated for political purposes.

We also don't want the press impeded. An inquiry should be done thoughtfully and fairly, and then the underlying facts can be used in the debate. The press associations are asking for a shield law, and I think this incident indicates that one is needed.

[alc]

9. my point about quick

is that snooping on the media needs to be the last duck you need in a row. if it's the first duck with hope that it will lead to other ducks then they are interfering with the media. If they "know" it will lead to other ducks, they need to leave the media out of it and go after those other ducks.

this cannot be in any way interpreted by potential whistle blowers as a tactic that may be used to stop them. Even if the lines are tapped for other cases and not his/hers a whistle blower now needs to worry that a phone call to a journalist may be overheard by those he doesn't want to hear it.

[madokie]

10. OK, I agree

I understood, I was just adding to what you said.
Has it been established that content is what they were after here? last I read that isn't the case.
I think they know what the content is they're trying to figure who is responsible.

[BlueToTheBone]

6. He was forced to recuse...so now he has to resign because the pukes

didn't let him do his job? The pukes created a law to let this happen and now are furious that it worked. Time to fix the problematic law.

[midnight]

3. I don't see them mention 20 phone numbers as broad range either. Can you link your source..

[randome]

5. I believe it was 20 phone lines, including cellphones.

Since AP probably has hundreds of phone lines and the subpoena was for a specific time frame as you said, then this seems about as restrained as they could make it.

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[font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font]
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[midnight]

8. Twenty seems like a narrowed number if you think about the broad range term the ACLU is defining

this as... Do you have a link to a story that might shed some extra light on this restrained approach?