Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark Decries Government's "Big Brother" Seizure of AP Phone Records

[limpyhobbler]

Published on May 14, 2013
http://www.democracynow.org - The Associated Press says the U.S. Department of Justice has secretly obtained a trove of journalists' phone records in what its chief executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion." The Obama administration seized records for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, for general AP office numbers in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Hartford, Connecticut, and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery. More than 100 reporters work in the offices. The records were from April and May of 2012. Among those whose records were obtained were Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, three other reporters and an editor, all of whom worked on a May 7, 2012, story that revealed details about a CIA operation in Yemen which stopped an alleged terror plot. AP had delayed publication of the story at the government's request. "It seems to be terrible intrusion on the freedom of the press," says Ramsey Clark, the U.S. attorney general from 1967 to 1969. "I don't see how the press can operate effectively if the public and the people who talk to the press have to assume that big brother is listening in and sees the conversations they engage in."

[villager]

1. many on this site seem quite enchanted and beguiled by it

n/t

[Dustlawyer]

2. This man should show Holder how to do his job.

[dotymed]

3. This seizure

is just another step in the process of fascism in America that has been ramped up since Reagan was in office.

Anyone that cares to notice and think about American politics will come to the same conclusion. We have absolutely no control over our government.

Laughingly, our "fourth estate" the MSM is now grumbling (not much, they have been accomplices for too long) because some AP records were stolen by "our" govt. which has maybe made them realize "in for a penny, in for a pound." In other words, they are realizing that they are just as fucked as all of the rest of us. So much for long term thinking.....
Since Americans have shown themselves to be cowards and complicit in our own demise...whatcha gonna do?

OBEY THE OLIGARCHS.