A Free Press

Perhaps it was inevitable but the United States government has now acknowledged that it is monitoring  the phone records of several major news organizations.  On Monday, ABC News reported that the government is doing this in order to discover who are the confidential sources leaking sensitive material to the press. Among the news outlets targeted are the New York Times, the Washington Post, and ABC News itself. Government leaks have led to front-page stories detailing the NSA domestic spying program, the CIA’s network of secret prisons in Eastern Europe, and the mass compiling of private phone records.

Brian Ross, an investigative reporter with ABC News, has been warned by contacts within the CIA and FBI that he and other reporters are being targeted:

AMY GOODMAN: So, the F.B.I. is admitting this. And what are they saying further? Are they going to continue to do this?

BRIAN ROSS: That's part of a criminal investigation into who provided information to reporters, who leaked classified information, which would certainly include evidence of secret prisons or N.S.A. spying, and that's considered classified. The fact that that was leaked represents a criminal act in the view of the C.I.A., which has made referrals to the Department of Justice, and then they handed over to the F.B.I. So, essentially, they have squads of F.B.I. agents, and what they do is, according to the F.B.I. statement, they begin by getting the phone records that are easily available to them off of the government phones themselves, and then they say in this statement, which is a long sort of non-denial denial, that they take the next logical step, which is to get a reporter’s phone records.

And they do this, they say, legally. What that means is they use a provision in the PATRIOT Act -- which is designed to go after terrorists, but they're using it to go after reporters -- what they call a national security letter. Essentially, it’s a letter an F.B.I. agent writes, takes it to a phone company -- or anywhere, really -- but takes it to a phone company, and the phone company is then required under the provisions of the PATRIOT Act to turn over the information, and also a phone company is required not divulge to the customer, me or anybody else, that the records have been sought by the government.

AMY GOODMAN: And these national security letters, or NSLs, are not signed by a judge?

BRIAN ROSS: They are not signed by a judge.

According to the Washington Post, the FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year. "The letters -- one of which can be used to sweep up the records of many people -- are extending the bureau's reach as never before into the telephone calls, correspondence and financial lives of ordinary Americans." 

Senior FBI officials acknowledged in interviews that the proliferation of national security letters results primarily from the bureau's new authority to collect intimate facts about people who are not suspected of any wrongdoing. Criticized for failure to detect the Sept. 11 plot, the bureau now casts a much wider net, using national security letters to generate leads as well as to pursue them. Casual or unwitting contact with a suspect -- a single telephone call, for example -- may attract the attention of investigators and subject a person to scrutiny about which he never learns.

A national security letter cannot be used to authorize eavesdropping or to read the contents of e-mail. But it does permit investigators to trace revealing paths through the private affairs of a modern digital citizen. The records it yields describe where a person makes and spends money, with whom he lives and lived before, how much he gambles, what he buys online, what he pawns and borrows, where he travels, how he invests, what he searches for and reads on the Web, and who telephones or e-mails him at home and at work.

These far reaching powers now entitle the government to gather the electronic records of any person for almost any reason, as long as the FBI certifies that the records are "sought for" or "relevant to" an investigation "to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities."  The criteria is so vague as to be meaningless.

What real possible justification can there be other than monitoring the flow of information and the activities of "political opposition?"  And this leads me to wonder what "unplanned" catastrophe awaits us in order to justify further erosion of our privacy and personal freedom?  I lack the imagination for an answer but I suspect those in power are ready.

Comments

[Matt]

Here's Greg Palast and Matthew Aid (ht)

[Adam Kotsko]

Once "national security" becomes the foremost, non-negotiable goal, this is what happens. Every citizen becomes a potential enemy of the state and is treated as such.

[Alain]

Matt, thank you for the links. The more absurd the revelations the less impact they seem to have. Perhaps I am mistaken, but I am in the minority who think the democrats will not take back either the House or the Senate. It seems all the b.s. about "securing our borders" and extending irresponsible tax cuts is part of the usual script of divide and conquer. I hope I am wrong.

And ofcourse, Adam is absolutely right. But I think this was part of the larger plan from the beginning. They will persevere until all their enemies have been vanquished.

[Matt]

The border thing is being forced to galvinate the God-fearing base, yes (witness Snow using code-language like "segregation" and "tar-baby" at his first press conference). But without Hispanics on board, or in prison, the Republicans are soon toast. It also ties nicely into the Pentagon's contingency plans for the coming inevitable disasters (for at least a half century) due to global warming, which will indirectly ensure the US remains the superpower, provided it's a fortress. In short the baby-boomers blew it, and this maturing-X generation is - by conservative estimates - our last chance. So sayeth weblogs.

[Jodi]

Matt, could you spell out more the baby boomer thing?
Alain--I think you are fully correct when you point out that the crazier and worse things are, the more people are likely to accept them. Where is the outrage? On the elections: I think the Dems will likely get the Senate. But, I don't think it will make a difference one way or the other.

[Matt]

(Jodi- Only that it was "on their watch" the earth's warming became first unavoidable, then denied, and then exponentially, unprecedentedly worsened.

But no offense to baby boomers; they did some good stuff too, and the deck was stacked. Who knows, maybe Europe will enjoy the big chill.)

[josef k.]

"They will persevere until all their enemies have been vanquished."

Except that everybody is a potential enemy since security as a end-goal can never finally be achieved except at the price of the annihilation of all life, since all life - because it is alive - disturbs the program of security because it is inherently unpredictable.

The cause consequently becomes a generalized program of zombification, directed against all, and liquidation directed against the stubborn.

In February, Halliburton received an $385m contract to construct detention centres. Who exactly is to be detained there - we shall see, but I wonder - perhaps the US Government, recognizing the limitations of the internet medium, is now kindly considering how we might all achieve the meeting of each other face to face...

Liberal Losers

-An image being spread about in conservative circles these days. Courtesy of Digby.

[Adam Kotsko]

Maybe if "liberal" is now effectively a swearword, we should just go with it.

[Christoph]

"The more absurd the revelations the less impact they seem to have."

E-bloody-xactly.

Meanwhile, glad to report that all is quiet on the Australian front.

[squibb]

They can't be neo-jacobins, they're all too fucking rich and 'religious.' They'd be the first ones on the block.

The n+1 piece on global warming is now online.

[Piñero]

Maybe if "liberal" is now effectively a swearword, we should just go with it.

The thing is, neoliberals made "liberals" obsolete some time ago (something the "liberal blogosphere" has yet to fully recognize). Such that "liberal" is now effectively synonymous with neoliberal (it has become a distinction without a difference).

Some would dispute this, of course. But these same people are sedulously incapable of re-asserting the difference in any meaningful, contemporary way.

And the fact is, there will be no turning back to an old-school, Galbraith left (though there is much left to learn there). But absent a hard-hitting and persistent critique of neoliberalism, this word "liberal" and its old-fashioned, sand-headed sponsors, are simply doomed.

So yes, let it become a swearword. Those who proclaim their fidelity to the word "liberal" today are much like those who champion the word "Theory" (do these latter even exist??) They've been sleeping (or out of the loop) for the last 15-20 years.

It could be done; it could be defended, in a new way. But just saying it, repeating it, like a stubborn mantra...well it isn't enough.

Sorry if any of this seems overly obvious.