According to ABC News, the federal government is tracking the phone numbers used by members of the press while they’re talking to confidential sources. From the ABC News blog:
A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News 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.
ABC News does 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.
I recently spoke to one of my good friends who happens to be a conservative. (“Some of my best friends are conservatives.”) I like to use him as a barometer of that side of the political spectrum. I asked if he thought that the Bush administration had gone too far by obtaining billions of phone records about tens of millions of American citizens from the big telephone companies. He said, simply, “no.” I didn’t press because, while he humors me on brief inquiries, friction can arise if we dwell on politics for too long.
It’s probably too obvious to bother with, but it seems fairly clear to me that most of the folks who are o.k. with this kind of warrantless domestic surveillance of innocent citizens would have had kittens over Bill Clinton doing the same thing.
I wish I had access to a high-definition television tonight because I would be looking for beads of sweat on the Chimperor’s upper lip. His handlers are going to have to remind him to be careful from now on while raising his arms and waving. The press will be looking for signs of Nixionian flop sweat.
Hopefully, Dubya will be showering twice a day and using extra swipes of deodorant because he is going to start reeking of the stench of impeachment. Thank God smell-a-vision has not been invented yet!!!
Gee, you think Karl Rove is above using some of this “intelligence” to find out which reporters might be having an affair inorder to save his own political ass???
Because I certainly don’t.
Maybe now that it’s their ox being gored, the media will do something other than their usual puff coverage. I won’t hold my breath though.
I always wonder why that closet industry that produced all those “Clintoon’s Black U.N. Helicopters are Coming to Impose the New World Order!” has been so silent now that Bush is doing worse than what they ever accused Clinton of?
What part of “Democracy Freedom Stay the Course Terror Terror” don’t you understand?