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Federal Agencies Subjecting all Americans to Phone, Web Surveillance – Except for Muslims at US Mosques

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Photo Credit: upyernoz

Homeland Insecurity: The White House assures that tracking our every phone call and keystroke is to stop terrorists, and yet it won’t snoop in mosques, where the terrorists are.

That’s right, the government’s sweeping surveillance of our most private communications excludes the jihad factories where homegrown terrorists are radicalized.

Since October 2011, mosques have been off-limits to FBI agents. No more surveillance or undercover string operations without high-level approval from a special oversight body at the Justice Department dubbed the Sensitive Operations Review Committee.

Who makes up this body, and how do they decide requests? Nobody knows; the names of the chairman, members and staff are kept secret.

We do know the panel was set up under pressure from Islamist groups who complained about FBI stings at mosques. Just months before the panel’s formation, the Council on American-Islamic Relations teamed up with the ACLU to sue the FBI for allegedly violating the civil rights of Muslims in Los Angeles by hiring an undercover agent to infiltrate and monitor mosques there.

Read more from this story HERE.

A Double-Trouble Scandal for Obama

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Photo Credit: Reuters

The verdict is still out on how much political damage the current trio of scandals will inflict on the Obama White House. For now, the one that might hurt most is the one the public cares about least.

A new Quinnipiac poll shows President Obama’s job approval falling to 45%, but the survey also ranks the public’s focus on today’s Washington controversies. Nearly 45% of voters said the IRS scandal is most important, followed by 24% who picked Benghazi. A mere 15% thought the Justice Department’s seizure of press records was a big deal.

No surprise. The IRS is an agency that touches nearly every American, and both the IRS and Benghazi scandals revolve around the sort of big, breathless questions—Did the White House lie? Was the administration targeting enemies?—that rivet public attention. Most Americans don’t much care what happens to the press, and if anything wouldn’t mind seeing it get some grief.

What this verdict misses, however, is two important realities. The first is that—unlike the IRS and Benghazi scandals—the facts of the DOJ’s press intrusions are clear and uncontested. We know Justice has seized records of reporters, that Attorney General Eric Holder himself signed onto a warrant that suggested a journalist was a “co-conspirator” in a national-security leak. We also know that government has violated its own guidelines on probing journalists.

Read more from this story HERE.

Eric Holder Tells Press in Off-the Record Meeting: We Won’t Spy on You Anymore

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Photo Credit: AP

In a meeting with Attorney General Eric Holder, executives from several news organizations said the attorney general pledged to change the way the Justice Department conducts investigations that involve reporters.

Government officials said they would work to change guidelines on issuing subpoenas in criminal investigations involving reporters and ensure searches that have raised concerns recently about freedom of the press are not repeated, the editors said.

The news executives made the comments Thursday after meeting with Holder and some of his aides.

The discussion took place following an outcry from news organizations over the Justice Department’s secret gathering of some Associated Press reporters’ phone records and some emails of a Fox News journalist.

Read more from this story HERE.

AP, NY Times Snub Obama Administration, Refuse to Attend Off-Record Briefing

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The Associated Press says it will not attend this week’s off-the-record meeting with Attorney General Eric Holder unless the Justice Department decides to change its mind and conduct the meeting on the record.

“We believe the meeting should be on the record and we have said that to the Attorney General’s office. If it is on the record, AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll will attend. If it is not on the record, AP will not attend and instead will offer our views on how the regulations should be updated in an open letter,” AP spokesperson Erin Madigan said in a statement sent to POLITICO. “We would expect AP attorneys to be included in any planned meetings between the Attorney General’s office and media lawyers on the legal specifics.”

The AP’s decision comes over an hour after The New York Times announced that it would not be attending the meeting, citing concerns about the DOJ’s off-the-record provision.

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Gov’t Out-of-Control: FBI Tracked, Followed Fox Reporter, Got Parent’s Phone Records, Too

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Newly uncovered court documents reveal the Justice Department seized records of several Fox News phone lines as part of a leak investigation — even listing a number that, according to one source, matches the home phone number of a reporter’s parents.

The seizure was ordered in addition to a court-approved search warrant for Fox News correspondent James Rosen’s personal emails. In the affidavit seeking that warrant, an FBI agent called Rosen a likely criminal “co-conspirator,” citing a wartime law called the Espionage Act.

Rosen was not charged, but his movements and conversations were tracked. A source close to the leak investigation confirmed to Fox News that the government obtained phone records for several numbers that match Fox News numbers out of the Washington bureau.

Further, the source confirmed to Fox News that one number listed matched the number for Rosen’s parents in Staten Island.

Rosen’s father, attorney Myron Rosen, told FoxNews.com he found the records seizure to be “downright ludicrous.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Google Gave Feds Fox News Reporter’s Email Without a Warrant and Other Obama Outrages

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Photo Credit: Mediaite‘Co-Conspirator’: Fox News Reporter James Rosen’s Private Emails Given To Justice Dept. By Google

By Noah Rothman. As a result of Fox News Channel’s State Department reporter James Rosen’s 2009 investigation into the government’s response to North Korea’s repeated provocations, it was reported on Monday that the Department of Justice tracked Rosen’s movements as well as subpoenaed telephone and email records. According to the DoJ’s subpoena, Google surrendered Rosen’s emails, who is described as “an aider and abettor and/or co-conspirator,” to the government. Read more from this story HERE.

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Washington Times Writer: Fox news Scandal Goes ‘Much Deeper,’ W.H. Sitting on Something Top Obama Aides ‘Terrified’ about.

By Jason Howerton. Washington Times columnist Joseph Curl on Monday said the Obama administration’s developing scandal involving the monitoring of Fox News reporter James Rosen’s email accounts goes “much deeper.” Read more from this story HERE.

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Judge Napolitano: Naming Fox’s Rosen a Possible Criminal Is ‘Chilling’

By Greg Richter. The naming of a journalist as a possible co-conspirator in a criminal case of leaked classified information is “chilling,” Judge Andrew Napolitano says.

“The Supreme Court has ruled that when the government makes it difficult for you to do your job as a journalist by scaring off your sources or watching your every move, that’s called ‘chilling.'” Napolitano said Monday on Fox News Channel. “Chilling is a constitutional phrase meaning the government hasn’t directly silenced me, but it’s made it more difficult for me to speak.”

Fox News correspondent James Rosen was named a possible co-conspirator in a Justice Department affidavit, it was learned Monday. His personal emails were searched as part of the investigation.

Napolitano, a former New Jersey Superior Court judge and analyst for Fox News Channel, said it was not a crime for a journalist to ask for, receive, or publish classified information. Nothing in the affadavit claims Rosen did anything more than what journalists are legally allowed to do as part of their jobs, he said. Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Pick to Replace Holder Assails House GOP on Obamacare

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Photo Credit: WEBN-TVMassachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, reported to be President Obama’s pick to replace Attorney General Eric Holder, has attacked House Republican foes of Obamacare, raising new questions about the politicization of the Justice Department.

Patrick signed a Democratic National Committee letter blasting the House GOP’s Thursday vote to repeal the president’s health care reform. The Democratic-controlled Senate is not expected to follow suit.

In his letter he accused the Republicans of playing to their extreme wing. “Yesterday, Republicans in the House of Representatives voted to repeal Obamacare for the 37th time — just to appease their extreme right-wing base,” said Patrick, an Obama ally.

“They just want to do whatever they can to block, repeal, or damage Obamacare — just to block the president’s agenda,” he added.

The Chicago Sun-Times, which has deep sources in the administration, reported that Patrick is Obama’s pick to replace the embattled Holder. His Justice Department has been slapped by critics for politicizing policies including efforts to block voter identification programs.

Read more from this story HERE.

Watchdog: Witness Protection Lost Track of ‘Known or Suspected Terrorists,’ Let Others Board Planes

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Photo Credit: Joe MabelBy Fox News. The Justice Department temporarily lost track of two known or suspected terrorists who were in the witness protection program — and allowed others on the no-fly list to board commercial flights — according to a watchdog report which fueled criticism of the administration.

“This is gross mismanagement — pure and simple,” Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said in a statement.

The allegations were made in an inspector general report released Thursday. The report found agencies in the department did not properly share the new identities of some in witness protection — the lapse meant those new names were not updated in the no-fly list.

“Therefore, it was possible for known or suspected terrorists to fly on commercial airplanes in or over the United States and evade one of the government’s primary means of identifying and tracking terrorists’ movements and actions,” the report said. The report said “some” in the program were able to do just that.

The inspector general’s office also said the U.S. Marshals Service, as of last July, was “unable to locate” two former participants who were known or suspected terrorists, and that they were thought to be outside the U.S. The report said the department “did not definitively know” how many known or suspected terrorists had been admitted into the program either. Read more from this story HERE.
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How Did U.S. Marshalls Lose Suspected Terrorists in Witness Protection?

By J.K. Trotter. This is not the good news Attorney General Eric Holder was likely hoping for. A public memorandum issued on Thursday by the Department of Justice’s Inspector General indicates that in July 2012 the U.S. Marshal Service, the federal law enforcement agency of the DoJ of Tommy Lee Jones notoriety, was unable to locate two “known or suspected terrorists” participating in the Witness Security Program, the well-known protection program (of Goodfellas fame) administered by the Marshal Service. “Through its investigative efforts,” the Inspector General writes, the agency “concluded that one individual was and the other individual was believed to be residing outside the United States.”

The mishap was apparently one of many incidents where the agency inadvertently allowed protected witnesses, who were also identified as “known or suspected terrorists,” to travel freely out of and within the United States. Indeed, the agency is only beginning to track how many witnesses have been tagged as such. From the inspector’s report:

We found that the Department did not definitively know how many known or suspected terrorists were admitted into the [Witness Security Program]. The Department has idenitifed a small but significant number of USMS WITSEC Program participants as known or suspected terrorists. As of March 2013, the Deparment is continuing to review its more than 18,000 WITSEC case files to determine whether additional known or suspected terrorists have been admitted into the program.

Read more from this story HERE.

Justice Department Subpoenas of AP Phone Records Unites Left, Right in Opposition to ‘Big Brother’

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Photo Credit: J. Scott ApplewhiteThe revelation that the U.S. government used secret subpoenas to pry into Associated Press reporters’ phone records triggered two contradictory reactions in the political world.

“What the subpoenas did was remind the left that the right has reasons to fear big government and remind the right and left of the objectives they share politically,” said Joe Miller, the Alaska conservative who was the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate last year.

For conservatives, the phone-records story fortified their fear that, despite the best of intentions, government by its nature will tend to erode the freedom of the individual — and almost always in the name of protecting the collective good.

That conservative fear is one that liberals tend to regard as verging on paranoia.

Yet this latest Justice Department action — an action that for many on the right confirms long-held concerns about big government — is also, paradoxically, bringing conservatives and liberals together. Both ideologies, after all, share an interest in defending the freedom of the individual.

Read more from this story HERE.

DOJ Siezed Associated Press Phone Records in “Massive and Unprecedented Intrusion”

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Photo Credit: EspartaThe Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative’s top executive called a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into how news organizations gather the news.

The records obtained by the Justice Department listed outgoing calls for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, for general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP. It was not clear if the records also included incoming calls or the duration of the calls.

In all, the government seized the records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown, but more than 100 journalists work in the offices where phone records were targeted, on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.

In a letter of protest sent to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday, AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt said the government sought and obtained information far beyond anything that could be justified by any specific investigation. He demanded the return of the phone records and destruction of all copies.

“There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know,” Pruitt said.

Read more from this story HERE.