Obama Administration turns against the Free Press

[American Patriot]

DOJ's Targeting Of Fox News Reporter James Rosen Met With Outrage

The Huffington Post | By Jack Mirkinson Posted: 05/20/2013 8:48 am EDT | Updated: 05/20/2013 2:03 pm EDT








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A new article about how the Obama administration tracked the movements and correspondence of a Fox News reporter led to a fresh round of condemnation by journalists on Monday.

The Washington Post published an explosive story about the Justice Department's monitoring of James Rosen, a Fox News reporter based in Washington. Rosen allegedly spoke to Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, a State Department contractor, for a story about North Korea's nuclear program. The Justice Department charged Kim with violating the Espionage Act for his contact with Rosen.

Kim's case has already been condemned by critics of the White House's hyper-aggressive approach to leaks, but the details of the DOJ's tracking of Rosen have not been known until now. The Post's Ann E. Marimow laid out the intensity of that monitoring in her article:

The Justice Department used security badge access records to track the reporter’s comings and goings from the State Department, according to a newly obtained court affidavit. They traced the timing of his calls with a State Department security adviser suspected of sharing the classified report. They obtained a search warrant for the reporter’s personal emails.

(Read the DOJ's warrant for searching Rosen's records at the bottom of the post.)

That goes above and beyond what the Justice Department did when it monitored the Associated Press. There, it looked at phone records, not the actual contents of emails.

Perhaps more chilling, the Post reported that, in order to justify its search warrants for Rosen's private correspondence, the Justice Department labeled Rosen a "co-conspirator" with Kim because he made an arrangement with him about how to get him information:

Reyes wrote that there was evidence Rosen had broken the law, “at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator.” That fact distinguishes his case from the probe of the AP, in which the news organization is not the likely target.

It's not clear how different these arrangements, which the Post wrote involved things like code names, were from the elaborate arrangements that Bob Woodward made with Deep Throat. Journalists reacted with particular alarm to the notion that Rosen was an "abettor" simply because he pushed for a source to give him information:

Case against Fox's Rosen, in which O admin is criminalizing reporting, makes all of the other "scandals" look like giant nothing burgers.
— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) May 20, 2013

Serious idea. Instead of calling it Obama's war on whistleblowers, let's just call it what it is: Obama's war on journalism.
— Eli Lake (@EliLake) May 20, 2013

To address a widely believed myth: except in very rare circumstances, it is *not* a crime for journalists to report classified information
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 20, 2013

There has long been evidence that some government prosecutors do not consider journalists to have heightened levels of protection. In January, for instance, lawyers prosecuting military whistleblower Bradley Manning said that, had he passed information to the New York Times instead of WikiLeaks, he would still be "aiding the enemy." The government has also tried to make the case in the past that WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange could be indicted as a co-conspirator with Manning for receiving his information.

UPDATE: Fox News responded to the Rosen investigation in a statement to TVNewser:

“We are outraged to learn today that James Rosen was named a criminal co-conspirator for simply doing his job as a reporter. In fact, it is downright chilling. We will unequivocally defend his right to operate as a member of what up until now has always been a free press.”

READ THE FULL WARRANT BELOW:
DOJ's James Rosen Search Warrant by Jack Mirkinson

[American Patriot]

Rubio: "I am very concerned by reports the Obama administration targeted a FOX News reporter"

By Jennifer Harper - The Washington Times

May 20, 2013, 01:41PM

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/...#ixzz2TrUakNO4
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

Just out from Sen. Marco Rubio. The Florida Republican issued this statement after a report was released claiming that the Obama administration targeted a FOX News reporter during a leak investigation:

“I am very concerned by reports the Obama administration targeted a FOX News reporter for possible criminal prosecution for doing what appears to be normal news-gathering protected by the First Amendment. The sort of reporting by James Rosen detailed in the report is the same sort of reporting that helped Mr. Rosen aggressively pursue questions about the administration’s handling of Benghazi. National security leaks are criminal and put American lives on the line, and federal prosecutors should, of course, vigorously investigate. But we expect that they do so within the bounds of the law, and that the investigations focus on the leakers within the government - not on media organizations that have First Amendment protections and serve vital function in our democracy,” Mr. Rubio says.

“We must insist that federal agents not use legitimate investigations as an excuse to harass journalists they deem unfriendly to the President or the administration.We shouldn’t even have to ask if our government would do such a thing, but unfortunately as the unfolding IRS scandal shows, this White House has created a culture where we do have to explicitly make these kinds of requests,” the senator concluded.

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/...#ixzz2TrUWXk00
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

[American Patriot]

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/20...gic_detachment

Everyone Gets the Limbaugh Theorem as the IRS Scandal Unfolds, But They're Missing the Purpose of Obama's Strategic Detachment
May 20, 2013
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BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Look, I don't mean to make this personal. I really don't. You people in this audience that have been here for years and years understand that, for example, when I say that this past weekend, today, all of last week, the Limbaugh Theorem has been in full display, I don't mean to make that about me. Remember what we're about here.

We are about persuading people. We are about creating the largest group of informed, educated people participating in our process as possible. And, as such, it is I who try various ways to come up with ways to explain things to people that will convince or persuade them and also do so in a way that will help them then explain to other people, and we create a cascade. The Limbaugh Theorem was not about me giving me credit for something. It was simply sharing with you when the light went off. And just to restate it again.

The reason I'm doing this is I had a bunch of e-mails from friends over the weekend who are in the media, who have never heard of the Limbaugh Theorem, alerting me, sending me, "Can you believe how Obama's getting away with all this? Like he had nothing to do with the IRS, and he had nothing to do with what went on at the Department of Justice and the AP," and I politely -- I'll tell you what I did. I went to the website, Rush 24/7, and I got all of the relevant transcripts from the archives of this program going back to February, the Limbaugh Theorem, and I fired the stuff out. I mean, I buried 'em with data, and I said, "Look, I finally figured this out." Everybody is coming to it now, but they still haven't closed the loop on what it means.

I'm sure you've seen this. Where everybody is now, "Wow." There are even satirical members of the media doing parody and satire on Obama. For example, I saw where the Borowitz report or something, and it was a satire on Obama saying, "Well, you know, I didn't know this thing was going on at the IRS. I found out about it when the press told me." It was a takeoff on how Obama is literally not attached to anything in his administration. He's not attached to his agenda. He's not attached to these scandals. He's not attached to anything. But what they're missing is that this has been going on since day one in 2009, and what they're missing is the purpose of it. They all acknowledge, for example, that Obama's on a perpetual campaign.

But it stops there. They're all remarking to me, "Boy, isn't it amazing how this Obama guy, he doesn't know anything about what's going on and he's a smart guy." Yeah, yeah, but do you know why all this is happening, is the point? And the answer is right here. "Obama Approval Holding Steady at 55%." Now, it's a CNN poll and we have to treat this in a guarded way. "President Barack Obama's job approval rating is holding steady, despite a trifecta of scandals. CNN's Candy Crowley said on State of the Union Sunday that 53 percent of Americans approve of the job Obama is doing, according to a new CNN/ORC poll. His approval is virtually unchanged from a poll the network did before the three scandals that have put the administration on the defensive." And the three scandals, of course, are the IRS probing the Tea Party, Republican criticism of Benghazi and Libya and the AP phone records.

The approval rating hasn't changed. Now, you poll the American people, they're all opposed to this. They don't attach Obama to it. There's a reason. It's not just something to marvel at and insult voters over. There is a studied, purposeful reason why Obama is never going to be seen as governing, and it is precisely within the minds of low-information voters to make sure he's never seen as responsible for any of this. It is purposeful. It's not just some anomaly that happened that everybody can scratch their heads at or laugh at. The Limbaugh Theorem attempts to explain why the administration is doing this and how it is working and how it is succeeding.

For example, here is the kind of reporting that we're getting from our so-called news media. This is the Associated Pres: "Obama Agenda Marches on Despite Controversies."

Of course it does. "Despite Democratic fears, predictions of the demise of President Barack Obama's agenda appear exaggerated after a week of cascading controversies, political triage by the administration and party leaders in Congress and lack of evidence to date of wrongdoing close to the Oval Office."

Now, that's not journalism. That's cheerleading. They're all excited. This is the AP excited that none of this is attaching itself to Obama. This is the AP thrilled to be able to report that the agenda marches on despite the controversies, despite fears in the Democrat Party, despite predictions of the demise of Obama's agenda, all that's exaggerated after a week of cascading controversies. Remember, these are the same people, folks, who constantly tell us not to jump to conclusions. But now the news media are proclaiming the scandals are all behind us now and that Obama's emerged unscathed and that his wonderful agenda marches on. There it is right there in the AP. And, unfortunately, that last part about his agenda marching on is true. But that's only because it takes two to tango.

Scandals never stop an administration unless the media wants them to stop an administration, which means that no scandal is ever gonna stop Obama. I can remember people here last week, "Rush, this IRS thing, this is really gonna get Obama." No, it's not. It's not gonna get Obama. We continue to learn that the regime was totally behind it. We have learned that Obama met with the leader of the union that IRS employees belong to, a woman at the White House. It was the next day that the Tea Party began being targeted. I mean, it's highly circumstantial, but it's certainly not proof, but all these stories that Obama didn't know -- there's another story -- everybody's trying to figure out one thing here on this IRS story. It's being reported that, I think it was Lois Lerner revealed the details of the scandal during Q&A at a congressional hearing. That's how we first learned of this, by the way, if you've forgotten, that's it.

The IRS announced it at a congressional hearing. We have since found out that the whole thing was scripted, that the member of Congress who asked her the question was given the question specifically so that she could answer it. This happened a day or two before the inspector general report came out. And here's the answer to the question. The reason why that happened is so that it would appear -- and again, everything is targeted to low-information voters, folks. That's all that matters to the regime, Obama's voters. That's where those polling numbers come from and that's what all this stuff is targeted to. So the purpose here was to have it understood, have no known, have it indisputably appear that the IRS announced the scandals, the IRS discovered what these rogue employees were doing, and they got the news out before the inspector general's report.

If the general's report had been the first thing anybody heard about this, then whatever the IRS says after that would appear to be cover-up. But the way this happened, with a scripted, structured Q&A in a congressional hearing, the IRS gets the credit for revealing the details.

(interruption)

Okay, that's right, it was not a congressional hearing. It was a Bar Association tax conference. It was a Q&A, Lois Lerner at an American Bar Association tax convention. And the question that she got was staged. She knew it was coming. She had the answer. The reason for this is so that they can say and it appears the IRS discovered the dirt in its own shop and announced it and then immediately began to take steps to fix it. Now, the truth of the matter is that this was a purposefully structured, might say brilliantly conceived and almost flawlessly executed attempt to tamp down fundraising, donations, and, in fact, voter interest among the Tea Party. The IRS delayed the process for granting tax-exempt status to a whole bunch of Tea Party organizations -- over 30 of them -- that delayed them in their campaign efforts and their fundraising efforts.

It also sent some of them home, to hell with it. They just said, "I'm not putting up with this," and they stopped. We had a couple stories from women who were trying to start Tea Party foundations, "To heck with it, it's not worth the hassle." And remember, we know that Obama got a lot fewer votes in 2012 than he did in 2008, but so did Romney get many fewer votes, millions fewer than McCain got. I think now we're starting to see exactly what the IRS targeting the Tea Party meant. It actually suppressed the conservative vote. It suppressed Tea Party fundraising. The Tea Party was the sole reason for the 2010 midterms. That's when the IRS got in gear, made sure that wasn't gonna happen in 2012, and they did.

In all of this, Obama's over there unattached to it. In all of this, Obama's sitting there saying, "We're gonna get to the bottom of this." Obama's over there firing, quote, unquote, the acting head honcho when he didn't get fired, he was leaving anyway. It was just made to look like drastic action was taking place. That's just the IRS scandal. Yeah, just to be clear, Lois Lerner made her admission, quote, unquote, at an American Bar Association meeting. She got a lawyer friend to ask her the question in the Q&A. The bar meeting was May the 10th. The IG report, the IRS inspector general report came out on May 13th. They were hell-bent. They knew what the IG report was gonna say 'cause they knew what was going on in there.

They knew how the Tea Party vote was suppressed. They knew Tea Party fundraising was being suppressed. They knew that Tea Party enthusiasm, the full force of the federal government was being brought down on them. They were being told to furnish the details and the contents of prayers in the case of a religious organization seeking tax-exempt status. Now, the news media right now, folks, as in full praetorian guard mode. Both the Washington Post and New York Times had stories over the weekend reporting that the IRS's suppression of the Tea Party, it couldn'ta been political. Oh, no. That's just a freak, kook extremist. The IRS suppressing the Tea Party? Could not have been political, say the Washington Post and the New York Times, because all the workers at the tax exemption office in Cincinnati say they aren't political.

That's right. The Washington Post and New York Times found some of the employees there, "Oh, no, no, we're just overworked." I tell you where this is gonna go. You let some time pass and what's gonna happen is, say six months, eight months, a year from now at a congressional hearing having to do with something totally unrelated, somebody's gonna say, "You know what, the IRS needs more money, needs more staff. The reason why this unfortunate thing happened with the Tea Party is because they're understaffed. There just aren't enough people to handle these applications. Need a bigger budget and need more people." Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's exactly right.

That's how this could potentially backfire. The IRS could end up getting bigger. Which is not what we want. But that could be, when nobody's looking a few months from now, the supposed solution to this. It was just a coincidence, you see, and general incompetence that kept 500 conservative organizations from being granted tax-exempt status for more than 27 months. By the way, during that entire period, every liberal group sailed through. You know, there's another question I have where I think the regime's dropped the ball. If they were really on their -- and they are on their game -- this is just a side illustration. But if the in the middle of all this if some left-wing group of people had popped up and said, "We were denied or tax-exempt status, too, the IRS was asking us all kinds of questions." Can you imagine how that could have been played in the media?

"It wasn't just conservative Tea Party groups. The National Association of Bald Condors over here, they didn't get their tax-exempt status, either." If the regime had come up with some left-wing organization also denied, but that didn't happen. Every left-wing group seeking tax-exempt status got it. Every one. Over 500 Tea Party groups did not, in a 27-month period. And Obama had nothing to do with it, folks, and the employees in Cincinnati are not political. Washington Post, New York Times, trying to convince us these IRS workers weren't political, just incompetent. And a member of Congress said, "You know, that's really cool. Let a taxpayer try saying he didn't know what he was doing when you guys come calling and see how that works for you. But you guys come before our committee and you want to say this happened because you're incompetent?" The gallery in the House stood up and cheered when that guy, forget his name, top of my head.

So when Obama says there's no "there" there, as far as the media's concerned, he's right. As far as the Limbaugh Theorem, he's right, there's no "there" there, no matter what Obama does. No matter what he does, it will never be reported he did it. In fact, what will be reported is -- in this case -- Obama's trying to fix it! Like the deficit, like the health care problems, like the national debt, he's trying to fix it, 'cause these powerful forces are arrayed against him.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, I got some audio sound bites here. I'm gonna demonstrate exactly what I'm talking about with the Limbaugh Theorem. Snerdley just told me that I've ruined his day. During the entire monologue, the opening monologue of the program, I've looked on the other side of the glass and Snerdley's in there with his mouth sort of open and a facial expression that was either "Oh, no," as in depressed hearing what I'm hearing, or he thinks I'm off my rocker. So I asked him about it during the break. And he said, "Well, I gotta tell you, I'm spending the whole weekend, I'm watching the Sunday shows, I'm watching this stuff, and I'm thinking finally something's gonna stick. The Democrats are nervous. They're running for the hills. They're scared, and then you come along and in two minutes you dispel the whole notion."

And I said, "Well, I could be wrong."

He said, "You're never wrong."

I said, "I know. But I still could be. I could have this wrong." Maybe the low-information voters are getting ticked off. Maybe they're holding Obama accountable, but I don't see it. I don't see it happening now, and I don't see it happening in the future.

Let's go back for a second to the CNN poll. Now admittedly, it's CNN. I'm not gonna make the mistake again that I made in the 2012 election. I figured that those preelection polls in 2012 were wrong because they weren't factoring the 2010 midterm election turnout, and I was wrong about that, and I didn't know that the IRS was suppressing Tea Party fundraising and enthusiasm. There's a lot we didn't know. I mean, I think it's a legitimate question to ask, if the IRS had not suppressed the Tea Party the ways they did, would Romney have won? Not could have, would he have? Is this election fraudulent? It's a legitimate question because of what the IRS did. It's also legitimate based on Benghazi, but that's another thing. And I still submit Benghazi, just in terms of substance, is far worse as a scandal than the IRS thing is.

But let's go back to these CNN polls for just a second. I have the same poll reported on in two consecutive days. The first day was yesterday. "President Barack Obama's job approval rating is holding steady, despite a trifecta of scandals. CNN's Candy Crowley said on State of the Union Sunday that 53 percent of Americans approve of the job Obama is doing, according to a new CNN/ORC poll. His approval is virtually unchanged from a poll the network did before the three scandals that have put the administration on the defensive. ... Obama senior advisor Dan Pfeiffer told Crowley that the 'American people have great faith in the president.'" And they do! They think he's trying to fix all of this.

Folks, look, you are the exact opposite of low-information voters, and it may be hard to understand when I say they think Obama's trying to fix it, but they do. They're emotionally invested in the guy, and nothing is going to change that. Something unforeseen would have to happen to change that. I just don't see this as being that. Now, here's the next day. The Weekly Standard: "A new poll from CNN demonstrates that Americans say the continuing investigations into two scandals that have arisen in the last week are important."

Here we go again. The respondents in the CNN poll give Obama a 53% approval rating while at the same time say that these scandals are important, and that number is rising. "According to the poll, 55 percent of those polled say the questions about the administration's conflicting stories on the cause of the September 11 attacks on the American diplomatic post in Benghazi are 'very important,' with another 29 percent saying they are 'somewhat important.' And on the issue of the IRS targeting conservative groups for increased scrutiny, 55 percent said the it was 'very important' and another 30 percent said it was 'somewhat important.'"

And get this. "Fifty-nine percent now say that the U.S government could have prevented the attack in Benghazi, up 11 points from last November." It was 48, now it's 59% say the government could have prevented the attack. Only 37% say congressional Republicans are overreacting. It's the same with the IRS controversy. Fifty-four percent say the GOP and Congress has not overplayed its hand. Yet Obama's approval is at 53%, unchanged, and it's the same thing in Gallup.

So it's the same anomaly that I saw the New York Times back in February that got me going on all this. That poll back in February was that by vast majorities, 55 to 58, in some places 60% people opposed Obama's agenda and didn't like the direction the country was going, but loved him. I said, "Wait a minute, they don't approve of the agenda, and they don't like the direction country's going, but they don't attach Obama to any of it." That's what people are not connecting. How that's happening. And it's the permanent campaign with Obama running around, himself appearing opposed to what's happening. The truthful way to characterize that is Obama is running around opposed to his own agenda. He, too, opposes his agenda and is trying to fix it. And that's how people see it.

They don't see him as governing. They don't see him as ultimately responsible. That's why we've gotten the stories: Obama detached, Obama a passerby, Obama a bystander. I mean, everybody's figured out what's happening now and they haven't closed the loop, as have I, your beloved host, to explain why. Now, let's go to the audio sound bites, shall we? Dan Pfeiffer, White House senior advisor. First on Slay the Nation with Bob Schieffer. Bob Schieffer is starting to get a little put out with these guys. He doesn't want to compare any of this to Watergate, but he's very alarmed the way the White House is handling this. He said to Pfeiffer, "Okay, yesterday the White House leaks the story to the New York Times, it says the White House chief of staff, Denis McDonough, has told his staff not to spend any more than 10% of their time on these issues. Does that mean you don't take any of this seriously, Mr. Pfeiffer?"

PFEIFFER: The point that our chief of staff is making is that this is the Republican playbook here which is try, when they don't have a positive agenda, try to drag Washington into a swamp of partisan fishing expeditions, trumped up hearings and false allegations. We're not going to let that distract us and the president from actually doing the people's work and fighting for the middle class.

SCHIEFFER: You know, I don’t want to compare this in any way to Watergate. I do not think this is Watergate by any stretch. But you weren't born then I would guess, but I have to tell you that is exactly the approach that the Nixon administration took. They said, "These are all second-rate things. We don't have time for this. We have to devote our time to the people's business." You’re taking exactly the same line that they did.

RUSH: But it's not Watergate. Bob to had to make everybody sure it's not Watergate (imitating Schieffer), "I'm not saying it's Watergate. Nothing could ever be Watergate because that's a Republican thing, can never be Watergate. But you guys are starting to alarm me." Did you notice Pfeiffer, Obama's working hard for the middle class. Reminds me of Bill Clinton (imitating Clinton) "I didn't have sex with that woman, not a single time, never. Now, I gotta get back to work with the American people." He's wagging that crooked finger and walks out of the room. And here in the midst the IRS, Benghazi, and the media spying -- And, by the way, this media spying story is much more than AP.

Now it's encompassed James Rosen of Fox News, and there's a big story in the Daily Caller. We have linked to this at RushLimbaugh.com. Jeff Poor at the Daily Caller chronicles all of the Obama administration efforts targeting the media, and I'm mentioned in that story two or three times, all the accounts, all the attempts that Obama has made to try to come after me.

Anyway, you hear Pfeiffer (paraphrasing), "Look, our chief of staff is out there saying the Republicans are making all this up. I mean, the Republicans don't have a positive agenda, so they're bringing up all this IRS stuff, and they're bringing up Benghazi, and we're just not gonna talk about it, Bob, 'cause we got more important things to do. We gotta keep working for the middle class. We don't have time to talk about this stuff." And Schieffer, "Well, gee whiz, you know, I'm not saying it's Watergate, but my God that's exactly what Nixon said, 'We don't have time for this. You guys are barking up the wrong tree. We're gonna work on the people's business, second-rate stuff going on."

You know, the next thing we're gonna hear from Dan Pfeiffer is no investigation ever fed a hungry child. That's a line Clinton used against Bob Dole in a debate in the 1996 campaign. Dole's out there saying, "Where's the outrage?" over Clinton's lack of morality and all this. Clinton said, "No attack ever fed a hungry child." So after Schieffer told Pfeiffer that, "You know, you guys are playing this exactly like Nixon did in Watergate," he kept going.

original

SCHIEFFER: But, Mr. Pfeiffer, and I don't mean to be argumentative here but the president is in charge of the executive branch of the government. It's my -- I'll just make this as an assertion. When the executive branch does things right, there doesn't seem to be any hesitancy of the White House to take credit for that. When Osama Bin Laden was killed, the president didn't waste any time getting out there and telling people about it.

RUSH: Here you have it, right out in front of his eyes here. The Limbaugh Theorem is what Schieffer's talking about, but he's not heard of the Limbaugh Theorem so he doesn't know what it is, but he knows what it is, he just doesn't know that I have concocted that name for it with an in-depth explanation. But you notice how timid he is? (imitating Schieffer) "Look, you know, Mr. Pfeiffer, I don't mean to be argumentative ..." You ever remember him treating a Republican that way? I don't remember.

"I don't mean to be argumentative. Please forgive me, Mr. Pfeiffer, please. Yeah, I got my job here, and I've gotta do my job, and I've gotta ask you to please, please -- I'm just gonna make, I tell you what, I won't even ask. I'll just make an assertion. When the economy is going great guns, you guys take the credit. When Osama Bin Laden's killed, you guys don't waste any time taking credit for it, but on this other stuff you guys are nowhere to be found." So Schieffer and a lot of these people, they're -- how would you say -- they're gliding around, circling the truth here. They're afraid to head to the bull's-eye on this.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, back to the audio sound bites. Bob Schieffer is still telling Dan Pfeiffer that he really can't believe the take that Pfeiffer brought to his show yesterday. Here's the next example of it...

SCHIEFFER: But with all of these things, when these things happen, you seem to send out officials, many times, who don't even seem to know, uh, what has happened. And I use as an example of that Susan Rice, who had no connection whatsoever to the events that took place in Benghazi. And yet she was sent out, appeared on this broadcast and other Sunday broadcasts -- five days after it happens. And I'm not here to get in an argument with you about who changed which word in the talking points and all that. The bottom line is: What she told the American people that day bore no resemblance to what had happened on the ground in an incident where, uh, four Americans were killed.

RUSH: Now, what's interesting about this is Schieffer said (summarized), "Look, I don't want to get in an argument with you here about who changed what." Why not, Bob? That's the story! Bob's sitting here telling Pfeiffer, "Look, I don't understand the way you guys are playing this. I don't understand. Nobody knows anything! Obama didn't know anything -- and you're telling me that people that I can't talk to are coming up with these explanations. I don't want to argue with you about it," of course not, "because you're a fellow Democrat and there's no way I'm gonna use my show here to embarrass you guys."

Here's the last bite we have with Schieffer. I think he sees what's going on here; he doesn't like it.

SCHIEFFER: But what I'm saying to you is: That was just PR. That was just a PR plan, to send out somebody who didn't know anything about what had happened. Why did you do that? Why didn't the secretary of state come and tell us what they knew? And if you knew nothing, uh, say, "We don't know yet." Why didn't the White House chief of staff come out? I mean, I would -- and I mean this as no disrespect to you. Why are you here today? Why isn't the White House chief of staff here to tell us what happened?

RUSH: Can you imagine watching this show yesterday and hearing all of this? But that, again, folks (not to overdo it by any stretch), is the Limbaugh Theorem. Nobody is responsible for anything, and all Schieffer's concerned about is: Why aren't you guys doing it a different way?

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Look, Dan Pfeiffer... I don't know if we've got this in the audio sound bites. I thought we did, but regardless. Dan Pfeiffer told another Sunday morning show that none of this is relevant anyway. None of this matters. The law's not relevant. The law is not relevant, Pfeiffer said. So Schieffer didn't get that, somebody else did.

END TRANSCRIPT

[American Patriot]

Fox News Executive Slams DOJ For Naming Reporter ‘Criminal Co-Conspirator’

Igor Bobic 2:13 PM EDT, Monday May 20, 2013

Fox News issued a blistering statement on Monday condemning the Department of Justice for surveilling their chief Washington correspondent James Rosen during a 2009 investigation into a leak of classified information regarding North Korea.


“We are outraged to learn today that James Rosen was named a criminal co-conspirator for simply doing his job as a reporter. In fact, it is downright chilling," said Michael Clemente, executive vice president of news editorial, according to a statement obtained by TVNewser. "We will unequivocally defend his right to operate as a member of what up until now has always been a free press.”


After successfully obtaining a signed warrant, the Department of Justice tracked Rosen's comings and goings from the State Department. Investigators also monitored his private and public phone calls and private email messages with a State Department security adviser the government suspected was responsible of leaking classified information.

[American Patriot]

Jay the Carney:

Carney On Fox Probe: ‘I Think It Is Very Important That Leaks Are Not Tolerated’

Tom Kludt 2:43 PM EDT, Monday May 20, 2013

Insisting repeatedly that he can't comment on the Department of Justice's 2009 probe of Fox News reporter James Rosen, White House press secretary Jay Carney on Monday emphasized the severity of leaks related to national security.


Carney said that President Barack Obama has long valued the First Amendment and an open press, but that leaks of classified information "are not tolerated." The White House spokesman said that the media shield law proposed by Obama strikes that balance.


"I think it is very important that leaks are not tolerated," Carney said.

[vector7]

I knew the Dictator in Chief was not after his cheerleaders in the Socalist MSM.

No, they need to take FOX down a notch or two before they move the next phase of their draconian agenda FORWARD.

[American Patriot]

I have a feeling the Obama administration is about to get steam rolled by Fox News.

[American Patriot]

Fox calls DOJ investigation of reporter “downright chilling”


By Ann E. Marimow, Monday, May 20, 1:07 PM E-mail the writer

Fox News reacted with outrage Monday to the revelation that the Justice Department tried to criminalize the newsgathering activities of reporter James Rosen in 2009 “for simply doing his job.”

“It is downright chilling,” Michael Clemente, executive vice president for news, said in a statement. “We will unequivocally defend his right to operate as a member of what up until now has always been a free press.”

It probably wouldn't have stopped the probe, but the process would have played out differently.

The reaction from Fox came after the Post reported Monday on the Justice Department’s investigation into a possible leak of classified information about North Korea. A former State Department arms expert, Stephen J. Kim, was charged in 2010 with illegally disclosing national defense information to Rosen, Fox’s chief Washington correspondent.

Federal investigators seeking Rosen’s personal e-mail suggested in a 2010 search warrant that he was potentially criminally liable for soliciting the disclosure of classified information. The warrant was unsealed in 2011, but a Fox executive confirmed that the network was not aware of the allegations until Reading the Post’s report Monday.

No reporter, including Rosen, has ever been prosecuted for soliciting such information. But media lawyers and government transparency experts said that the Justice Department’s characterization of Rosen as a possible co-conspirator had crossed a line.

“Asking for information has never been deemed a crime,” said Steven Aftergood, the director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists. “It’s a line that has not been crossed up until now.”

[American Patriot]

Fox News: Blindsided by Rosen investigation?

By Erik Wemple, Published: May 20, 2013 at 2:48 pmE-mail the writer

All day long, Fox News has been giving extensive air time to a Post story on a federal investigation involving Fox News reporter James Rosen. A federal probe, reported The Post, was looking into Rosen’s attempts to get information from Stephen Kim, an official working at the State Department on arms-control issues relating to North Korea.


Nestled against recent news that the Justice Department aggressively and secretly subpoenaed the phone records of the Associated Press, The Post’s report said the following about the activities of federal investigators in the Rosen case:

They used security badge access records to track the reporter’s comings and goings from the State Department, according to a newly obtained court affidavit. They traced the timing of his calls with a State Department security adviser suspected of sharing the classified report. They obtained a search warrant for the reporter’s personal e-mails.

A lot of questions jump to mind here, among them: How many times has the federal government tried to make the case that a reporter in search of killer information could be considered an “abettor” of a crime, as it does in this case? Does the government stand by that reasoning?


And a curious question with fewer ramifications: How did Fox News get scooped on a Fox News story? The network did issue a statement, one suggesting that it was blindsided on the matter:

“We are outraged to learn today that James Rosen was named a criminal co-conspirator for simply doing his job as a reporter. In fact, it is downright chilling. We will unequivocally defend his right to operate as a member of what up until now has always been a free press.”

In a discussion today with host Megyn Kelly, Fox News reporter Shannon Bream said, “As far as I know, it was a surprise to everyone when we read the details in the Washington Post about just how extensive and in-depth this had been.” No contact from the government, said Bream.


The case itself hasn’t been a secret: In June 2011, New York Times reporter Scott Shane shed some light on it. The lede of the story:

WASHINGTON — Stephen J. Kim, an arms expert who immigrated from South Korea as a child, spent a decade briefing top government officials on the dangers posed by North Korea. Then last August he was charged with violating the Espionage Act — not by aiding some foreign adversary, but by revealing classified information to a Fox News reporter.

Lots of unanswered questions, like any case involving the media and national security leaks.

[American Patriot]

Didn't stop with Rosen:

DOJ Secretly Monitored and Criminalized Three Fox News Reporters

Katie Pavlich | May 20, 2013









Earlier today the Washington Post reported that Fox News' James Rosen had been secretly monitored by the Department of Justice. DOJ monitored his work and personal emails, read his work and personal emails, monitored his phones, monitored his movements and even named him as a criminal conspirator. Now, we know Rosen wasn't the only Fox News reporter targeted. Reporter William LaJeunesse, who extensively covered Operation Fast and Furious and national-security senior producer Mike Levine.


Fox News executive Michael Clemente is vowing to stand by reporters and slammed the administration for their intimidation tactics and assault on the First Amendment.

“We are outraged to learn today that James Rosen was named a criminal co-conspirator for simply doing his job as a reporter. In fact, it is downright chilling. We will unequivocally defend his right to operate as a member of what up until now has always been a free press.”

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney refused to comment on the secret monitoring of Fox News reporters and continued to say President Obama believes in a balance between free speech and national security during his press briefing Monday.


"I can't address an ongoing criminal investigation," Carney said. "The president believes strongly in the need for reporters to pursue investigative journalism."


The Department of Justice is justifying its actions and saying the Department followed the law and all regulations in relation to tapping communications of the press.

[American Patriot]

Government Spying on Fox News Reporter Even Worse Than AP Case

By Ryan Gallagher

Posted Monday, May 20, 2013, at 3:14 PM




The 23rd Street entrance of the State Department in Washington, D.C.
Photo by PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images



The Associated Press phone snooping scandal is still simmering. But now, adding fuel to the fire, another egregious example of the government spying on American reporters has been disclosed.



The Washington Post reports that James Rosen, the chief Washington correspondent for Fox News, was subjected to intense government monitoring as part of an investigation into possible leaks of classified information about North Korea in 2009. The intrusion on Rosen was more severe than that of the AP reporters, whose phone call records were grabbed as part of a separate national security leaks investigation. According to court documents, two days’ worth of Rosen’s personal e-mails, documents, and attachments stored in a Gmail account were seized as were all his historic emails to a Yahoo account used by the alleged source, State Dept. security adviser Stephen Jin-Woo Kim. The feds obtained authorization to seize information showing Rosen’s communication with “any other source" related to the leak and also demanded Google turn over IP addresses and other metadata stored by the reporter’s Gmail account. In addition, investigators tracked Rosen’s movements to and from the State Department using security badge access records, and the timings of his calls with Jin-Woo Kim were traced.



The Post notes that a federal judge approved a search warrant to seize the content of Rosen’s private emails on the basis that there was “probable cause” that the journalist was a “co-conspirator.” Google was ordered not to disclose the existence of the warrant, and it is not clear whether the company lodged any legal objections. (A spokesman for Google had not responded for comment at the time of publication.) An FBI counterespionage agent in an affidavit alleged that the reporter had broken the law “at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator.” This contentious reasoning appears to be grounded in the notion that any journalist receiving and publishing classified material from a confidential source is engaging in a criminal act—even although the U.S. government has never successfully prosecuted a reporter for disseminating unlawfully leaked classified information.



The leaked material in question is believed to relate to a Fox News story authored by Rosen in 2009 concerning possible nuclear tests in North Korea in response to U.N. sanctions. A June 2009 online Fox News report that he wrote, which appears to contain the classified information at the center of the controversy, details how “U.S. intelligence officials” had issued a warning that North Korea had proposed “four planned actions” in response to a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning its nuclear and ballistic missile tests. The story cited an unnamed source commenting on the apparent leak. Notably, Rosen also added in the report that he had withheld “some details about the sources and methods by which American intelligence agencies learned of the North's plans so as to avoid compromising sensitive overseas operations,” though he disclosed that the information had been obtained by the CIA “through sources inside North Korea.”



The FBI announced in 2010 that it had indicted Jin-Woo Kimin relation to a leak of information from“an intelligence report classified Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information to a reporter for a national news organization who was not entitled to receive it.” Jin-Woo Kim, according to the FBI, was working as an employee of a federal contractor—the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory—and was on detail to the State Department at the time of the alleged disclosure.Rosen is not named in any of the court documents, but according to the Post “his identity was confirmed by several officials, and he is the author of the article at the center of the investigation.”



The surveillance of Rosen will raise yet more questions about the extreme tactics adopted by the Justice Department’s multiple aggressive leak investigations. Last week, amid a storm of controversy following the revelation the feds had grabbed AP reporters’ phone records as part of a leak probe, Attorney General Eric Holder said he was “not sure” how many similar cases of snooping on reporters he had authorized. A number of top American journalists have commented in recent days on how draconian leak prosecutions and the practice of spying on reporters is damaging legitimate journalism, causing a chilling effect that prevents sources and whistleblowers from ever coming forward.

[American Patriot]

you'll have to go to the link to see it all...

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013...-fox-reporter/


The 5 Most Interesting (and Creepy) Things From the Affidavit Detailing the Government’s Monitoring of a Fox Reporter

May. 20, 2013 3:33pm Erica Ritz

Photo: Fox News Insider



On Sunday night, the Washington Post revealed that the United States Department of Justice has been investigating Fox News’ chief Washington correspondent James Rosen, just weeks after it was revealed the government had secretly seized two months of phone records of Associated Press reporters and editors.


In the case of Rosen, the government apparently suspected that Rosen was receiving classified information from a State Department security adviser named Stephen Jin-Woo Kim. They tracked Rosen’s comings and goings from the State Department, his phone calls, and obtained a search warrant to read his personal emails.


Now that the Washington Post has released a purported court affidavit from the case, we are learning even more about some of the spy movie-style efforts that whistleblowers are taking to avoid detection, and that the government knows all regardless.


The affidavit only refers to “the reporter” as “the subject,” never stating his name. But the Washington Post says Rosen’s identity “was confirmed by several officials, and Fox News executive vice president of news Michael Clemente has also commented on the matter, saying they are “outraged to learn today that James Rosen was named a criminal co-conspirator for simply doing his job as a reporter.”


“In fact, it is downright chilling,” Clemente added. “We will unequivocally defend his right to operate as a member of what up until now has always been a free press.”
Here are five of the most interesting (and chilling) things we learned from the recently-released court affidavit for a search warrant, written by FBI agent Reginald Reyes.

1) Rosen and Kim spoke on coded emails, calling each other “Leo” and “Alex,” respectively. According to the Washington Post, it seems to be a reference to Alexander Butterfield, “the man best known for running the secret recording system in the Nixon White House.”


Here is one excerpt of an email included in the affidavit, written by “the reporter”:




(Photo: Affidavit for Search Warrant via the Washington Post)

And the FBI agent’s note:

(Photo: Affidavit for Search Warrant via the Washington Post)

2) Not only that, but the reporter and Kim apparently used secretive methods to determine when to meet. According to the affidavit, an email would have one asterisk if the meeting was “on,” or two if it had to be cancelled or postponed.


A clip of an email from the reporter indicates this is standard protocol:

(Photo: Affidavit for Search Warrant via the Washington Post)

3) The government cross-referenced the times and duration of phone calls with Kim’s activity on his government-issued computer, concluding that Kim was either reading Rosen classified information as he saw it, or doing so soon after closing the windows.




(Photo: Affidavit for Search Warrant via the Washington Post)



4) Kim was interviewed by the FBI on March 29, 2010, where he made a number of statements that the FBI categorized as either a confession or “near confession.”
In one of those statements, Kim claims the reporter took advantage of him, saying he might have “succumbed to flattery without knowing it” and was “exploited like a rag doll.”


Here is a screen shot from the affidavit of one of Kim’s related statements:

(Photo: Affidavit for Search Warrant via the Washington Post)

5) In addition to obtaining nearly all emails between Kim and Rosen, the government also seized two days of Rosen’s personal emails. Here are some of the other requests they made (“subject account” means Rosen’s email):

(Photo: Affidavit for Search Warrant via the Washington Post)

Read the affidavit in its entirety, below:

And here’s more on the story from Fox News:
Related:

[American Patriot]

What freedom of press? Holder DOJ searched James Rosen’s private email via warrant

By Robert Laurie (Bio and Archives) Monday, May 20, 2013

UPDATE: Megyn Kelly is now reporting that James Rosen wasn’t alone. At least 3 Fox News staffers including Rosen, reporter William La Jeunesse, and Producer Mike Levine were targeted for investigation…..developing….


This morning, the Washington Post is reporting that, in 2009, the increasingly improperly named “Department of Justice” targeted FoxNews’ senior Washington correspondent for investigation. The revelation indicates that James Rosen fell under scrutiny while the Obama administration was trying to expose a leak in the State Department. The matter involved a classified report about North Korean nuclear tests which a State Department security adviser was suspected of handing to the media back in 2009.

According to an affidavit obtained by the WaPo, the DOJ tracked Rosen’s security badge and traced the timing of his phone calls with the adviser. All of that is perfectly normal. Any administration trying to stop leaks would do the same. However, they didn’t stop there.


The DOJ then obtained a search warrant so they could rifle through all of Rosen’s private emails.


In short, Eric Holder’s Department of Justice took the extraordinary step of portraying standard journalistic practices as “criminal conspiracy,” in order to get access to Rosen’s personal correspondence.


This morning, Brit Hume appeared with Martha MacCallum on America’s Newsroom to discuss the issue. He summed it up pretty well.

“Which means,” Hume said. “That the Obama/Holder Justice Department is now prepared to treat the ordinary news gathering activities of reporters trying to seek information from government officials - as a possible crime. That is…. I’m not saying it’s unprecedented because I haven’t researched this, but I can’t think of a case in which that’s ever happened before. It kind of takes the whole AP thing and casts a new light on that - of the attitude of this Justice Department - toward the news gathering activities of 1st Amendment protected organizations.”


So there you have it. Investigate your government, and the DOJ will consider you an “aider, abettor, and possible co-conspirator” of its enemies.


Nothing creepy about that.

[American Patriot]

White House Reporters Grill Jay Carney Over James Rosen Scandal

The Huffington Post | By Rebecca Shapiro Posted: 05/20/2013 3:15 pm EDT | Updated: 05/20/2013 3:26 pm EDT






Jay Carney stepped into yet another tense press briefing room on Monday, parrying angry questions about The Washington Post's bombshell report that the Department of Justice targeted yet another reporter.


Last week, Carney navigated three government scandals including the ongoing hearings into Benghazi, the IRS targeting Tea Party groups, and the Department of Justice secretly obtaining months of phone records from at least seven individual AP journalists across 20 phone lines.


On Monday, the Post reported that the Justice Department targeted Fox News reporter James Rosen. The Justice Department suspected that Rosen spoke with State Department contractor Stephen Jin-Woo Kim for a story about North Korea's nuclear program. Kim was charged with violating the Espionage Act in August 2010. The Justice Department also kept tabs on Rosen's coming and goings inside the State Department and the timing of his phone calls with Jin-Woo. It also obtained a search warrant for the Fox News reporter's personal emails, which was justified by labeling Rosen "either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator."


After addressing the IRS scandal, Carney was asked about Rosen. The press secretary echoed -- almost verbatim -- his comments from last week when asked about the AP scandal. He said the president was "a strong defender of the First Amendment and a firm believer in the needs of the press to obtain information." He added that the administration took leaks "very seriously because leaks can endanger the lives of men and women serving in uniform overseas." He pointed to the president's support for a federal shield law, legislation for which the administration asked Sen. Chuck Schumer to reintroduce last week.


Reporters tried to appeal to Carney's decades-long career in journalism, asking him how he could condone the Rosen investigation as a "former reporter." Carney refused to bite. When continuously pressed by CBS News' Major Garrett, he returned to his go-to response:


"I cannot, of course, comment on a specific ongoing investigation."

[American Patriot]

Eugene Robinson: Obama camp has no business targeting journalists



May 20, 2013 3:25 PM |


The Obama administration has no business rummaging through journalists’ phone records, perusing their emails and tracking their movements in an attempt to keep them from gathering news. This heavy-handed business isn’t chilling, it’s just plain cold.


It also may well be unconstitutional. In my reading, the First Amendment prohibition against “abridging the freedom ...of the press” should rule out secretly obtaining two months’ worth of the personal and professional phone records of Associated Press reporters and editors, including calls to and from the main AP phone number at the House press gallery in the Capitol. Yet this is what the Justice Department did.


The unwarranted snooping, which was revealed last week, would be troubling enough if it were an isolated incident. But it is part of a pattern that threatens to redefine investigative reporting as criminal behavior.


The Washington Post reported Monday that the Justice Department secretly obtained phone and email records for Fox News reporter James Rosen, and that the FBI even tracked his movements in and out of the main State Department building. Rosen’s only apparent transgression? Doing what reporters are supposed to do, which is to dig out the news.


In both instances, prosecutors were trying to build criminal cases under the 1917 Espionage Act against federal employees suspected of leaking classified information. Before President Obama took office, the Espionage Act had been used to prosecute leakers a grand total of three times, including the 1971 case of Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. Obama’s Justice Department has used the act six times. And counting.


Obviously, the government has a duty to protect genuine secrets. But the problem is that every administration, without exception, tends to misuse the “Top Secret” stamp -- sometimes from an overabundance of caution, sometimes to keep inconvenient or embarrassing information from coming to light.


That’s where journalists come in. Our job, simply, is to find out what the government doesn’t want you to know.

Sometimes reporters come across information whose disclosure would genuinely put national security at risk. When officials appeal to news organizations on such grounds, editors listen.

The case involving The Associated Press is a good example. The story at issue, published last May, involved details of a CIA operation in Yemen that foiled a terrorist plot to bomb an airliner. AP chief executive Gary Pruitt said on “Face the Nation” that the news service agreed to hold the story after administration officials warned publication would threaten security. The AP published only after officials from two government entities said the threat no longer existed, according to Pruitt.

Ironically, this was a story of success in the fight against terrorism. I have to wonder whether the administration’s real aim is to find out who leaked this bit of good news -- or to discourage potential leaks of not-so-rosy news in the future.

The Fox News case is even worse. At issue is a 2009 story about how North Korea was expected to react to a U.N. Security Council resolution criticizing the rogue nation’s nuclear tests. The Justice Department is prosecuting Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, then an analyst working for the State Department, for allegedly leaking to Fox reporter Rosen a report about what North Korea was thought likely to do.

Prosecutors examined Rosen’s phone records, read his emails and, using the electronic record left by his security badge, even tracked when he entered and left the State Department building. How did officials justify such snooping? By asserting in an FBI affidavit, according to the Post, that Rosen broke the law “at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator.”

In other words, since there is no law that makes publishing this classified information illegal, the Justice Department claims that obtaining the information was a violation of the Espionage Act.

Rosen has not been charged. Every investigative reporter, however, has been put on notice.

If this had been the view of prior administrations, surely Bob Woodward would be a lifer in some federal prison. The cell next door might be occupied by my Post colleague Dana Priest, who disclosed the CIA’s network of secret prisons. Or by The New York Times’ James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, who revealed the National Security Agency’s eavesdropping program.

A federal “shield” law protecting reporters from having to divulge their sources means nothing if it includes an exception for cases involving national security, as Obama favors. The president needs to understand that behavior commonly known as “whistleblowing” and “journalism” must not be construed as espionage.

[vector7]

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

May. 20, 2013 6:44pm Jason Howerton

• 380

Washington Times columnist and Drudge Report editor 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.”

Citing a “CIA source,” Curl claimed via his official Twitter account that the Fox News scandal was the “4th Shoe” and the White House is sitting on “something” that has top White House aides “terrified.”

CIA source says Fox News scandal the "4th Shoe"; says it goes much deeper; says WH also sitting on "something" that has top aides terrified.May 20, 2013 3:40pm via Twitter for iPadReplyRetweetFavorite

@josephcurlJoseph Curl



... says only a few in WH know that "something" -- "It's been deep sixed, like Osama bin Laden." Will there be a Fifth Shoe?! #ImeldaObamaabout 23 hours ago via Twitter for iPadReplyRetweetFavorite

@josephcurlJoseph Curl



"Uh, this your captain. Buckle up, Mr. President. Gonna' be a bumpy ride. Pretty socked in by this fog of scandal." http://t.co/GXBAmnfwDpabout 23 hours ago via Twitter for iPadReplyRetweetFavorite

@josephcurlJoseph Curl



TheBlaze will continue to monitor this story for additional details.
(H/T: Weasel Zippers)

[American Patriot]

Interesting.

We have aliens wearing many shoes now....?

LOL

I can't WAIT to see what drops next.

[vector7]

White House: "The Law is Irrelevant"

Guy Benson | May 20, 2013

• Comments 161

Dan Pfeiffer evidently drew the short straw at the White House over the weekend. He was thrust into the unenviable role of top administration mouthpiece on the Sunday morning chat shows, with scandal sharks circling. The RNC notices that one of Pfeiffer's go-to maneuvers to avoid a question he didn't like was to dismiss it as "irrelevant."

CBS News' Bob Schieffer asked Pfeiffer about the White House's pattern of deploying spokespeople who aren't equipped to discuss specifics on Benghazi.

Amb. Susan Rice -- who knew next to nothing about the Benghazi attacks before she was sent out to publicly recite false talking points -- comes to mind, of course, but Schieffer also had someone else in mind.

"Why didn't the White House Chief of Staff come out, and I mean this as no disrespect to you, why are you here today?

Why isn't the White House Chief of Staff here to tell us what happened?” he asked. Ouch. Pfeiffer's response was weak:

[vector7]

I guess...

It’s Okay Because He’s Black


by John Galt
May 20, 2013 17:45 EDT


I am officially now a racist according to the media, politically correct, and terminally stupid. I disagree with the path that our nation is on, the actions taken since 2004 in our country but even more so since 2009, and worse, I have this nasty tendency to tell it like I see it and that of course means I am a biased bigot to those who disagree.


Shortly after assuming office, the current and unfortunate President of the United States engaged in a daring act of state power outside of the limits of the United States Constitution by nationalizing General Motors and Chrysler Motors in June of 2009. The preplanned bankruptcy was declared as necessary by the administration to ensure the survival of these corporations as too many jobs were at stake despite the collapse of much larger threats to the nation’s economy in 2008. Within the restructuring of the automotive manufacturers seized by the Federal Government, the bondholders sued and took the case on the fast track to the United States Supreme Court which rejected their plea despite a valid complaint of violation of their 4th and 5th Amendment rights. The excuse of basically giving the remains of the corporations and the controlling interest to the United Auto Workers and Fiat was that the extraordinary economic circumstances justified this thievery while rewarding the various contributors who helped Obama win the Presidency in 2008. The true free market capitalists complained far and wide about this unconstitutional action but their voices were drowned out by the media with one refrain:


It’s okay, because he’s black....

Even he makes that claim now:

[vector7]

Feds Tracked FOX Reporter’s Movements, Personal E-Mail in Criminal Conspiracy Investigation

• By Kim Zetter
• 05.20.13
• 3:52 PM

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has been in the hot seat over the Justice Department’s decision to sign off on a subpoena that helped the feds seize the phone records of AP Reporters. Photo: USDAgov / Flickr

In an effort to unmask a leaker who fed a reporter classified information about North Korea, FBI investigators tracked the journalist’s movements in and out of a government building, obtained copies of e-mails from his personal account and also took the unprecedented step of alleging that the reporter engaged in a criminal conspiracy simply for doing his job.

Investigators tracked the reporter’s movement using security badge access records as he left and returned to the State Department’s headquarters in Washington, DC, and also obtained two days’ worth of e-mail correspondence from his Gmail account.

The FBI took the aggressive steps in 2009 against Fox News reporter James Rosen, the news outlet’s chief Washington, DC correspondent, over a story Rosen published online in June that year, according to the Washington Post.

“Never in the history of the Espionage Act has the government accused a reporter of violating the law for urging a source to disclose information,” Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project said in a statement. “This is a dangerous precedent that threatens to criminalize routine investigative journalism.”

The revelations come in an affidavit filed in an investigation against a State Department security adviser who is accused of leaking classified information to Rosen.

Although investigators had already zeroed in on Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, an employee of Lawrence Livermore National Lab and a security adviser to the State Department, as the suspect, and had examined Kim’s computer and e-mails, federal investigators took the unprecedented step of telling a judge that Rosen was also a suspect in a criminal conspiracy to obtain classified information through Kim in order to obtain access to his Gmail account.

According to the affidavit (.pdf), FBI Agent Reginald Reyes told the judge there was probable cause to believe that Rosen had violated the Espionage Act by serving “as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator” in the leak. The federal judge found there was probable cause to believe that Rosen was a co-conspirator and approved the warrant.

It’s the first time the Obama administration has accused a U.S. journalist of breaking the law in relation to a leak investigation. The Espionage Act is the same law that former Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning is accused of violating when he leaked information to the secret-spilling site WikiLeaks.

The revelations about the Rosen investigation come in the wake of earlier news reports that federal investigators obtained the phone records of journalists for the Associated Press for a leak investigation into a different story published last year about a CIA operation in Yemen that halted an al-Qaida plot to detonate a bomb on an airplane headed to the U.S.

The new revelation adds to growing concerns that the Obama administration is bent on an aggressive campaign that not only is likely to stifle whistleblowers but also will stifle the press and its ability to properly perform the oversight role established by the Constitution.

In the AP investigation, the feds seized records for 20 separate phone lines, including the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, the general phone lines for AP bureaus in New York, Washington and Hartford, Connecticut, and a main number used by AP reporters in the House of Representatives. They did so with the approval of the Justice Department, which has insisted it followed its internal rules in signing off on the subpoena used to obtain the records.

In the AP case, the feds used an administrative subpoena to obtain the phone records, instead of a probable cause warrant, as they did in the Fox News case, which requires a judge’s approval.

The investigation of Rosen began shortly after his story published in June 2009. In the article, Rosen reported that U.S. intelligence officials had obtained information that North Korea was likely planning to respond to United Nations sanctions over its nuclear activities with more nuclear tests. The information had come from a classified report distributed to the intelligence community the morning Rosen published his story.

According to the FBI affidavit, the report was distributed electronically to a small group within the intelligence community through a classified database. At least 95 people accessed the report, including Kim. But investigators found evidence that only one of those people, Kim, also had contact with Rosen on that day, though at least four others had contact with the reporter at other times.

Reyes told the judge that there was reason to believe that Kim had handed off the report to Rosen the day Rosen’s story broke. According to forensic evidence of his computer, Kim accessed the report online several times the morning it was distributed. About fifteen minutes after he accessed it last at 11:48am, Kim allegedly left the State Department building to meet with Rosen to discuss the report. Phone records also show that he and Rosen had several brief phone conversations prior to the report being released and during the time that Kim had the report open on his computer.

Rosen worked out of a press booth at the State Department and, like government employees, used a security badge to enter the building. When investigators examined access records for Kim’s and Rosen’s security badges on the day the story published, they discovered that the two left and entered the State Department building within minutes of each other, suggesting they had gone outside for a private meeting to discuss the classified report.

“Mr. Kim departed DoS at or around 12:02 p.m. followed shortly thereafter by The Reporter at or around 12:03 p.m.; and Mr. Kim returned to DoS at or around 12:26 p.m. followed shortly thereafter by The Reporter at or around 12:30 p.m.,” Reyes wrote in the affidavit.

A few hours later, Rosen published his story.

Kim and Rosen apparently used a covert system designed to conceal their identities. In their email exchanges, the two allegedly used aliases — Rosen referred to himself as “Alex” and to Kim as “Leo.” Reyes notes that Rosen apparently assumed the alias of Alexander Butterfield, the person who was responsible for President Richard Nixon’s secret recording system during his years in the White House.

Rosen and Kim also took other precautions. In one email exchange, Rosen instructed Kim that whenever other individuals wanted to speak with him, they would send a coded message to his Gmail account. “One asterisk means to contact them, or that previously suggested plans for communication are to proceed as agreed; two asterisks means the opposite.”

Despite these attempts at operation-security, Reyes noted that Kim accessed the Yahoo email account he used to communicate with Rose while logged in to his State Department computer, which was part of his undoing. Although Kim had deleted his email exchanges with Rosen, he apparently was unaware that simply moving a document to the trash wouldn’t actually erase it from the computer. Forensic investigators found copies of the emails in the unallocated space of Kim’s computer.

To support his claim that Rosen was involved in a criminal conspiracy, Reyes quoted an email exchange between Kim and Rosen, in which Rosen told him that he was interested in “breaking news ahead of my competitors” and had a particular interest in “what intelligence is picking up.” He also told Kim, “I’d love to see some internal State Department analyses.”

The suggestion is that Rosen broke the law by soliciting information from Kim, something that all journalists do routinely with sources.

Although the Justice Department generally follows stricter rules that limit when it will seek a reporter’s phone records and correspondence, these protections disappear if a journalist is suspected of breaking the law. But it remains to be seen whether a reporter communicating with sources can be prosecuted for seeking information. It’s a question that is at the heart of the government’s investigation against WikiLeaks for publishing documents supplied by Manning. Manning is set to go to trial this summer for his role in leaking thousands of military and State Department documents to WikiLeaks.

A grand jury investigation has also been investigating WikiLeaks for possible prosecution.