Posted on 05/21/2013 9:45:27 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Well, you know how it is. When a reporter misbehaves, an administration sometimes has to call his parents or, just seize their phone logs.
Bret Baier revealed Tuesday that, according to Department of Justice documents, one of the numbers listed in DOJs demands also relate to James parents home in Staten Island. I cant yet find a Fox follow-up story on the revelation, but the Staten Island area code, 718, shows up twice in DOJs filing in the Stephen Jin-Woo Kim case. The documents are posted here by the New Yorker.
Here is the Special Report panel discussion that ends with Baiers report:
Ryan Lizza also reports on the widening scope of Fox News numbers the DOJ targeted:
In all, Ronald C. Machen, Jr., the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, has seized records associated with over thirty different phone numbers. In the filing that included the new information, the last four digits of each telephone line targeted by the Obama Administration is redacted. Two of the numbers begin with area code 202 and the exchange 456, which, according to current and former Administration officials, are used exclusively by the White House. (The phone number for the White House switchboard is (202) 456-1414.)
At least five other numbers targeted by the government include the area code 202 and the exchange 824. The phone number for the Fox News Washington bureau, which is publicly available, is (202) 824-0001. Rosens work phone number at Fox News begins with the same area code and exchange.
It looks like the seizures were more detailed for Rosen than for White House lines also included in the documents:
The document uncovered today suggests the government seized call detail records from Rosens work and cell phones, which would show whom he called, who called him, how long they spoke, and the times of the calls. The document suggests that the government was seeking only the subscriber records for the two White House numbers targeted, information that a government source said would include the name of the official who used the specific line.
Well, how else would you get to his parents? Im sure well hear more soon about exactly which reporters and producers these numbers belonged to none of which were informed, despite that being standard operating procedure. And, who knows where else the DOJ has had its hands?
I leave you with the lovely KP, pondering how we got here:
First they came for Fox News, and they did not speak outbecause they were not Fox News. Then they came for government whistleblowers, and they did not speak outbecause they were not government whistleblowers. Then they came for the maker of a YouTube video, andokay, we know how this story ends. But how did we get here?
Turns out its a fairly swift sojourn from a president pushing to delegitimize a news organization to threatening criminal prosecution for journalistic activity by a Fox News reporter, James Rosen, to spying on Associated Press reporters. In between, the Obama administration found time to relentlessly persecute government whistleblowers and publicly harass and condemn a private American citizen for expressing his constitutionally protected speech in the form of an anti-Islam YouTube video.
Where were the media when all this began happening? With a few exceptions, they were acting as quiet enablers.
Its instructive to go back to the dawn of Hope and Change. It was 2009, and the new administration decided it was appropriate to use the prestige of the White House to viciously attack a news organizationFox Newsand the journalists who work there. Remember, President Obama had barely been in office and had enjoyed the most laudatory press of any new president in modern history. Yet even one outlet that allowed dissent or criticism of the president was one too many. This should have been a red flag to everyone, regardless of what they thought of Fox News. The math was simple: if the administration would abuse its power to try and intimidate one media outlet, what made anyone think they werent next?
I can only imagine the firestorm if during a Republican administration this happened to say a CBS reporter...
Right.
But . . . but that's different . . .
The lead ups to the Russian revolution and it’s aftermath, and Hitler’s rise to power continue to come to mind.
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