FBI to reporters: we snooped on your phone records.
The FBI disclosed today that it had "improperly obtained" phone records of reporters at the Indonesia bureaus for the New York Times and Washington Post in 2004.
Robert S. Mueller III, director of the F.B.I., disclosed the episode in a phone call to Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, and apologized for it. He also spoke with Leonard Downie Jr., the executive editor of The Washington Post, to apologize. F.B.I. officials said the incident came to light as part of the continuing review by the Justice Department inspector general’s office into the bureau’s improper collection of telephone records through “emergency” records demands issued to phone providers. The records were apparently sought as part of a terrorism investigation, but the F.B.I. did not explain what was being investigated or why the reporters’ phone records were considered relevant.F.B.I. Says It Obtained Reporters’ Phone Records (NYT)
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Robert Mueller
Director
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Dear Sir:
Please get your form at http://foia.fbi.gov/foia_request.htm to accept HTTP requests, or just listen to my next call to my mom when I will be making a request under the Freedom of Information Act for the media, transcripts, and other results of recording all reporters who are or would be covered by any shield law or similar first amendment protections in any State.
Thank you.
Also, please put me in for a pardon, thanks.
JS7A, wow, that's amazing. A web form in 2008 that can't allow submissions? I'd accept it more if it were a PDF, but wow.
Wonder if any coders in the FBI know what a DOM tree is? Hint: It's not terrorism.
Have you ever met anyone whose last name was "Downey" that didn't take the "Jr." suffix?
In Phoenix, we had an anchor named Roger Downey. I can't say his name aloud without saying Jr.
#1, It looks like the FBI still use the old logo that was used in 90s arcade games... WINNERS DONT DO DRUGS!
I would call this a nicely executed intimidation move on the FBI's part. Why else would they bring it up of their own initiative?
That is the strangest experience of my life to watch the US citizens do nothing but utter an occasional squeak on some ignored blog while their once respected country auto-destroys at the speed of light.
hey now, I wouldn't call BB an ignored blog.
#7
Not by me or you but certainly by 99.999% of the rest of the world.
Jean
6,684,000,000 humans, maybe 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 read BB regularly. But which two to three million?
How many humans can read at all? How many read English? How many have computers? Leisure? Income? Power? Influence? Consider the USA has 5% of the worlds people. Consider the relative power and influence. BB's readers are global. One grain of sand begins the landslide, every avalanche can ultimately be attributed to one snowflake. You are as powerless as you wish to be.
At times we proclaim, one man can't change the world, and other times, it only takes one bad apple to spoil the whole barrel. This has always perplexed me.
@TAKUAN
I never would have guessed that many. It is interesting then that so few comment and almost always the same people.
@FOETUSNAIL
Interesting remark. May I suggest that the explanation could be entropy, that it is naturally harder to build that to destroy or even just let thing go by themselves?
Jean
not everyone reads the comments.
#10 FoetusNail,
That'a nice perplex. Perhaps it's easier to blame a man than it is to praise him.
''I never would have guessed that many. It is interesting then that so few comment and almost always the same people.''
IAMINNOCENT,
If it were anywhere NEAR that number I would stop commenting! Y'see, I almost got this paranoia thing licked, and....
re-post
"Boing Boing attracts more than 2 million unique visitors to its site each month, and has over 500,000 RSS subscribers. And it now offers Boing Boing TV, which was recently highlighted by CNN, and Boing Boing Gadgets. By Comscore's measure, Boing Boing is among the five most-visited blogs on the web. Technorati's list of most influential blogs -- based on how many other sites link to that blog -- puts Boing Boing at #2. According to Google, more than 600,000 other sites link to Boing Boing. Forbes voted Boing Boing "best of the web" among tech blogs, as did BusinessWeek. AdRants, ad exec veteran Steve Hall's blog, posted an article to the effect that if Boing Boing covers your ad campaign, it's gone viral. 2006 Bloggies winner: Best Group Blog and Lifetime Achievement. 2006 Webby Awards nominee. Named 'Best of the Web 2006' by BusinessWeek. In a 2006 article, The New Yorker described Boing Boing as "a technology blog that is read by geeks the world over."
You're freaking me out a little.
If you just use one hand to shield your eyes, the spotlight won't be quite so dazzling :)
Well, I stuck here for the comments, which are often even wittier than the news themselves.
2 000 000 hey? That's 99.985% of the world who don't read BB. And yet you convinced me to start proofreading my messages...
Buddy66, hang in there: zeros don't count, do they?
J.
takuan, i believe your check is in the mail...
#3: I'm going to assume that at least half of the men whose last name is Downey don't take Jr. as a suffix, but by necessity, take Sr. instead. :)
But they all start as Jrs. and then are upgraded if they have sons.