Were Christiane Amanpour’s telephone calls illegally intercepted by the NSA?

In a recent interview with the author of the CIA tell all book,“State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration” NBC’s Andrea Mitchell pointedly asked James Risen if the NSA is sweeping up information about US reporters in it’s illegal spy operation. Risen didn’t seem to know the answer to that question. then she asked a doozie out of the blue:

“MITCHELL: You don’t have any information, for instance, that a very prominent journalist, Christiane Amanpour, might have been eavesdropped upon?”

Risen hadn’t heard about that. Apparently, neither has Amanpour or CNN.

Well, what do we make of this? Just a misplaced rumour? There are 21 members of Congress who seem to think that there just could be something to the report. They have written a letter to the President demanding any information on the matter.

This is just the type of thing we all expected to discover from the NSA spy scandal. Perhaps, if true, it will give the media a good jolt into reality and result in deeper and more truthful reporting of the NSA mess.

The big media companies are still under the influence of the Bush administration, but if reporters begin to feel that thrill of personal fear at the prospect of being under top secret surveillance perhaps we will begin to see more spurts of real reporting.

Raw has this story under “developing” and I’m sure glad that they picked it up. We need to watch this story closely. While Dubya lured all those ex government officials to the White House to “listen” to their advice, (yeah, right) things just may be heating up over the NSA scandal. Stay tuned.

Update [2006-1-5 22:8:50 by Nag]: The Bush government apparently has so many enemy lists and spy programs that they are categorized into subcategories. Thanks to Rumi who mentioned this list and Dada who found the link for me, here’s the info about the list of journalists identified for evesdropping:

“The journalist surveillance program, code named “Firstfruits,” was part of a Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) program that was maintained at least until October 2004 and was authorized by then-DCI Porter Goss. Firstfruits was authorized as part of a DCI “Countering Denial and Deception” program responsible to an entity known as the Foreign Denial and Deception Committee (FDDC).”

Here’s an article from Capitol Hill Blue about Dubya’s extensive dossiers on political enemies that could number 10,000! I have a feeling that this is just the tip of the iceburg.

Update [2006-1-6 8:36:56 by Nag]: “Firstfruits”

When I first tried to search the term “Firstfruits”, the term given to the surveillance of reporters, all I could find were religious references. I have since gone back and looked at some of those links and have discovered that “Firstfruits” refers to the Jewish feast day that takes place the day after Sabbath during the week of Unleavened Bread, or Passover. The offering of firstfruits consisted of the first juice and ripe produce of the season, and the firstborn of every household was to be offered to God.

Firstfruits is third of seven feasts of Isreal said to be “shadow prophecies”; firstfruits foreshadows the resurrection of Jesus, the Lamb of God, the ultimate Passover sacrifice.

Now why would a secret surveillance program involving journalists be called “Firstfruits”? Are the journalists to be offered as sacrifices in order to form a Christian government in the US? The more I think about this the more bizarre it seems. If anyone has any ideas on this, fire away. I think that the connection is not accidental and could be another perversion of faith by the wacko Christian right that is operating out of the White House.