WASHINGTON — The FBI acknowledged Monday that it checks records of telephone calls made by government employees as part of criminal investigations of leaks of classified information, but the bureau denied that it routinely tracks calls made to and by reporters.
So how does the FBI justify these searches? Does it get warrants? Well, no, but it’s got something even better:
The FBI can seek warrants and subpoenas from judges and grand juries, either through traditional courts or a secret court established for espionage and terrorism investigations. The bureau also has the power to seek subscribers’ telephone and Internet records without approval of a judge or grand jury in espionage and terrorism cases by issuing a National Security Letter.
The FBI sought information last year on 3,501 U.S. citizens and legal residents through those letters, the Justice Department said last month.
Ongoing government investigations are attempting to determine who leaked the name of a CIA operative in 2003 as well as the existence of the National Security Agency’s warrantless eavesdropping program last year.
Ah, the good old National Security Letter. Thank goodness for the Patriot Act, eh? Without it our poor FBI agents would have no chance to investigate who has been making all those damaging leaks about the Bush administration’s illegal spying.
Of course, leaks are just awful, as we all know, unless they are officially approved leaks. Selected bits of classified information that misleads the American public, or which outs a CIA operative gets the A-Okay from Bush and Cheney. No need to investigate those leaks too closely. But leaks about the following — not so much:
(More below the fold)
Torture approved by Rumsfeld.
Disclosure of memos claiming torture and unlimited detention of terrorist suspects by the US is legal.
Secret Overseas CIA prison camps.
Secret “extraordinary rendition” flights.
The employment of MEK, a terrorist group to operate on our behalf in Iran.
The Pentagon’s war plans for Iran.
Government funded propaganda and disinformation directed at the American people.
Illegal wiretaps and interception of electronic communications of American citizens by the NSA.
Coercion of Telecommunications companies to turn over customer call records to the NSA.
Video of Bush’s briefing on New Orleans.
Illegal government files kept on antiwar and peace groups under the guise of labeling them terrorists.
Suppression of the free speech rights of Government scientists regarding their research.
Supression of EPA data regarding mercury pollution.
Who met with Cheney’s secret Energy Task Force.
In the past a lot of these leaks were never prosecuted to the great embarrassment of the Nixon, Reagan and Bush 1 administrations. Why just imagine what Richard Nixon could have done with the Patriot Act? Deep Throat wouldn’t have had a chance. Under today’s rules he’d surely have been discovered, shipped to Guantanamo and then sent to Syria or Egypt for a little softening up. Just to see what he knew.
As for Woodward and Bernstein, they’d still be in prison serving their life sentences for treason. What if . . .
Thank God Bush has closed up those loop holes to protecting our national security. Now when you leak information (and when you publish it) that hurts the President’s image you have to pay a price. Better not to get involved in any of that investigative journalism in the first place.
Know what I mean?
Government employees’ call records
