WhatFinger


DOJ treating reporters as criminals?

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



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.

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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.


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