DOJ Tactics Against AP Raise Concerns For The New York Times
NEW YORK –- When Attorney General Eric Holder took reporters' questions Tuesday afternoon, several asked about the Justice Department’s sweeping seizure of Associated Press phone records, a move condemned by prominent journalists, media outlets and civil liberties advocates.
New York Times reporter Charlie Savage had a different question for Holder, who had just announced he'd recused himself from the AP leak investigation. "Are you also recused from the Stuxnet investigation out of Maryland?" Savage asked. Holder declined to comment, as the Times noted in Tuesday's story. The DOJ also didn't comment on that other leak investigation to the Times for a Monday story on the AP seizure. Times reporters had asked "whether a similar step was taken" in the secretly obtaining journalists records in the Maryland investigation.
The Times has reason to be concerned about whether investigators are using similar tactics. The Maryland case is believed to be focused on Times chief Washington correspondent David Sanger’s reporting on how the U.S. and Israel helped derail Iran’s nuclear program through cyberattacks. Sanger’s June scoop, along with the Times’ front-page article on Obama’s terrorist “kill list,” spurred Congressional calls to investigate the leaks of classified information.
Journalists have long feared a chilling effect resulting from the Obama administration's unprecedented number of prosecutions in leak cases. The seizure of two months worth of AP journalists phone records has only heightened concerns as the Maryland case continues.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/2013/05/15/doj-new-york-times-ap_n_3280392.html
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