[IP] NYT: U.S. Wins Access to Reporter Phone Records

[Brock N. Meeks]

Hail hardy and good f-ing luck to the Feds.

As a reporter I when dealing with sensitive sources I NEVER called
them on a
phone that could be traced to them or myself nor would I ever have
them call
me on a phone that could be traced back to them.

And here I'm talking about sources that handling information that was
classified or "hot" in some big way; not talking about a congressional
staffer or agency employee leaking me a draft copy of a GAO report or
something like that.

I would instruct sources, either during face to face meetings or
"talking"
to a group of potential sources (like law enforcement) in an electronic
forum, to buy phone cards and make calls to me from public phones or
from
disposable cell phones.

I had more than two dozen Federal Air Marshals as sources and they all
communicated with me using phone cards.

Yes, all very James Bond, to be sure.  But for years I was afraid
that just
this sort of thing might happen one day, either legally or illegally.

I know several other reporters that operate like this as well.

--Brock


On 8/2/06 5:28 PM, "David Farber" <dave at farber.net> wrote:

>
>
>Begin forwarded message:
>
>From: Brad Malin <b.malin at vanderbilt.edu>
>Date: August 2, 2006 2:15:42 PM EDT
>To: David Farber <dave at farber.net>
>Subject: NYT: U.S. Wins Access to Reporter Phone Records
>
>If I was going to be a confidential source, I would do so through an
>encrypted channel.
>
>-brad
>
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/02/washington/02phones.html
>
>U.S. Wins Access to Reporter Phone Records
>
>By ADAM LIPTAK
>Published: August 2, 2006
>
>A federal prosecutor may inspect the telephone records of two New
>York Times
>reporters in an effort to identify their confidential sources, a
>federal
>appeals court in New York ruled yesterday.
>
>The 2-to-1 decision, from a court historically sympathetic to claims
>that
>journalists should be entitled to protect their sources, reversed a
>lower
>court and dealt a further setback to news organizations, which have
>lately
>been on a losing streak in the federal courts.
>
>The dissenting judge said that the government had failed to
>demonstrate it
>truly needed the records and that efforts to obtain reportersb phone
>records
>could alter the way news gathering was conducted.
>
><snip>
>
>
>
>-------------------------------------
>You are subscribed as bmeeks at cox.net
>To manage your subscription, go to
>http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip
>
>Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-
>people/



-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as eugen at leitl.org
To manage your subscription, go to
 http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/

----- End forwarded message -----
--
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820            http://www.ativel.com
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

[demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]