U.S. Waged Secret Legal Battle to Obtain Emails of 4 Times Reporters

By artappraiser on Sat, 06/05/2021 - 2:27am |

Breaking: The Justice Department obtained a gag order on top NYT executives in a secret fight over an attempt to seize reporters' email logs from Google -- a fight that began under Trump but continued under Biden. w/ @ktbenner https://t.co/8rkLLClXWy
— Charlie Savage (@charlie_savage) June 5, 2021

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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/04/us/politics/times-reporter-emails-gag-order-trump-google.html

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USA Today resists FBI subpoena seeking data of those who read story about agents’ killing

The FBI is seeking IP addresses and other information of those who accessed an article about a shooting in which two agents were killed.

By Matt Zapotosky @ WashingtonPost.com, June 4

The FBI earlier this year tried to obtain records associated with people who accessed an article on USA Today’s website about the killing of two FBI agents as they tried to search a Florida apartment — sparking a legal fight and once again fueling concerns that federal law enforcement is not following its own guidelines when seeking news outlets’ data.

The bureau’s request to Gannett, which owns USA Today, came in late April but spilled into public view only recently after the company resisted it in court.

FBI agents sent the company a subpoena asking for records, including IP addresses and mobile identification information, of those who accessed a Feb. 2 article about the shooting during a 35-minute window that same day.

The subpoena said the demand related to a criminal investigation and asked USA Today not to disclose its existence “indefinitely.” It was unclear, though, precisely what the FBI was investigating or how electronic records pointing to those who accessed the story might advance that inquiry. The subpoena, which did not seem to seek readers’ names, was previously reported by Politico [....]

by artappraiser on Sat, 06/05/2021 - 2:39am

White House Disavows Knowledge of Gag Order on Times Leaders in Leak Inquiry

The Justice Department also said it was changing its policy to bar seizing reporters’ phone and email records in hunts for their sources.

The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said in a statement that no one at the White House was aware of the gag order until Friday night.Credit...

By Charlie Savage and Katie Benner June 5, 2021 Updated 2:31 p.m. ET

by artappraiser on Sat, 06/05/2021 - 2:28pm

an expert warns:

DOJ has continued a lot of bad conduct after the Trump era. Too many Twitter folks naively think it’s a matter of left vs. right politics. They don’t understand that the institution has its own interests, and there’s something wrong with this institution. It’s a complete mess. https://t.co/ik8fsISYcU
— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) June 5, 2021

by artappraiser on Sat, 06/05/2021 - 6:37pm

On April 6, lawyers for the Times met with four career Justice Department lawyers from the office of the U.S. attorney for D.C. and from the Justice Department’s national security division — Gregg Maisel, Tejpal Chawla, Jay Bratt and Adam Small. https://t.co/hoigSyLBiv @mattzap
— Adam Goldman (@adamgoldmanNYT) June 6, 2021

Bratt was Maisel's deputy at @USAO_DC before heading to main DOJ to run the counterespionage section. https://t.co/RVk8zyBX9i
— Adam Goldman (@adamgoldmanNYT) June 6, 2021

Maisel is chief of national security at @USAO_DC https://t.co/r28HIQrVLw
— Adam Goldman (@adamgoldmanNYT) June 6, 2021

Maisel was nat sec chief when this train wreck happened, helping to lead to the revision of DOJ media guidelines. https://t.co/xHiccnKmzP
— Adam Goldman (@adamgoldmanNYT) June 6, 2021

The A.P. said that the Justice Department informed it on Friday that law enforcement officials had obtained the records for more than 20 telephone lines of its offices and journalists, including their home phones and cellphones.
— Adam Goldman (@adamgoldmanNYT) June 6, 2021

I wrote critically of Maisel's office in 2014 when I was at @washingtonpost. His office tried to argue that I couldnt write the story because prosecutors in the office had subpoenaed my phone records. I wrote the story anyway. https://t.co/bjUfUvY2tA
— Adam Goldman (@adamgoldmanNYT) June 6, 2021

In a long interview, Maisel — along with Machen’s special counsel, Matt Jones, and the office’s spokesman, Bill Miller — offered a robust defense of the D.C. office. They said the team has a strong record on national security, pointing to a string of espionage prosecutions
— Adam Goldman (@adamgoldmanNYT) June 6, 2021

In the story, I disclosed that "prosecutors in the D.C. office secretly subpoenaed the phone records of AP editors and reporters, including Adam Goldman, who had co-written the AP article and now works for The Post."
— Adam Goldman (@adamgoldmanNYT) June 6, 2021

I FOIAed that office to see what prosecutors had said about me in internal emails. I am still waiting for the emails years later. cc: @JasonLeopold
— Adam Goldman (@adamgoldmanNYT) June 6, 2021

by artappraiser on Sun, 06/06/2021 - 12:26am

CNN lawyer David Vigilante describes gag order and secretive process where Justice Department sought reporter's email records - CNNPolitics https://t.co/avp3AIZxij
— Jerry Saltz (@jerrysaltz) June 9, 2021

by artappraiser on Wed, 06/09/2021 - 4:51pm

U.S. Waged Secret Legal Battle to Obtain Emails of 4 Times Reporters

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