Armed agents seize records of reporter, Washington Times prepares legal action

[Aimless]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...=all#pagebreak

EXCERPT

Maryland state police and federal agents used a search warrant in an unrelated criminal investigation to seize the private reporting files of an award-winning former investigative journalist for The Washington Times who had exposed problems in the Homeland Security Department's Federal Air Marshal Service.

Reporter Audrey Hudson said the investigators, who included an agent for Homeland's Coast Guard service, took her private notes and government documents that she had obtained under the Freedom of Information Act during a predawn raid of her family home on Aug. 6.

Why not just train agents to NOT do stupid and illegal things

[Khendraja'aro]

Probably means that now every reporter in the US has to get a safe wherein to lock such sensitive files. And encrypt everything.

[Loki]

If I ever want to know whether someone has a gun, what I do is steal all of their work notes and files.

At what point are people going to start blaming Obama for this law enforcement (and intelligence) tendencies to consider themselves above the law? Or the biggest crackdown on leaks in American history?

[Aimless]

It woulda been better if they'd taken all the files rather than taking a very specific set that had to do with her reporting on DHS

[Lewkowski]

Probably means that now every reporter in the US has to get a safe wherein to lock such sensitive files. And encrypt everything.

That's actually of least importance, that civil liberties might have been violated is a bigger issue. In the electronic age physical paper is pretty worthless and the information she obtained under the freedom of information act can just be re-obtained.

[Aimless]

That's actually of least importance, that civil liberties might have been violated is a bigger issue. In the electronic age physical paper is pretty worthless and the information she obtained under the freedom of information act can just be re-obtained.

Sure but the same doesn't necessarily apply to her notes.

[Khendraja'aro]

That's actually of least importance, that civil liberties might have been violated is a bigger issue. In the electronic age physical paper is pretty worthless and the information she obtained under the freedom of information act can just be re-obtained.

You didn't grasp what I said at all, did you?

Do I really have to spell it out for you?

[Dreadnaught]

Not to make this overtly partisan, but I'm honestly surprised the media isn't making a bigger deal of these things. Journalists don't need much these days to fuel a persecution complex, so why so mute when there is arguably some actual persecution? At what point is the NSA narrative and the journalistic persecution narrative going to have a baby?

[LittleFuzzy]

It's the Washington Times, what do you expect? It's just part of the media arm of Sun Myeun Moon's Unification Church.