ABC Might Be Target of Leak Investigation
By AJStrata on Leak Investigations
The Strata-Sphere
Mac Ranger’s summer of fun with the fourth estate may be perculating a bitter stronger now. Mac has been hearing behind the scenes that the investigations started when the NSA Terrorist Surveillance Program will bear fruit this summer.
Is it possible the NSA phone database story was a red herring, put out to leakers and reporters in order to make them break cover? The story, if true, definitely provided some important information on how to evade detection. It seems one target may be Brian Ross from ABC News. Ross has a record of exposing national security information to our enemies at left wing sites. His bio is impressive, but he seems to be a Woodward and Bernstein wannabe. He has high level sources inside the government:
<<< Through his investigative reports, Ross has exposed corruption at all levels of government, changed domestic laws and prompted reforms abroad. Among his recent work is a three-part series on the existence of secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe where top al Qaeda figures were held.
…
Among several exclusive reports, Ross was the first reporter to name Mohammed Atta and describe him as the ringleader of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. He was also the first to report on Zacarias Moussaoui’s alleged role in the attacks and his questioning by the FBI prior to September 11.
…
Ross solidified his reputation for investigative reporting by breaking stories such as the 1980 ABSCAM story, for which he was honored with a National Headliner Award. His exclusive report in March 1990 about Iraq trying to buy trigger mechanisms for nuclear weapons just months before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait made headlines worldwide. >>>
Those are impressive scoops he is being fed. Ross has a website called The Blotter where Mac Ranger has been detecting some indications that Ross is getting tipped off about the investigation. One thing is for sure, his sources aren’t drying up just yet.
The funny thing is how Ross is dealing with the phone records investigation. When he was alerted by what appears to be a source in the FBI, he went all paraniod thinkg it was part of the NSA wiretapping hysteria. I could not help chuckling as I wrote this post about how Ross must never have seen a phone bill to see the calls records you can get. The government can get the records for their own phones, as Ross later reported on his blog:
<<< Statement by the FBI:
The impression left by the ABC News report is misleading. In specific cases, after receiving a referral from the Department of Justice, the FBI will take logical investigative steps to determine if a criminal act was committed by a government employee by the unauthorized release of classified information. In such cases, investigators may examine the telephone records of government agencies. In any case where the records of a private person are sought, they may only be obtained through established legal process. >>>
That must have been a big mouthful of humble pie for Ross to swallow. But Ross appears to be reporting on the investigation into ABC and posibbly himself:
<<< The FBI acknowledged late Monday that it is increasingly seeking reporters’ phone records in leak investigations.
“It used to be very hard and complicated to do this, but it no longer is in the Bush administration,” said a senior federal official.
The acknowledgement followed our blotter item that ABC News reporters had been warned by a federal source that the government knew who we were calling.
The official said our blotter item was wrong to suggest that ABC News phone calls were being “tracked.”
“Think of it more as backtracking,” said a senior federal official. >>>
If Ross and reporters were calling government office phones, those calls are tracked like all the calls to anyone’s house are. It is a little late now to complain that phone records might be the bread crumbs the FBI and others use to find the leakers. What disturbs me are Ross’s sources on the inside giving him the heads up and possibly telling him how to avoid detection. That is obstruction of justice and not a trivial crime.
Another FBI related Ross story here regarding FBI failures leading to 9-11. Not sure what to make of all this?
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