NSA May Be Tracking Phone Records of Reporters

The NSA domestic spying programs are so easy to abuse, it's impossible to trust the Bush Administration on the issue. Given the secrecy surrounding NSA domestic spying programs and the probably illegal nature of the wiretaps and data collection on average Americans, one has to take seriously the possibility that some uncomfirmed but disturbing stories about the NSA may in fact be correct. Here's a story from Raw Story about ABC News:

ABC News' press office just sent out this release to news organizations, RAW STORY has learned. The story has been posted at the ABC NEWS blog (Read here).

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ABC's Brian Ross and Richard Esposito Report:

A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we call in an effort to root out confidential sources.

"It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation.

We do not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.

Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.

Let's remember what the CIA leak stories have largely been. They have largely been about the lies and wrongdoing of the Bush Administration. Without whistleblowers, our democracy can't function. We cannot always be certain that our most secretive agencies are not being politicized or manipulated for political or even financial gain (see the many stories revolving around the Foggo investigation). Most of the leaks coming out of the CIA are by people trying to protect the integrity of our nation's intelligence system. The White House leak that led to the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson was not about protecting the integrity of our nation's intelligence system, it was about discrediting Joe Wilson who happened to be telling the truth; and there is growing reason to believe that the outing of Ms. Wilson was also about punishing CIA leakers who were blowing the whistle on Bush's phony case for war with Iraq which involved far more than the famous sixteen words involving the now discredited claim about a Niger/Iraq uranium connection.

Without the protection of the First Amendment, whistleblowers are limited if the people they complain to are also part of the problem (Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has spent far too much of his time justifying unnecessary and certainly illegal and counterproductive secrecy); and whistleblowers are also limited if officials are bypassing normal oversight (not getting warrants through the FISA courts, as an example). Whistleblowers need reporters and we need reporters who shine a bright light on the functioning of our government even if it means using leaks from whistleblowers.

Abusing government agencies to cover up one's wrongdoing is impeachable behavior and the American people better start taking this stuff more seriously whether it leads to impeachment or simply holding Bush Administration officials accountable to the law. There is nothing abstract about completely turning a democratic government over to cronies, political hacks and corrupt officials. No amount of political spin can hide the damage Bush has done to this country in his first five years. But the longer Bush and his friends get away with their nonsense, the greater the price Americans will be paying down the road.