The Feed - News That Doesn't Hurt

ccording to ABC, a confidential source says the NSA has been tapping journalists' phones to root out confidential sources. What do you think?

"Doesn't the NSA have other ways of getting to the subscribers-only content?"

Alec Greunman, Fur Trader

Go to The Onion.com for More News

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• #9 Comment from skip3366 
  5/23/06 5:26 PM | Permalink

  After my prior comment, AOL News put an absolutely amazing story as a featured story linked on its main page.  
  
  It is a Reuters story reporting that Osama bin Laden (yes, THAT Osama bin Laden) says that the "20th hijacker" convicted in a U.S. court was innocent, because Osama gave out the assignments and he was not part of them.
  
  I just can't make this stuff up.  For AOL, and the news media, Osama bin Laden is a reliable source (not under oath, and without cross-examination yet).  Yes, I am willing to state it directly:  For all intents and purposes, AOL News and Reuters are acting as agents of Osama bin Laden to put out his propaganda (in an admirably unbiased story, as if Osama is the same as the Pope making a statment being quoted--President Bush should only wish for such an unbiased story, which doesn't imply he is a liar or a murderer or both).
  
  The point here is that this puts a pretty differenct light on the ABC story.  It appears that the best way to catch Osama bin Laden might be through journalists.  
• #8 Comment from skip3366 
  5/23/06 4:37 PM | Permalink

  I think, as I have shown repeatedly in my AOL Blog, The Maverick Conservative, including today's entry on an unscionable Fox News story trashing the Duke rape accuser, that NO ONE should EVER believe ANY story based on anonymous sources, including this ABC story.   Forget the reporter.  The SOURCE ALWAYS has an agenda.  Yet the news media lets (encourages) these people to hide
  behind a mask and fire missles.  It is malicious gossip--not factual news.
  
  By the way, if a reporter happens to call a terrorist "a confidential source", good luck.  You wouldn't have my sympathy.  And if you can get a court order to tap a reporter's phone to discoer who is committing the CRIME of revealing classified information, I would go for that too (I wouldn't like this without a court order).
  
  Sports Illustrated allowed confidential sources to hide behind a mask and consign Mike Price, then football coach at Alabama, to a fate worse than death.  I know, because that fate was to end up coach of UTEP, in El Paso where I live.  So much for the guarantee of our Constitution to be able to confront the witnesses against us.
• #7 Comment from johnmac665 
  5/23/06 10:13 AM | Permalink

  I'm waiting for the NSA spy case against a cheerleading team, because someone in Government thought those cheerleaders were just too sexy for their own good (you know, sponsored militia team until they put out for someone in Government).  Texas, before, has seen people in Government attempting to ban cheerleading and cheerleading dances because those young women are just too sexy.  I have even been banned on a message board for claiming the Country Music singer Sara Evans is beautiful, because the person in command of the delete button declared it immoral to call any Country Music star sexy.  The complaint, she is a woman, how dare you?  Sara Evans was profaned by someone as someone who is public, the person did this to himself.  This does give unlimited First Amendment rights credibility because people weasel and profane the issues, a common trait under England before the Revolution where you had to lie to get any case through, because they would not hear many cases, so definition changes were common, including by the judge and jury.  (I have read something about Sigmund Freud, and when people do this then their fantasy is very personal with pubic people, and Sara Evans is only for someone as the fantasy wife--this is the United States and bookstores are full of romance, sci-fi, and fiction, and fantasy is not new here, but it does not stop the personal attitude problem in a nation of about 280,000,000 people).  What is the NSA fantasy?  Recording your coffee meeting?  To be the Wizard of Oz is a lot of flash, image, and then knowing all of the information for manipulation, and Presidents are not the Good Witch.
  
  
• #6 Comment from johnmac665 
  5/22/06 9:46 PM | Permalink

  The NSA had better show up with a warrant.  The whole point of the Fourth Amendment, inter alia, is the protection of the individual from an abusive government.  People naturally repress each other in society where in our desires with each other conflict creates government, order, laws, and people wanting to be extra special who will add that extra law until we are under tyranny.  With civil rights that start with the Constitution for the United States we have protection from each other's abusive intentions as we each face each other in the public with our own needs, wants, contracts, and gratifications.  The United States is a free nation of a nation of laws, and not a nation of men.  The personal power of men is under law, and law is the standard to guide our morality: this is not an option in the United States.  Any NSA wiretap against any United States citizen is illegal, immoral, violation of the Constitution for the United States, treason, sedition, and possibly rebellion unless the courts of law have been observed and produce a warrant with a public record of the act.  The Constitution for the United States gives war time clauses, but only by an act of Congress, and Congress must be specific, because of the Cold War that left the United States in a national security issue for over sixty years: our civil rights are not subject to arbitrary whim because in war we must defeat the enemy, and otherwise we are not at war.  Is the enemy being targeted and defeated, or are we going to contradict our own law?
  
• #5 Comment from lascondes 
  5/22/06 5:20 PM | Permalink

  The value of individual freedoms is only relevant when we live in a country free of threats and terrorism.  I believe that the government must do whatever it takes to ensure our safety.  If spying on journalists or anyone else for that matter is necessary, let it be it.  I value my safety and my life much more than my freedom of speech and privacy.  If citizens, including journalists live decent honorable lives, what are they worried about?  They are certainly not above the law.  Let our government enforcement agencies do their job - whatever it takes!