AP CEO calls records seizure unconstitutional - U.S. News
It's not looking good on 3 Fronts for the President.
What we do Know is Extremely Concerning.
The Adminstration isn't Denying the IRS thing... They are Distancing themselves from it, of course.
As for what it appears the Administation is doing:
"The Justice Department disclosed the seizure of two months of phone records in a letter the AP received May 10. The letter did not state a reason, but prosecutors had said they were conducting a leaks investigation into how the AP learned about an al-Qaeda bomb plot in Yemen before it was made public last year. Pruitt said the AP story contradicted the government's claim at the time there was no terrorist plot."
Not looking good at all...
I'm glad there is some light on this.
I remember when the Bush Administration started seizing phone records en mass. They ran into terrible trouble initially (and got the NYT to sit on the story until after the 2004 election), with John Ashcroft eventually refusing to renew the program because even he said that it was flatly illegal. Problem is, no conservative groups would criticize Bush for his unprecedented destruction of Constitutional priavacy protections (because they tend to care more about their leaders than their principals. Meaning: when a Republican is in the White House, they instinctively defend and rationalize his actions. This is part of Reagan's first commandment that thou shalt never criticize a fellow Republican)
When Obama renewed the Bush Patriot Act, I think he should have faced a primary challenge from the Left. The Left got Bush lite and they let it slide. Obama didn't fight for the public option and has ramped up drone strikes in the middle east. It's a joke. Whoever goes to Washington ends up bending to the filibusters and manufactured scandals until they conform to the same ol' corporate friendly policies. John Galt used to be a victim of government. Now, through considerable lobbying pressure and election funding, he owns government.
Does anyone recall the Bush TIPS Program? This is when the Bush administration called upon Americans to spy on each other and report any suspicious activity to the government. Tragically, the TIPS program didn't stipulate what suspicious activity meant. So the result was that conservatives were reporting people from the Left who criticized the Iraq policy. It was pure Soviet Union whereby the government uses national security as a pretext to crush domestic political opposition. This is also when the Bush administration began intimidating anti-war groups and interfering with their right to assemble. You will recall the comical "Protest Zones" that the Bush Administration set-up, typically in a low-profile area far away from the where a particular event was taking place. And then they used the Patriot Act to track the finances of Eliot Spitzer until the got him. Remember: Spitzer very publicly criticized the Bush Fed for protecting AIGs derivative crimes and also failing to enforce basic lending regulations. Again, pure Soviet Union, meaning: the Bush administration used national security to expand federal surveillance powers not simply to hunt terrorists but to hunt the political opposition. Pure Soviet Union.
Reagan, with Iran-Contra, and Bush with his illegal wiretapping, shredded the Constitution - yet we didn't hear a peep from the rightwing voter. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
