FBI spied on Fox News reporter, accused him of crime

What is this? The Gestapo?  I guess the despicable Joe Soptic ads and watching Paul Ryan pushing grandma off a cliff in her wheelchair were just the tip of the iceberg.  Now we are getting a better feel for the depth of their... shall we say "improprieties". This administration is inundated with corruption from top to bottom and is lying through its teeth? In the manner of testimony  they're  all in concert. When asked a question the go to response is..."I don't know".    

Solyndra, Fast and Furious, Voter intimidation, MF Global, Benghazi, IRS, AP Wiretapping, etc. 

How many additional scandals must occur before Congress appoints a Special Prosecutor?

  BTW...they ought to try "Stedman" for terrorism. He's gotten more people killed then Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

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WASHINGTON — The FBI obtained a sealed search warrant to read a Fox News reporter's personal emails from two days in 2010 after arguing there was probable cause he had violated espionage laws by soliciting classified information from a government official, court papers show.

In an affidavit, an FBI agent told a federal magistrate that the reporter had committed a crime when he asked a State Department security contractor, Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, to share secret material about North Korea in June 2009.

The affidavit did not name the reporter, but Fox News identified him as its chief Washington correspondent, James Rosen. He was not charged, but Kim was indicted on espionage charges in August 2010 and is awaiting trial. He has denied leaking classified information.

The case marks the first time the government has gone to court to portray news gathering as espionage, and Fox News officials and 1st Amendment advocates reacted angrily Monday after the secret warrant was reported by the Washington Post.

"We are outraged to learn today that James Rosen was named a criminal co-conspirator for simply doing his job as a reporter," said Michael Clemente, Fox News executive vice president of news. "In fact, it is downright chilling. We will unequivocally defend his right to operate as a member of what up until now has always been a free press."

The development emerged days after the Justice Department notified the Associated Press that the agency used a subpoena last year to obtain phone company records for 20 telephone lines used by more than 100 reporters and editors in three cities. The subpoena was pursuant to a grand jury investigation of an alleged leak of classified information about an Al Qaeda plot to bomb a U.S. aircraft.

Neither Fox News nor the Associated Press was told in advance about the government actions or had a chance to challenge them in court, the usual practice. The government ordered Google not to disclose that it had given the FBI access to Rosen's Gmail account, and Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia confirmed in a September 2010 ruling that the government did not have to notify Rosen.

A federal statute, the Privacy Protection Act, normally bars the government from using a search warrant to seize a reporter's notes or communications as part of a broader criminal investigation. But the law allows an exception if the reporter is specifically accused of committing a crime.

"There is probable cause to believe that the reporter has committed or is committing a violation of [the Espionage Act] as an aider and abettor and/or co-conspirator," FBI Agent Reginald B. Reyes wrote in a May 28, 2010, application for a search warrant. "Because of the reporter's own potential criminal liability in this matter, we believe that requesting the voluntary production of the materials from reporter would be futile and would pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation and of the evidence we seek to obtain by the warrant."

Alan Kay, the magistrate judge in Washington who signed the search warrant, was not available for comment, his office said Monday. The warrant and application were unsealed in November 2011, but they escaped public notice until now.

"It's hardly clear cut that it violates the 1st Amendment," said Geoffrey R. Stone, professor at the University of Chicago Law School and a 1st Amendment expert. "If in private discourse you try to persuade someone to commit a crime, you can be punished for doing so. The question here is whether the motive for doing it changes things."

No reporter has ever been charged under the Espionage Act, a 1917 law that criminalizes unauthorized disclosure of "national defense information" with intent or reason to believe the information "is to be used to the injury of the United States."

Rosen's role stems from his Fox News story on June 11, 2009, that "U.S. intelligence officials have warned President Obama and other senior American officials that North Korea intends to respond to the passage of a U.N. Security Council resolution this week — condemning the communist country for its recent nuclear and ballistic missile tests — with another nuclear test."

The story said the CIA had learned the information "through sources inside North Korea."

FBI agents subsequently determined that 95 people had authorized access to the highly classified intelligence that Rosen had cited. The FBI alleged that phone records, emails and other records showed Kim was in direct contact with Rosen.

"From the beginning of their relationship, the reporter asked, solicited and encouraged Mr. Kim to disclose sensitive United States internal documents and intelligence information … by employing flattery and playing to Mr. Kim's vanity and ego," Reyes wrote in his affidavit.

He said the reporter "instructed Mr. Kim on a covert communications plan ... to facilitate communication." The affidavit said they used nicknames in subsequent emails and asterisks as signals if Kim wanted to talk by phone.

"What makes this alarming is that 'soliciting' and 'encouraging' the disclosure of classified information are routine, daily activities in national security reporting," researcher Steven Aftergood wrote Monday on his Secrecy News blog. "The use of pseudonyms and discreet forms of communication are also commonplace. But for today's FBI, these everyday reporting techniques are taken as evidence of criminal activity and grounds for search and seizure of confidential email."

FBI spied on Fox News reporter, accused him of crime

When the order to "stand down" SHOULD have be given

What self respecting man would allow another to hold an umbrella over his head?

☟

Guess I answered my own question.

When the order to "stand down" SHOULD have be given

New scientific study says people have grown dumber

One further piece of evidence is Obama is POTUS.

The average intelligence level of a Victorian-era person was higher than a modern-era person, a European research team posits in a report published last week in the journal Intelligence.

The research flies in the face of current assumptions of the Flynn Effect, which states that basic intelligence levels — measured through IQ tests — have risen since the 1930s.

IQ tests have been criticized, however, for reflecting bias toward certain cultures and education levels, while reaction times to stimuli might reflect "true intelligence" — the shorter the reaction time, the smarter the person.

European researchers Michael Woodley, Jan te Nijenhuis and Raegan Murphy compared reaction times to stimuli between people in the Victorian-era and modern-era people between 1884 to 2004.

The Victorian-era is a period of British history between the beginning of Queen Victoria's reign in 1837 until her death in 1901.

In their study, the researchers found that reaction times have slowly increased over time.

"For men, the increase was found to be 183ms to 253ms; for women the increase was from 188ms to 261ms," Phys.org reported.

"The researchers claim this proves that people have grown 'less clever' over time," wrote the publication, noting that a possible explanation for the decline is that smart people reproduce less than less intelligent people.

New scientific study says people have grown dumber

'We could lose everything': Tea Party groups prepare to sue IRS

Prelude to the article below

Forget about resignations, people need to go to jail over this!

I have to plead ignorant about the existence of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ). But it did turn my attention to the ACLU. 

I got this from Wikipedia: 

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonpartisan non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States."

Watergate Era: 

The ACLU was the first organization to call for the impeachment of Richard Nixon.

The ACLU supported The New York Times in its 1971 suit against the government, requesting permission to publish the Pentagon papers. The court upheld the Times and ACLU in the New York Times Co. v. United States ruling, which held that the government could not preemptively prohibit the publication of classified information and had to wait until after it was published to take action.

As the Watergate saga unfolded, the ACLU became the first national organization to call for Nixon's impeachment. This, following the resolution opposing the Vietnam war, was a second major decision that caused critics of the ACLU, particularly conservatives, to claim that the ACLU had evolved into a liberal political organization.

Where are they now? 

I guess the last sentence sums it up. 

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WASHINGTON – Jay Devereaux hadn't paid much attention to the daily drumbeat of partisan politics in D.C. He wasn't a Washington nerd, and didn't know who said what during congressional hearings -- nor did he care.

But when news broke that the government was using taxpayer money to bail out Wall Street banks, he started paying attention and didn't like what he was hearing.

So the Florida father and information technology specialist decided to form a group, Unite in Action, to educate people in his area about the issues, he said. It was originally formed as a corporation before Devereaux decided to apply for tax-exempt status from the IRS. 

That was two years ago. It was never approved.

"It's all but killed us," Devereaux told FoxNews.com. "We could lose everything. Today, it's me and my organization, but tomorrow it could be you."

Devereaux is among a group of activists, being represented by the American Center for Law and Justice, who are preparing to sue the federal government for the practice of targeting Tea Party groups. ACLJ Executive Director Jordan Sekulow told FoxNews.com he'll likely file the civil suits next Wednesday or Thursday on behalf of more than a dozen Tea Party groups who say they were singled out by the IRS and had their tax-exempt status severely delayed or denied altogether.

The suits, combined with congressional inquiries and an FBI probe, signal that the heated hearing on Capitol Hill Friday – with the outgoing IRS chief – was just the start of a protracted legal and political battle over the scandal. 

Sekulow said the number of plaintiffs in the civil suit are growing as is the list of who his organization wants held accountable. It's still unclear whether the organization will file as a class-action or individually in the 17 different states where the complaints originate.

Litigation could take months or years and for some like Devereaux, time isn't on their side.

While initially waiting for IRS approval, Devereaux dipped into his own bank account, maxed out credit cards and even borrowed money from friends so his group could put on a civic-engagement training session at the Omni Shoreham hotel in Washington. His goal was to eventually set up a steady stream of revenue for a tax-exempt nonprofit.

The next time Devereaux heard from the IRS, they had requested details and credentials on every single speaker and all the educational materials provided in the 78 classes held at the hotel. The IRS also wanted information on all 45 vendors, their credentials and a donor list.

Devereaux refused.

Five rounds of IRS letters later, and United in Action's tax-exempt status is still in limbo.

If they are denied, Devereaux's group would owe the federal government "somewhere in the neighborhood of $70,000 in back taxes," he said, referring to money he would owe the government on donations.

"It's more than we have in our bank account," he said.

He's not alone.

Waco Tea Party President Toby Walker said her group applied for a 501(c)(4) status in July 2010. She'd call the IRS from time to time to check on the progress but was basically told, 'Don't call us, we'll call you,' she said.

Then in February 2012, the IRS finally made contact.

Walker said she was asked questions that went well beyond the purview of the agency's authority. They wanted to know everything about the Waco Tea Party group, their relationships with public officials, lists of volunteers and every single news story the group had ever been mentioned in.

Walker said the request was so lengthy and intrusive that had she complied with the demands, she "would have needed a U-haul truck of about 20 feet."

While Walker's group was finally granted tax-exempt status in March 2013, she said a lot of damage has already been done. She said people were afraid to support her group financially because they had not received the IRS-stamped status. 

Others were afraid that they might be targeted by the IRS if they supported Walker's group publicly. Having one of the most powerful government agencies angry at them wasn't a risk many people were willing to take. And so the group suffered, she said.

"We spent thousands of our own dollars fighting this," she said. "If this happens to one organization in America, we should all be outraged."

Allegations that the IRS had been targeting conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status date back years but a government report released Wednesday backed up the claims. The White House has spent most of the week trying to contain the fallout from the scandal. "Americans are right to be angry about it, and I am angry about it," President Obama said earlier this week.

By Friday, two of the agency's top tax officials had been removed from their posts. One, outgoing acting IRS commissioner Steven Miller, was grilled Friday morning in the House Ways and Means Committee by Republican and Democratic lawmakers who demanded answers on why the unfair practice of targeting conservative groups was allowed to continue on his watch.

'We could lose everything': Tea Party groups prepare to sue IRS

Lame duck to sitting duck seemingly overnight

Scandals prompt comparisons between Nixon, 

Obama administrations

"The good news is we can fix this," Obama said last night. 

Let's start with his impeachment.

Boehner said, "It's not a matter of who is responsible, but who is going to jail." I hope he lives up to his words. So much for the low level employees.  Acting (in more ways then one) IRS Commissioner Steven Miller who was leaving in June anyway has resigned but he was appointed in 2012 long after much of the "inappropriate behavior" as Barry likes to call it took place. I like his choice of words. He is the master of misdirection. Another classic in the same vein was workplace violence. 

Blaming the video for Benghazi is troubling to say the least. But the real issue for me is the "stand down" order. When you allow 4 Americans to die, in effect their ass hung out to dry, so in won't interfere with his reelection prospects  goes to show just how despicable this guy really is. Remember now, he was so overwrought regarding Benghazi the only cure he could find was to go on a fundraiser in Las Vegas the very next day!

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The chorus of comparisons between President Obama and the only president to resign in disgrace is growing by the day, as the administration's scandals appear to pile up.

Whether the comparisons are fair or not, columnist George Will perhaps led the charge -- after citing the Article of Impeachment against President Nixon in an opinion piece this week.

Will recalled the line: "He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavored to cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be initiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner."

Scores of websites and blogs have since invoked the Nixon comparison, as did Sen. Orrin Hatch, who speaking to reporters about the IRS scandal said Tuesday, "I've never seen anything quite like this, except in the past during the Nixon years."

The Boston Herald's front page on Tuesday was also emblazoned with the headline, "I Know Nothing," with a sub-headline reading: "(coincidentally, that's what Nixon said.)" 

The president is dealing with several scandals at once, including the fallout from the Benghazi terror attack, the Justice Department's seizing of phone records from the Associated Press and the IRS' program of singling out Tea Party and other groups for scrutiny.

While Obama has called the IRS targeting of conservatives "outrageous," and late Wednesday announced the resignation of acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller, investigations are just now getting under way.

There is no evidence, as of yet, that the scandal leads to the Oval Office. But the comparisons to Nixon are inevitable. While the disgraced Nixon did, indeed, use the IRS to target political enemies, he may have been seeking to avenge friends and supporters who, themselves, had been targeted by the IRS in earlier presidencies -- among them Elvis Presley, Billy Graham and John Wayne.

Regardless of the motive, one thing separates today's IRS from that of earlier administrations -- its technological capability.

The IRS's mainframe computer in Martinsburg, W.Va., is among the world's most powerful. As of October 2010, the Internal Revenue Service had the capability to sift through emailing patterns associated with millions of individual Internet addresses.

Sources tell Fox News the IRS continues to collect tax data, but they also are now acquiring huge volumes of personal information on taxpayers' digital activities, from eBay auctions, Facebook posts, and, for the first time ever, credit card and e-payment transaction records.

And unlike in the Nixon administration, the IRS is, under the Obama Administration, set to expand its workforce by 15,000 to collect health information in accordance with provisions of the president's Affordable Care Act by the end of this year.

Jennifer Stefano, a member of Americans for Prosperity -- who gave up her own quest to form a Tea Party group with friends in 2010 after the IRS threatened to examine her emails, Facebook and Twitter accounts -- voiced concern of a scenario that was perhaps more Orwellian than Nixonian.

"What my concern is, is that four years after the IRS has expanded to police the nation's health care law, how many stories of abuse are going to emerge from this and what will be the impact? It will be far greater than sidelining political voices. It will affect their lives and their health. This is wrong," she said.

Lame duck to sitting duck seemingly overnight