Special to BRAD BLOG by BTC News White House Correspondent Eric Brewer
Today during the White House briefing I asked Tony Snow this question:
Tony denied the allegation, saying:
I’m pretty sure Tony meant to say ‘NSL,’ which refers to National Security Letters, a kind of administrative subpoena which, under the Patriot Act, can be signed by an FBI agent instead of by a judge, but which is supposed to be used only in terrorism cases. Telephone companies receiving these letters are prohibited by law from revealing the existence of the request to its target.
My question was inspired by a series of items in Brian Ross’s ABC News blog The Blotter (see here (scroll down), here, and here), that cite “federal law enforcement sources” for the claim that “National Security Letters are being used to obtain phone records of reporters at ABC News and elsewhere” in a widespread investigation of leaks of classified information from the CIA. Ross is being targeted because he reported on the CIA’s secret prisons in Poland and Romania, and on the CIA’s use of Predator missiles inside Pakistan. Tom Regan of the Christian Science Monitor has a good round up of the story here.
So, how much credence can we give to Tony Snow’s denial? I dunno. But I just might have forced him into his first big lie.
NSF – that’s the National Sanitation Foundation,…
is it not,.. SANITATION = DISINFECTANT.
NSA should be dipped into a 55gallon drum of Lysol.
That may have been a Freudian slip,..
on Snow’s behalf.
Link : NSF/Disinfectant
No. He meant National Security Fatwa.
I think he meant NSA, as if there’s only one program that anyone is asking about. You clearly meant a different surveillance issue altogether.
Of course, he’s new, and he hasn’t been briefed on that yet…
Great work, Eric!
I think he meant Non-Sufficient Funds, which is what our children will have by the time this administration is finished waging wars that "redistribute" the wealth to their inner circle.
Chris Mathews on MSNBC just told Murtha that there are no antiwar demonstrations in the United states. Will every one that has been in an antiwar demonstration please email the details to hardball@msnbc.com.
Chris needs to be updated on what is really going on in this country.
Some courts have held NSL’s to be unconstitutional. An opinion which I respect is Doe v Ashcroft from the US District Court, Southern District of New York.
We had better back the courts on these issues. Do not criticize the judiciary just because the republican talking points say to do that.
Can you guess why folks like DeLay, Bush, and Cheney like to run down the judiciary?
BarryG #6
My thoughts and sentiments exactly.
Chris Mathews is an idiot.
Maybe he should start paying attention to the news covered by the network that employs him.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11887714/
Well, there goes Eric’s first and last question in the WH press corpse.
Yep! That was the question to ask. This surveillance of the media may really make the MSM angry enough to risk their jobs!
BRAD BLOG’s WH correspondent?
Art #5 said:
"…Non-Sufficient Funds, which is what our children will have…"
$70 billion tax break for wealthy, $63 billion for the war in Iraq!
Brother you got that right!