unless its true.

This needs attention.

But you need to actually care about deep issues such as the relationship between the press and the government in order to see that.

When politics is just a game, like curling for instance, its hard to see that.

Anyway, keep the kicks coming!

It's really bad form.

Do you have anything to say about the OP itself?

If not, please stop the disruption.

"I will do as I think proper."

I expressed exactly what I thought of your OP in my first reply.

Kick!

Sid

And you will still be a vacuous disruptor.

As far as we know. Characterizing it as blanket monitoring is a bit misleading. A wide range of professional and personal call records is really what it was. The connected phone numbers, call time and duration. Nothing thus far indicates there were phone taps, wherein the government was "monitoring" the content of calls in progress or after the fact.

Proceed

But the chilling effect it will have on the press is undeniable. They will have reason to have fear when conducting their jobs, which are a vital part of the democracy we live in.

Furthermore their sources will likely dry up to a certain extent with the knowledge that they cannot be offered the anonymity expected.

What do you think this will do to prospective whistle-blowers?

Sad.

Al Qaeda they deserve to do so. If other news organizations are prevented from outing future CIA assets in Al Qaeda that's good, too. Those assets take years to get. Years to build up trust within the organization once they're in. And then some damned reporter wants to make a name for himself, and a Langley employee wants to sway an election, so they undo years worth of work and say hell with the security of the American people? Fuck them. And fuck anybody who thinks that's OK. Because it's not.

All AP had to do was NOT tell the CIA's role in uncovering the plot about the AQAP bomb on the Detroit airplane. But they CHOSE to run the story. They chose to run the story earlier than they had said they would. Maybe even BEFORE the agent and his family got out of Yemen and away from Al Qaeda. Do you understand that AP may have gotten the man and his wife and kids KILLED??

Do you understand they were British subjects? And thus it involves 3 governments, 3 intelligence agencies? Do you understand that there are relationships that probably cannot be repaired after this?

To scare potential whistle blowers and to intimidate reporters.

It's thought police.

...no way they're going to hide behind 1st amendment for that crap no matter who the admin is

What happened to it?