The US administration under Donald Trump is said to have checked telephone data from US reporters for over three months.
Maybe it was about an article about Russia's interference in the election campaign.
Washington, DC - Source protection is a precious commodity in journalism. But the
Washington Post
published a report on Saturday according to which the US government secretly obtained phone data from three reporters from the newspaper during the tenure of ex-President Donald Trump. After the change of power, those affected would have learned this through separate letters from the US Department of Justice. It says that the authority received data from the period between April 15 and July 31, 2017.
According to the report, the letters list the numbers of business and private telephones as well as cell phones. The records received contained the numbers of all calls that had come in and out from the target phone over the specified period, as well as the duration of the calls. However, what was said was not recorded. In addition, the Ministry of Justice also tried to get e-mail data - unsuccessfully. The
Washington Post
says investigators often hope that such data will reveal sources that reporters have contacted for investigative research. According to a ministry spokesman, the subject of such investigations is not the media representative, but the person who speaks to the media and thus possibly reveals secret information.
Donald Trump's government: what was the purpose of the phone data seizure?
The purpose of the confiscation of the data is not mentioned in the letters. But during the period from which the recordings originate, the three reporters wrote an article about a meeting of Trump advisor and later US Attorney General Jeff Sessions with the Russian ambassador before the 2016 presidential election. According to the US secret services, Russia had interfered massively in the presidential election campaign in the US - above all through hacker attacks and the dissemination of manipulative messages in online networks. The Russian interventions were directed against Trump's rival Hillary Clinton in particular. According to the newspaper, the reporters also wrote about attempts by the then-President Barack Obama administration to stop Russian campaign interference.
Furthermore, it is not clear from the letters when the records were checked or when this process was ordered.
But a ministry spokesman said the decision was made in 2020 under the Trump administration.
The Minister of Justice should have given permission for this.
William Barr, who held this post for most of the year, declined to comment to the US newspaper.
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Donald Trump during his time as US President at a cabinet meeting (archive image)
© Oliver Contreras / Zuma Wire / Imago
US government taps reporters' cell phone data: "We are deeply concerned"
"We are deeply concerned about this use of governance to gain access to journalists' communications," said Cameron Barr of the
Washington Post.
The Ministry of Justice must immediately give the reasons for this "intrusion" into the work of journalists.
This is under the protection of the first amendment to the US Constitution, which guarantees freedom of the press.
The civil rights organization ACLU accused the ministry of "spying on" the reporters.
“That should never have happened,” ACLU wrote on Twitter.
"When a government spies on journalists and their sources, it jeopardizes the freedom of the press."
Telephone records tapped: The Obama administration also tried several times to track down leaks
The seizure of phone records has long been a controversial issue.
During the Barack Obama administration, there were several cases in which the administration tried to track down leaks.
The Justice Department has
now defended its decision to collect the records as a not frivolous last resort investigation
, according to the
Washington Post
.
(cibo / AFP)
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List of rubric lists: © Oliver Contreras / Zuma Wire / Imago