ABC News: Bush Administration Using Telephone Database to Intimidate Whistleblowers

^{Category: Free Speech | War on Terror}

Kathy Gill blogs about the NSA's plan to track media calls in connection with its universal telephone database, an effort that seems geared towards intimidating whistleblowers:

Being a confidential source who disagrees with a presidential administration then decides to oppose it by becoming a whistleblower can take courage when discovery means loss of a job and possible legal consequences.

It's just that kind of courage that this revelation is likely to chill. That could be the administration's intent here, to make would-be confidential sources think twice before talking with reporters.

It's no small irony that the only reason we now know about this is because [an] ABC News confidential source told them about it.

No small irony, indeed--and early evidence that the administration's strategy will be, among other things, laughably ineffective.

See also:

• NSA Assembling Universal Telephone Database
• Frist Threatens Senate Intelligence Committee, Shuts Down Spygate Investigation
• Specter Threatens to Cut NSA Funding in Response to Wiretaps