Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion

Update -- the Search Warrant is embedded at the bottom of the post. --------------------- You thought it was just AP phone records. This morning's bombshell is that before there was spying on AP, there was spying on Fox News reporter James Rosen. The Washington Post has the story:

When the Justice Department began investigating possible leaks of classified information about North Korea in 2009, investigators did more than obtain telephone records of a working journalist suspected of receiving the secret material. They used security badge access records to track the reporter’s comings and goings from the State Department, according to a newly obtained court affidavit. They traced the timing of his calls with a State Department security adviser suspected of sharing the classified report. They obtained a search warrant for the reporter’s personal e-mails. The case of Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, the government adviser, and James Rosen, the chief Washington correspondent for Fox News, bears striking similarities to a sweeping leaks investigation disclosed last week in which federal investigators obtained records over two months of more than 20 telephone lines assigned to the Associated Press.

(video added) Ed Morrissey notes:

Had I seen this case last month, I’d have assumed that this had everything to do with the Obama team’s war on Fox News.  Now, after the AP scandal, I’m not sure that’s all that went behind this.  Eric Holder implied in his interview with NPR that spying on reporters has become routine in the Obama administration, so Rosen and Fox are probably not alone.  However, I doubt that Rosen’s employer had nothing to do with this pursuit.  Regardless, every reporter covering this administration has to wonder whether Big Brother Is Listening — or at least reading their e-mails and phone records.  And so does every potential source within the administration. And that, of course, is the entire point of these intimidation tactics.

Yup, and the get in their faces tone was set at the top: Remember, Obama was just joking about IRS audits, not sending signals. Will other news organizations defend Fox News? They "might" have to. https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/336455505348284416

Case against Fox's Rosen, in which O admin is criminalizing reporting, makes all of the other "scandals" look like giant nothing burgers.

— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) May 20, 2013

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