First
time in history a sitting president has gone after the press using armed guards
and invasion-like tactics against an unarmed and peaceful reporter, in her home, in the middle of the night,
while she and her family were still in bed.
The
raid:
Maryland state police and federal agents used a search
warrant in an unrelated criminal investigation to seize the private reporting
files of an award-winning former investigative journalist for The Washington
Times who had exposed problems in the Homeland Security Department's
Federal Air Marshal Service.
The aledged illegal confiscation of documents:
Reporter Audrey Hudson said
the investigators, who included an agent for Homeland's Coast Guard service,
took her private notes and government
documents that she had obtained under the Freedom of Information Act during a
predawn raid of her family home on Aug. 6.
Now
they know her anonymous sources:
The documents, some which chronicled her sources and her
work at the Times about problems inside the Homeland
Security Department, were seized under a warrant to search for unregistered
firearms and a “potato gun” suspected of belonging to her husband, Paul
Flanagan, a Coast Guard employee. Mr. Flanagan has not been charged with any
wrongdoing since the raid.
Legal
action to follow against a government that is at war with anyone who dares to
criticize its policies and decisions, including the national media:
The Washington Times said Friday it is preparing legal
action to fight what it called an unwarranted intrusion on the First Amendment. “While we appreciate law enforcement’s right to investigate
legitimate concerns, there is no reason for agents to use an unrelated gun case
to seize the First Amendment protected materials of a reporter,”
Times Editor John Solomon said.
“This violates the very premise of a free press,
and it raises additional concerns when one of the seizing agencies was a
frequent target of the reporter’s work.
“Homeland’s conduct in seizing privileged reporters notes
and Freedom of Information Act documents raises serious Fourth Amendment
issues (i.e. unlawful search and seizure), and our lawyers are preparing an appropriate legal response,” he said
