Thursday 3 June 2021
Secretly obtained phone data
The Trump administration has monitored reporters
The New York Times is a favorite opponent of former US President Trump. After newspaper reporters in 2017 reported possible misconduct by then-FBI Director Comey, his government unceremoniously confiscated the journalists’ phone data. The editor-in-chief is angry.
During the tenure of former President Donald Trump, the US government did one The New York Times Report According to secret access to the phone data of four reporters of the newspaper. The Justice Department under Joe Biden, Trump’s successor, reportedly told the newspaper on Wednesday (local time) that it received the relevant documents from mid-January to the end of April 2017. The article that led to the investigation was not disclosed.
At the end of April 2017, the four journalists published a report on how then-FBI Director James Comey handled politically sensitive investigations by the Federal Police in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, including the case of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. . The article contained confidential information that may have prompted investigations by judicial authorities to determine the sources. Trump fired Comey as FBI chief in May 2017 and has repeatedly attacked him for investigations by the authority into possible collusion with the Trump campaign camp and with Russia ahead of the 2016 election.
In a statement, the ministry said the data obtained is part of a criminal investigation into the unauthorized disclosure of classified information. The four journalists were neither the subject nor the target of the investigation. The department also obtained a court order to obtain the data of the emails, the New York Times wrote. It was not related to the content of the message. However, the authority “did not receive any data”.
At the beginning of May, it became known that the Trump administration had obtained similar statements from journalists for the Washington Post and CNN. Editor-in-chief Dean Paquet condemned the government’s actions. “The seizure of journalists’ phone data severely undermines press freedom.” This can silence the sources one relies on “to provide the public with important information about what the government is doing.”
