(update below)

FBI investigators are extensively analyzing the email accounts and phone records of current and former government officials “in a search for links to journalists,” according to a recent story published by the Washington Post. The investigation is searching for sources who provided information on cyber warfare against Iran to the New York Times for a story written by David Sanger and published on June 1 of last year. Much more information on the secret virus, Stuxnet, used to destabilize Iran’s critical infrastructure was eventually published in Sanger’s book, Confront and Conceal.

The Washington Post story indicates some details on the nature of the investigation from an unnamed and anonymous source. “Prosecutors are pursuing ‘everybody’—at pretty high levels,” the source familiar with the investigation said. It involves multiple agencies of government.

…The FBI and prosecutors have interviewed several current and former senior government officials in connection with the disclosures, sometimes confronting them with evidence of contact with journalists, according to people familiar with the probe…

The story goes on to describe how the FBI is likely using “sophisticated software to identify names, key words and phrases embedded in emails and other communications, including text messages, which could lead them to suspects.” This most likely involves examining “officials’ phone records— who called whom, when, for how long. Once they have evidence of contact between officials and a particular journalist, investigators can seek a warrant to examine private email accounts and phone records, including text messages, former prosecutors said.”

It also notes that the FBI and prosecutors are able to “examine government email accounts and government-issued devices, including cellphones, without a warrant. They can also look at private email accounts without a warrant if those accounts were accessed on government computers.”

All of which suggests that the FBI is likely engaged in a fishing expedition where they are examining any and all officials’ computers and electronic devices regardless of whether they have probable cause to conduct a search. The Stuxnet leak investigation, therefore, can be used as a pretext to make certain other employees have not leaked information. It can be used to make a list or dossier on all those in government agencies who have had communications with journalists in the past months or year so the FBI knows who to target the next time a leak occurs.

The investigation into who provided information on a covert CIA underwear bomb plot sting operation in Yemen is also still ongoing. An anonymous person familiar with this inquiry said about this investigation, “People are feeling less open to talking to reporters given this uptick. There is a definite chilling effect in government due to these investigations.”

The FBI investigation is nothing less than an operation to clamp down on the free flow of information, frighten sources and undermine freedom of the press.

Both Glenn Greenwald and Trevor Timm of the Press Freedom Foundation have posts up putting this fishing expedition into a larger context. Greenwald wrote, “Given how subservient the federal judiciary is to government secrecy claims, it is not hyperbole to describe unauthorized leaks as the only real avenue remaining for learning about what the US government does – particularly for discovering the bad acts it commits. That is why the Obama administration is waging an unprecedented war against it – a war that continually escalates – and it is why it is so threatening.” Timm commented, “The chill on the press is not hypothetical or imaginary. The Times reported on its front page in August, just after the investigation started, that the FBI was ‘casting a distinct chill over press coverage of national security issues as agencies decline routine interview requests and refuse to provide background briefings.’”

One key question is, why are we just now hearing from a source on this investigation? And who decided to share details with the Post?

It is more than six months since the investigations into the two leaks launched. The Post noted in their story on the FBI fishing expedition, “Since the probes were announced, there has been little publicity about the ongoing inquiries.” However, it is not likely there has not been interest among media organizations in the United States.

There was bipartisan hysteria in Congress following three significant news stories, which contained leaks on the Obama administration’s “kill list,” cyber warfare against Iran and the covert CIA underwear bomb plot sting operation involving a double agent. And newspapers reacted last year:

“Lawmakers understandably are concerned about secret government information being published by the media, but the use of that information by journalists serves the public interest.” They urged Congress “not to criminalize the reporting of information that may have come into the possession of the media because a government official was indiscreet.” And added media should be able to share information from government officials without fear of prosecution. -Los Angeles Times, June 8

Obama’s “categorical leaks denial fails the scrutiny test…If reporters must be subpoenaed, prosecutors should recognize the very high bar and should have exhausted all other avenues. They also should recall that the government hasn’t always been honest about that. In the Valerie Plame case, special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald jailed a New York Times reporter, Judith Miller — to no purpose, as the evidence later revealed.” —Dallas Morning News, June 12

“Obama punishes leakers only when embarrassed….[The] Obama administration is the most forceful, vigilant and merciless in cracking down on whistle-blowers and leakers in nearly a century. The liberal law professor in the White House is no softie when it comes to punishing voices who undercut his pronouncements and policies.” —San Francisco Chronicle, June 12

Whether undertaken by Justice’s prosecutors or an independent counsel, the current investigation should, and almost certainly will, lead to a similar dead end — which is one reason we believe it should not have been begun at all. As in previous cases, including the six mostly unsuccessful leak prosecutions so far launched by the Obama administration, it’s doubtful that any law was broken. Disclosing classified information is not by itself a crime, and courts have found that under the flawed 1917 espionage statute used in such cases, prosecutors must show that a leak was intended to harm U.S. security — an appropriately high bar. —Washington Post, June 14