WASHINGTON, D.C. May 14 (DPI) — Comment boards are alight this morning with bipartisan outrage over revelations that the Justice Department unilaterally confiscated phone records of The Associated Press.
The report of yesterday afternoon has already erupted a firestorm because criticism of the Justice Department — and by extension the Obama Administration — is coming from all political sides. Hundreds of comments are appearing on nytimes.com and washingtonpost.com this morning calling on Attorney General Eric Holder to resign.
The Justice Department seized the phone records reportedly to identify a press leak within its ranks.
General themes of the comments: 1) The Justice Department overreached – and likely violated Fourth Amendment rights prohibiting illegal search and seizure — in confiscating the phone records. 2) The Obama Administration, which renewed The Patriot Act, expanding government-surveillance powers after 9/11, may cite the act as a pretext for the Justice Department’s action. That strategy would likely backfire, many readers are saying, because the AP — the last surviving and respected news cooperative that’s about as mainstream as any in media — is not Al Qaeda. 3) Of course scores of comments cite the irony of the Democratic Obama Administration having to answer for the records-confiscation scandal. 4) And many note of irony that the mainstream media, usually supportive of the president and his policies, have to break the news that such activity took place. As two comments on WashingtonPost.com put it:
Now they’ve gone and done it. The Justice Department has ticked off an outlet that was carrying the water for them and the administration. There is nothing worse than a news outlet scorned.
And:
it sucks to have to be the one to break the news that your husband has been cheating on you.
Unless new information appears mitigating or justifying such conduct by the Justice Department, resignations seem likely; Holder’s job seems especially precarious since even supporters of the Obama Administration will be calling for heads to roll in the days ahead. As one reader put it:
Republican, Democrat; liberal or conservative; big govt or small govt; nobody wants the fed going after their private information.
Background on the Fourth Amendment:
http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/search-seizure-criminal-law-30183.html