@natsecwonk canned
This has been bothering me for a couple of days now. This fellow, Jofi Joseph, has been tweeting embarrassing stuff about the Obama Administration from inside the White House for years until this last week under the Twitter handle @natsecwonk. He was mean and no one was sacred (except the president, of course). So, according to the Washington Post, they planted false information to find Joseph. And then they fired him.
Now, no one has been fired for the failures of Benghazi, no one but a whistle blower was fired for the Fast & Furious debacle, no one has been fired at the IRS for terrorizing conservative groups, but this guy gets fired for being mean on the internet.
It is not clear whether the sting led directly to the unmasking last week of Jofi Joseph, 40, who was identified as the creative force behind @natsecwonk and was fired from his position on the administration’s Iran negotiations team. But the lengths to which White House officials went to find Joseph reveal how much of an embarrassment his Twitter feed had become inside the West Wing and across the street at the stately Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where Joseph worked alongside his NSC colleagues while secretly skewering them online.
“It was like they were hunting for bin Laden in a cave and he was right in the belly of the beast all along ,” said a former NSC official who worked with Joseph, marveling that he was able to keep his identity secret for over two years.
But, his only crime was that he was disloyal to the Obama Administration. The other things I mentioned, Fast & Furious and Benghazi, actually cost Americans their lives, but somehow what this guy did was worse.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden
My reaction? If he was a political appointee – and I’m pretty sure he was – meh. Political employees serve “at will”. Piss off your boss or dish insider “dirt” about your employer to the public, and it’s just like private employment: you can end up fired in a heartbeat.
Benghazi, F&F, and the IRS abuse scandals piss me off royally; someone needs to go to jail for the coverup in each of those scandals. This? Not so much.
Hondo, you are correct. He was a political appointee, and served at the pleasure of the administration. That being said, they wasted no time holding this guy accountable for causing a case of severe butt hurt, an yet, those responsible for Fast & Furious, the IRS scandal and Benghazi hide behind executive privilege. I am still waiting for the “most open and transparent administration” to come on the scene.
Yeah the real outrage recently from D.C. was when Homeland Security raided the home of the Washington Times reporter and took some of her files which contained the names of her sources within the government who had given her information for her story about misbehavior by the Air Marshals.
But then why should we question “the most transparent administration ever”? I mean they are so obviously above board in every respect right? That must be why the mainstream media shows such little interest in pursuing stories about all of these controversies-those have to be just so much “right wing” noise.
Link for the story I was talking about http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/25/exclusive-feds-confiscate-investigative-reporters-confidential-files-during-raid/
Read that one. Of course they didn’t have a warrant for the notes and the whole pretense of the search was BS, but hey I’m sure it’s all being done ‘for the children’ right?
What’s a shame is that the hypocrisy of this administration knows no bounds. Any time Bush did something “wrong” or his employees did, it was a call for his impeachment by all the MSM and every liberal elected official.
In this case, it goes to show you that the administration will do everything they can to prevent someone talking bad about them, because that’s more important than placing blame on “their” own mistakes. I wonder how many millions they spent over the year trying to figure this one out…
Hack.Stone: not sure I’d agree with “wasted no time” – it apparently took the Administration 2 years to figure out who the guy was. They finally had to resort to planting known false info to figure out who was talking “out of school”, so to speak. I’d agree they wasted little time in firing him after he was identified.
68W58, Instinct: um, you might want to research that case a bit more. And FWIW: evidence of an unrelated crime uncovered during a valid search is often admissible provided it was uncovered during the search (think drugs discovered during a search for stolen property). The question is whether the item was discovered during a reasonable scope of the search, or whether the LE personnel conducting the search overstepped their bounds and searched unreasonably to discover it.
Other published articles indicate the material seized included government documents marked “LE Sensitive” and “FOUO”. These reportedly had been obtained lawfully (via FOIA) by the reporter in question; however, that fact was not immediately apparent during the search. The materials were returned after the agency seizing them determined they’d been obtained lawfully via FOIA inquiry.
There are strict criteria for labeling information LE Sensitive and FOUO. While unclassified, materials marked LE Sensitive and FOUO are also in general protected from public release. I’m inclined to give a pass to LE seizing materials so marked uncovered during a presumably valid but unrelated investigation until it can be determined (1) how such protected materials were obtained and (2) if any crime was committed in obtaining them. I’d say the same if the materials in question were marked as classified information.
False message, eh? That’s brilliant. If only the US had employed that tactic in the Pacific during WW II. We might have learned about the attack on Midway before it occurred.
Let me see if I understand this: the administration hires someone who appears to be a chronic complainer, who complains in public about his employer. He’s finally found out and fired.
Oh, big deal. He probably complains about every job he’s ever had.
Hondo-the reporter, Audrey Hudson, addresses the issue of the documents in the story: “But Hudson doesn’t buy the explanation: “That explains the one file they took but does not explain why they took four other files with my handwritten and typed interview notes with confidential sources, that I staked my reputation as a journalist to protect under the auspices of the First Amendment of the Constitution,” she said.”
She’s right too-if the cops found official documents that they needed to see if she was authorized to have, then fine, but her personal notes and files? No, they have no excuse for taking those during a search for firearms. That’s way beyond the scope of the warrant.
Can’t really work up much sympathy for anyone who bites the hand that feeds him, but still, it is impossible to not notice the irony of bad-mouthing is worthy of firing while killing folks doesn’t matter.
In regard to the ‘raid’ on Hudson, the current administration’s paranoia, which is beginning to slowly seep into public awareness, should prompt every reporter to find a hidey hole some place to store stuff like notes and files, as well as having duplicates of everything hidden away.
Does Hudson’s story remind anyone besides me of ‘The Pelican Brief’ in some ways?
The cracks in the armor surrounding those people in WDC are becoming visible. This event (below) was a multiparty event.
http://news.msn.com/us/hundreds-march-in-washington-against-nsa-spying
68W58: so, you’d prefer the LE officers conducting the search go through them page by page to see if they should be seized? Wouldn’t that also kinda defeat the principle of “source confidentiality”? Or should they just take someone’s word that, “Oh, you don’t need to look at those – they contain nothing you need to see and no evidence of wrongdoing.”
Sorry, we’ll have to agree to disagree here. The files were seized, found to be legit, and returned. There was sufficient probable cause to do so after seeing the LE Sensitive and FOUO markings in adjacent folders. Once they were determined to have been lawfully obtained, the material was returned to the owner intact. And there’s really no good way to determine whether the material in question (and other material related to same that was in close proximity to the marked documents) was obtained properly without reviewing it – either on-site or later.
If this was someone suspected of being a terrorist and the material wasn’t looked at, you’d be all over the LE folks in question for not doing their job – and rightfully so.
And, by the way: there is no absolute protection for source confidentiality for journalists under Federal law. See Branzburg v. Hayes, 1972. In Federal cases, if the government can provide sufficient justification a journalist can be compelled to reveal sources or they can do time. Ask Judith Miller how claiming “journalist privilege” worked out for her.
He needs to write a book and Fox News need to offer him a job as a part time contributer so we can find out everything. Onmce we find out all we need to know. Shit can him because he is a disloyal liitle cry baby.
Planting false information to out a leak is so amateurish that the IVAW tried to do it once with me. They planted a juicy story with one of my ninjas that they thought was leaking to me, but it was too good to believe so I passed on it. Turned out I was right and the black ops squirrels at IVAW were pretty pissed.
Hondo-since this was not a terrorism case I am not inclined to give law enforcement broad discretion. Audrey Hudson was suspected of no crime, the warrant was executed to determine whether or not her husband (or boyfriend or whatever) was illegally in possession of firearms. The explanation that law enforcement gave that they needed to determine whether or not she was legally in possession of those documents is reasonable only in so far as it concerns those documents themselves. And while a journalist might be compelled to reveal a source a judge would have to make that determination based on the government making justification for that journalist to do so, which isn’t what happened here.
For her notes, containing information on her sources, to be turned over to the very department that she revealed was engaging in improper behavior violates a key principle for the existence of a free press-as a check on government misbehavior. It’s inexcusable.
68W58: whether or not the case was connected to terrorism is immaterial. During what was apparently a valid search, the LE agents found materials of a suspicious nature which appeared to have been possibly unlawfully acquired – in this case, government documents with markings indicating they might have been obtained through unlawful means. These materials were seized, along with apparently related materials in adjacent folders. The materials were evaluated and found to be legitimate and were returned to the owner.
Sorry, I just don’t see a problem here. Prove that the original search was a false-flag operation intended to cover this, and I’ll have a problem with it – bigtime. Until then, it’s nothing that doesn’t happen with great regularity: items seized as potential evidence during a legitimate police search, evaluated and found not to be of evidentiary value, and then returned to owner.
Under Federal law journalists just don’t have the same special confidentiality rights as do doctors, clergy, and spouses. LE can compel revelation of sources and can seize reporter notes if they can demonstrate a good enough reason to do so. And finding potential evidence of a crime contained in said notes during an unrelated search appears to me to be good enough reason.
I don’t know whether the original search was a “false flag” or not, I am only arguing that law enforcement went beyond the reasonable scope of a warrant to look for a firearms violation when they seized her notes.
You were the one who raised the specter of terrorism by stating that I would be up in arms if law enforcement let terrorists get off in similar circumstances and that is as may be, but this was never a terrorism case, so the broad discretion that law enforcement might have in such a case is what is at issue and is irrelevant.
It ought to be simple enough to determine whether or not an individual is legally in possession of government documents without having to seize them, I can think of several safeguards offhand (having a POC in the government whose duty it is to confirm how documents were obtained, stamping said documents as obtained via FOIA with a particular case number, etc.), but even failing that a reasonable recourse would be to turn the documents over to a neutral party, such as a judge, until a determination of whether or not they were legally obtained is made.
The question is on whose side am I willing to err. In a case such as this I am going to err on the side of the individual and not the government agency that that individual revealed was engaged in improper behavior.
Doesn’t matter to me who was doing the looking, or whether the pages they confiscated were marked “Super Secret Stuff” or not. The search warrant was for firearms. Looking inside a file drawer to see if there is a firearm in it – OK. Looking within a file folder – not OK.
The whole thing stinks. “LE Sensitive” and “FOUO documents are NOT illegal to possess. FOUO is not a security classification, it is only a protective marking. It is not classified according to Executive Order, but is exempt from disclosure to the public under exemptions 2 through 9 of the FOIA. It can be sent by mail, fax, or even e-mail. The fact that the also took her personal notes (also not a firearm or marked as Secret or higher) only adds gas to the fire…
Apparently the documents were in plain view. They were legally seized. Once determined to be unrelated and legally obtained through protected sources. They are to be returned. No harm no foul. It happens all the time.
However, I am suspicious of this story in its entirety as well.
The AFT was involved, any remember a copy machine or camera? Would you trust anything to do with F&F failure / Still no in -dept acounting. Joe
Forgot to add, the spy trick they pulled most likely from Clancy’s first Jack Ryan series. Check it out. Joe
Stop being a sky laywer, Hondo.
They took stuff that had nothing to do with a search warrant issued to look for guns. They were WAY off base taking those papers, no matter what they related to.
There’s far more to this than meets the eye.
Ex-PH2: and that is perfectly legal if (1) the original search was lawful, (2) the material in question showed potential evidence of a crime, and (3) the material in question was discovered during the legal search. That’s especially true if it was in plain sight during the search, as was apparently the case here.
Exactly that happens all the time. Police executing a search warrant a felon’s house for stolen property often find illegal drugs, weapons, etc . . . , during said searches. Are they just supposed to leave the drugs behind? Or take the guy’s word that that bag of green leafy substance in a box in the back of his bottom dresser drawer is simply dried oregano he was going to use in his next pot of spaghetti sauce?
Actually, 2/17 Air Cav hit the nail dead on the head in comment 8 above. The US actually did use the false message gambit during the lead-up to the Battle of Midway to ascertain that Midway was the target of the next Japanese fleet action. See the section “Putting the Codes to Use” at
http://www.faqs.org/espionage/Vo-Z/World-War-II-United-States-Breaking-of-Japanese-Naval-Codes.html
Sometimes the gambit works, sometimes it doesn’t.
@ EX-PH2. Wrong. During the execution of search warrant any unlawful things can be seized if found during search or in the case were in plain view. Again, I believe there is most certainly more to this story. But from an execution of warrant point of view, nothing wrong if the items were found in normal course of search or were in plain view. Now the documents covered in caveats were determined to have been provided by lawful sources (confidential or otherwise) those documents have or will be returned with no harm and no foul. Simple.
Hondo is right. Ask Judith Miller.
@ 20 Pigmy Assailant. Wrong. Taking or have in possesion of such documents without permission of the originator can be illegal and an individual could be prosecuted if the agency who produced it pushes and you can find a prosecuter who will take the case.
Just sayin’.
But what the Fu@k do I know.
Geeze us Hondo. You are a lawyer too?
Mathametchun
Brain Scientist
Rocket Surgeon
Doctor
Socialeologist
Lawyer
Shit. Are you sure you were in the Army.
You sound more like born and bred at Palo Alto!
Note: Satire not intended to offend the sensibilities of Army guys.
Somehow I think the same people that praise Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden would love to see Joseph executed at for being critical of the chosen one.
Miller, of course, was subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury, which isn’t even remotely close to what happened here.
Geez you guys there is a marked difference between the police finding something that is clearly illegal (like drugs) and seizing that and finding something that maybe is illegal like restricted documents and deciding to seize those “just in case”. And it is that much harder to justify seizing her personal notes when they lack even the justification that they might be illegal.
Anyway, both Hudson and the Washington Times have hired legal representation and a court will ultimately tell us who is right, and I think their chances of winning are pretty good.
MCPO: nah, not a lawyer. Just learned a thing or two about the law over the years.
Thought about pursuing that career a time or two. Decided I couldn’t stomach having a professional obligation to try my best to convince a jury to acquit someone I knew had committed a heinous crime simply because they were my client.
I think I’d have made a damn good prosecutor, though.
@ 32. The LE’s on scene if they can simplely articulate good faith based on training and application of law they are in the clear. No harm no foul. Been there on done that.
This really is a none issue … Materials were returned.
Stop the LE hate. I am getting upset here!
Smirk!
BTW, as you say “maybe illegal” is called … Probable Cause and that is what causes LE action. The LEO’s don’t decide if it illegal, a prosecutor does and a jury has to agree. None of that happened here. They did the Right Thing and the subject was made whole. It is called (and I will say it one more time) … No harm No foul.
But what the hell do I know?
Did anyone just see the Navy Federal Credit Union commercial during the World Series game? It was OUTSTANDING!
Key words LEOs , in plain sight. Opening file cabinets to search for firearms is correct? Opening closed folders is that in keeping in the search warrant? Taking 4 other file folders also okay? Why w2as not she asked if she had these docments legally and produce proof on the spot?These are the AFT and w2ho is there boss? The whistle-blowers could be exposed and the wrath of the Chi town gang could come down on them.I question the taking of the files. The local LEOs are going to question the AFT. Joe
So, Master Chief, is that how the BATFREEK guys justify breaking and entering the wrong address, armed to the teeth and loaded for bear, and break things and steal stuff and trash the house?
I only ask, because that’s happened three times up here in my neck of the woods in the past 18 months, and each time, it was the wrong address, and the BATFREEK guys refused to pay for the damage they created. They are not nice people.
Seems to me you can do a search without trashing someone’s house. And at least be able to READ house numbers and street signs.
68W58: and how is a “plastic bag of dried green leafy plant material” hidden in the back of a drawer or in a box in the back on the top shelf of a closet clearly illegal? After all, it could be oregano.
Or it could be marijuana. Just like a file folder next to a stack of papers marked FOUO or LE Sensitive could be a classified document vice reporter’s notes.
In either case, you don’t know until the material has been examined in detail. And that kind of examination typically isn’t done on-site. Rather, it’s done later, off-site, by persons with different expertise and experience who know precisely what to look for.
Regarding Miller: you are correct that Miller testified before a grand jury. That’s also irrelevant.
Miller claimed “journalistic privilege” gave her a “right” to avoid disclosing her sources. That’s the same issue this lady is raising – an alleged violation of her so-called “right” to protect her sources. The SCOTUS ruled more than 40 years ago that reporters have no absolute Constitutional right to maintain the confidentiality of their sources; any such “right” possessed by journalists is quite limited. If the government can provide reasonable justification, reporters’ sources become fair game for compulsory disclosure.
MCPO-of course we won’t know if there was “no harm, no foul” until we know if Hudson’s sources suddenly get fired or are unexpectedly transferred to Nome. Anyway, even if the documents are “maybe illegal” for her to possess there is still no justification for the cops to take her notes. After all, it would be the documents that would be illegal for her to possess (even though they aren’t) and that in and of itself would be evidence of a crime(even though it isn’t), so why take the notes?
Hudson doesn’t believe that she has been “made whole” and has hired an attorney to pursue her case against those who she thinks have harmed her, or at least hurt her interests as have the Washington Times. The courts will determine if any wrongdoing occurred and “we promise, pinky swear, that we totally aren’t corrupt” won’t cut it before a judge.
Joe Williams: depends on the type of firearm, but yeah: if you’re looking for, say, a Uzi, looking in a file cabinet is fair game.
Looking in file folders is also fair game if the allegation includes unlawful transfer and the warrant specifies “documents associated with unlawful transfer of weapons”.
If the weapon being searched for was an automatic pistol, even opening every hardback book larger than a certain size, or looking in every file folder thicker than about 1″, would not IMO be out of the realm of being reasonable. I’ve personally seen a hardback book about 1 1/2″ thick that had been cut out so it could conceal a pistol. I’m not sure if that one was a joke or done “for real” – I have reason to think it was done as a joke in that case. But having seen that, yeah – it’s indeed plausible that someone could use such a setup to hide a pistol.
Absent significant other evidence of malfeasance, I think MCPO has this one right. Good search, seizure of suspicious material located in plain sight, with same later evaluated/determined to be innocuous/returned to owner. No harm/no foul.
68W58: As to “why take the notes”: ever heard of a something called “extracting key information from a sensitive document”? I’m guessing that’s likely why the folders located with the documents in question were also taken.
Hondo-a judge determined whether or not Miller could claim privilege that’s not at all what happened here with Hudson’s sources, so they clearly aren’t the same. Reporters may not have “absolute” confidentiality, but some journalistic privilege does exist and the extent to which it does is a question for the courts and no one else.
I doubt if a cop would say that they seized a bag of green leafy material without some other justification (such as smell which is one way that probable cause is often established). But as I stated above, maybe the documents were illegal, but why did they need the notes? After all, with the documents they have the evidence that they need that a crime has been committed (I mean one wasn’t, but you see where I’m going). The notes reveal something else entirely, which is why they are the main issue of contention.
Yes Hondo, I’ve heard of that. I’ve also heard of a “fishing expedition” and “abuse of authority”, we’ll see which this ends up being once Hudson’s case winds its way through the courts.
@ EX-PH2 … Sounds like BATFREEKS are wrong.
Typically in cases like this, the judge who signed the warrant for a wrong address will so order department that made mistake to make restitution. Incident citizens should always be made whole.
What more can I say?
The article states:
A search warrant obtained by TheDC indicates that the August raid allowed law enforcement to search for firearms inside her home.
If that’s true, the files are out of scope and should not have been taken. Look, no gun, put back.
Actually, Master Chief, in all three of those incidents, the BATFREEK guys had the correct addresses on the warrants but went to the wrong addresses.
They also left one person behind in handcuffs and stole personal property from two homes.
@ RPR. If there was a rotting corpse with a knife sticking out of its chest laying on the kichen floor when the warrant was executed, it that out of scope?
Or a computer screen with child porn?
Or a meth lab?
Or questionable documents that could be something important way above the paygrade of LEO’s?
Geeze … EX-PH2 … I am on your side. That sounds wrong to me!
Master Chief, if those incidents had not been in the paper, I would not believe them myself.
Now if they would just go after all the rat bastards with equal enthusiasm a person might be able to respect the efforts of the administration just a little bit. Of course when they are more concerned with appearances instead of substance, it just reinforces their total lack of actual accomplishment of positive objectives during their reign…
68W58: and seizure of possible evidence lying in plain site is not the same as subpoenaing someone to testify.
We’d best just agree to disagree here, amigo. This seems to me far more likely than not to be a relatively rare example of someone on the conservative end of the political spectrum shading the truth and twisting the facts to support an agenda. I see it often enough from the other end of the political spectrum that I recognize it quite well, and I find it rather disgusting from either side of the argument.
You obviously don’t see it that way.
The courts have been pretty clear over time about how to correctly execute a search warrant. and it boils down to simply “if you are looking for something which will fit inside a breadbox, it is OK to look inside the breadbox for it. If not, then don’t look inside the breadbox.”
IF they saw a questionable file on a desk (in clear view), the thing to do is get another warrant for files, based upon that clear view observation. AND they better tell the judge that what they want are the files of a reporter because there is a whole different set of rules that apply to reporters which do not apply to my files and yours, folks.
Guessing here, but since no charges have been filed concerning the weapons which were the supposed object of the search in the first place, the DA knows that it was a fishing expedition unrelated to weapons and that no charges can be sustained.
It looks like they went there looking for confidential information and took it. Yeah, right, I trust them to “unsee” what they have already seen.
All this depends entirely upon the exact wording of the search warrant. Still, confiscating the confidential files, unrelated to the search warrant, of a reporter is dicey at best.
You guys can put up all the scrappy arguments you want to.
The gun search was just an excuse to find out what Hudson had in her possession in the way of docs and files because she was a repoter and she was interviewing whistleblowers.
The coincidental factor is too strong in this to be otherwise.
It was Maryland, wasn’t it? Why were the feds investigating a violation of a ‘no guns’ order, when the local cops could have taken care of it? And why would DHS/CG ask her if she was the reporter who wrote articles on the false reports of TSA successes? What does that have to do with the MD state police going after her guns because her husband/whatever was barred from even being near weapons?
This stinks worse than dead alewives.