ABC says the government is tracking reporters' phone calls

ABC News reports that a senior federal law enforcement official has told ABC that the government is tracking phone numbers called by news reporters in an effort to root out confidential sources. The network says that the government is also tracking the phone calls of reporters for The New York Times and The Washington Post.

The ABC report claims that the CIA was upset by the network's reporting on secret prisons in Romania and Poland, and by reports that revealed the use of predator missiles inside Pakistan. According to the official who cautioned ABC, reporters' telephones are not being tapped, per se, but calling patterns are being tracked by the government.

There have been severa responses to ABC's report in its blog, and I think this one best reflects my own feelings:

Maybe if you'd done your job from the beginning, we wouldn't be living in a fascist state run by a madman right now. But no....it was more important that Al Gore was stiff and John Kerry had no charisma. You wanted to drink beer with this guy? Fine. Drink your beer with him. But don't start crying now about your rights being violated.

Well said. As someone who used to work in a media-related field, I can say that I have never considered news reporters and anchors to be the brightest people to come down the pike, but I do remember a time when they believed it was their job to inform the public of everything that was going on. When the media reports what the government tells it to and suppresses what the government tells it to suppress, well...can you say "fascism"?