Eugene Delgaudio: Civil Liberties Of Free Press Violated as DOJ Begged Judge to Keep Fox Reporter in Dark About Monitoring

May 30, 2013

According to the Obama Administration, the Department of Justice can search through any reporter's mailbox, or any citizen without even having the decency to tell you or anyone about it.

Todd Beamon writes: The Justice Department begged a federal judge to not tell Fox News reporter James Rosen that it was tracking his telephone calls and emails in a probe regarding a national security leak.

U.S. Attorney Ron Machen argued in 2010 that the traditional 30-day notice period did not apply to Rosen as Justice secretly monitored his Gmail account, according to new exhibits unsealed this week and disclosed by The Hill.

"Where, as here, the government seeks such contents through a search warrant, no notice to the subscriber or customer of the e-mail account is statutorily required or necessary," Machen wrote in a June 2010 motion. "Thus, this court's indication on the face of the warrant that delayed notice of 30 days to the customer and subscriber was permissible was unnecessary."

Machen, through another request granted by the court, stopped Google from telling Rosen that Justice was spying on his e-mail account, the Hill reports.

The prosecutor had demanded to see all of Rosen's emails - including deleted messages, emails in his trash folder and all attachments sent to and from him.

The original warrant in the Rosen case was signed personally by Attorney General Eric Holder, NBC News reported this week.