FBI Acknowledges: Journalists Phone Records are Fair Game

The Blotter: "FBI Acknowledges: Journalists Phone Records are Fair Game | May 15, 2006 7:18 PM

Brian Ross and Richard Esposito Report:

The FBI acknowledged late Monday that it is increasingly seeking reporters' phone records in leak investigations.

'It used to be very hard and complicated to do this, but it no longer is in the Bush administration,' said a senior federal official.

The acknowledgement followed our blotter item that ABC News reporters had been warned by a federal source that the government knew who we were calling.

The official said our blotter item was wrong to suggest that ABC News phone calls were being 'tracked.'

'Think of it more as backtracking,' said a senior federal official.

But FBI officials did not deny that phone records of ABC News, the New York Times and the Washington Post had been sought as part of a investigation of leaks at the CIA." ...