FC: FBI, Customs secretly seize Associated Press package

From: Declan McCullagh (declanat_private)
Date: Thu Mar 13 2003 - 13:45:20 PST

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    Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2003 15:48:23 -0500
    From: "Paul Levy" <PLEVYat_private>
    To: <declanat_private>
    Subject: Re: [IP] AP Protests Gov't Seizure of Package
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    maybe when AP reporters threaten the government's ability to
    propagandize the public for its position on issues relating to
    terrorism,  they are enemy combatants and lose the protection of the
    constitution
    
    Paul Alan Levy
    Public Citizen Litigation Group
    1600 - 20th Street, N.W.
    Washington, D.C. 20009
    (202) 588-1000
    http://www.citizen.org/litigation/litigation.html
    
     >>> Dave Farber <daveat_private> 03/13/03 03:29PM >>>
    
    ------ Forwarded Message
    From: Richard Forno <rfornoat_private>
    Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2003 14:17:41 -0500
    To: Dave Farber <daveat_private>
    Subject: AP Protests Gov't Seizure of Package
    
    
    AP Protests Gov't Seizure of Package
    
    The Associated Press
    Thursday, March 13, 2003; 9:44 AM
    
    Government agencies opened a package mailed between two Associated
    Press
    reporters last September and seized a copy of an eight-year-old
    unclassified
    FBI lab report without obtaining a warrant or notifying the news
    agency.
    
    The Customs Service intercepted a package sent via Federal Express from
    the
    Associated Press bureau in Manila to the AP office in Washington, and
    turned
    the contents over to the FBI.
    
    FBI spokesman Doug Garrison said the document contained sensitive
    information that should not be made public. However, an AP executive
    said
    the package contained an unclassified 1995 FBI report that had been
    discussed in open court in two legal cases.
    
    "The government had no legal right to seize the package," said David
    Tomlin,
    assistant to the AP president.
    
    The package was one of several communications between Jim Gomez in
    Manila
    and John Solomon in Washington, AP reporters who were working on
    terrorism
    investigative stories.
    
    It was the second time that Solomon's reporting was the subject of a
    government seizure. In May 2001 the Justice Department subpoenaed his
    home
    phone records concerning stories he wrote about an investigation of
    then-Sen. Robert Torricelli.
    
    < snip >
    
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19862-2003Mar13.html
    
    
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