Story of the Day: Lawrence Wright on Bush Admin Wiretapping Journalists (...And Whatever Happened to the Russell Tice Story?)

While the battle over the stimulus bill raged on, New Yorker reporter Lawrence Wright recently spoke with Brooke Gladstone of NPR's On the Media. Wright, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, reported last year that he knew the Bush administration had been spying on him. Wright's conversation with Gladstone, coupled with the statements of NSA whistleblower Russell Tice and New York Times reporter James Risen on MSNBC's Countdown last month, appear to confirm what many have long suspected.

The Bush administration targeted American journalists in its wiretapping program, in addition to millions of innocent American citizens.

As Gladstone herself rightly notes in the interview with Wright, "We were a little surprised that there was so little coverage and less outrage over Tice’s allegation." You can say that again. Since Tice's revelations on Countdown, this story has disappeared. [Ed. note: As my friend Eric Alterman just wanted to make clear to me, it didn't disappear in alternative news circles; for clarity's sake, "disappeared" was intended to reference mainstream news coverage. Be sure to read Eric's and George Zornick's excellent Jan. 29 piece "Think Again: Spying on Journalists? Why The Silence?"]

You might think Tice's bombshell appearance would precede a flurry of news coverage, of Tice popping up across the airwaves, from morning news shows to nightly news lead stories to the front pages of our most respected newspapers.

Yet according to a LexisNexis search performed by MediaBloodhound, no broadcast network nightly news programs reported Tice's allegations (including, oddly enough, NBC Nightly News) in the following days after Tice's appearance or in the three weeks since. CNN and PBS Newshour also failed to find his revelations newsworthy. The New York Times, Risen's own paper, the one that broke the NSA's illegal wiretapping story? Nothing. Not a single story reporting Tice's allegations.

Granted, Risen may be diligently working on a related story of his own, but Tice's statements demanded to be reported in our nation's paper of record just as a vital wire news story, not reported by Times journalists, makes its way into Times' pages.

Here are some highlights of Gladstone's interview with Wright:

Wright's Daughter, The Terrorist

BROOKE GLADSTONE: His [Wright's] first clue came from one of his sources in the intelligence community who told him he'd read a summary of a phone call Wright had made to the Middle East. Later, two federal agents showed up at his door with questions about another phone number he'd called.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: And they wanted to know, first of all, who was it? I looked it up on my Palm Pilot and it belonged to a solicitor in London who represents some of the Jihadis that I had been interviewing for my book.

And then they began asking if the person on our end of the call, my end, was named Caroline. And that’s my daughter’s name. And they asked, you know, is her name Caroline Brown? And I said, no, she’s, you know, a student at Brown. But I said, her name’s not on any of our phones. How do you know this information? Are you listening to my calls? And they just shut their briefcases and left.

I thought, as an American citizen, that the law was that they would not be listening to my calls unless they had a warrant. And I thought it was very unlikely that they would be able to obtain one because I'm a legitimate reporter.

But a year later, there was a New York Times story breaking the news that there were illegal wiretaps on American citizens, and I realized then what was going on.

"Not Just Individuals But Entire News Organizations"

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So was there anything in what Russell Tice said that surprised you?

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: No. What disturbed me is the law, as it stood, was that when American citizens or American persons – that including anybody who’s in America at the time – when they're overheard in a conversation, that portion of the conversation is supposed to be what they call “minimized” – in other words, redacted.

So I might be having a conversation that is monitored with a source. If that source is a foreign source, then the American intelligence community can report on it. But my part of it, supposedly, is taken out.

What Tice was saying is that where American citizens are involved, they would put it into a discard pile, but, he said, that was the pile that they were monitoring. And that really concerned me, because his allegations included the idea that they were monitoring not just individuals but entire news organizations.

Gov't Sources Warned ABC News to "Change All Their Cell Phones"

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And what would be the point?

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: Well, for one thing, the reporters are doing the work that American intelligence has failed to do. Here’s what worries me about it. I might be writing about al-Qaeda one week and I might be writing about the government the next week, our government. How do I know what the intelligence community is listening for and what use they're going to put it to?

These revelations came out, you know, about the illegal wiretapping at a time when the Bush Administration was leading a campaign against the press. ABC News, for instance, broke a story, I think, in 2006 that they had been warned by government sources to change all their cell phones because they and The New York Times and The Washington Post were all being closely monitored for possible sources that they might have inside the intelligence community.

I'm worried about not just my own privacy but I'm worried about my sources.

The Effect on Journalists and Their Sources

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Do you think that that chilling effect you felt was felt among journalists who cover government and foreign policy?

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: Well, I've talked to other colleagues and we've discussed, you know, how do we behave in this? Do we behave like terrorists? Do we go out and, for instance, buy phone cards and discard the phones after we have an interview?

What really concerns me is that I think it’s had a chilling effect on the sources themselves because they're more jeopardized now than they were in the past. [...]

BROOKE GLADSTONE: When the journalists brought their lawsuit back in 2006 and it was dismissed, what they were charging the government with doing was illegal, but you’re saying that now, in 2009, because of acts of Congress, it would be legal?

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: It’s a little unclear. You remember last year all the thunder and lightning that was going on in Congress about the illegal wiretaps, and then the laws that they approved essentially rubber-stamped what the Bush Administration had done.

There’s another consideration if you’re a reporter or a news organization and you want to bring suit because you feel like your privacy’s been invaded. Then the government is entitled to discovery. That is, they can begin to look through your phone records and find out who else you've been talking to.

Let's say that I'm doing an article for The New Yorker. The fact-checkers also call my sources. Well, they also call Sy Hersh’s sources. So where does it stop? Will all of our sources be uncovered in the pursuit of a lawsuit that we have very little chance of winning?

You know, there’s not much incentive for a person like me to go out and sue the government if it’s going to have the result of throwing my sources in jail, and perhaps me as well.

What Lies Ahead?

BROOKE GLADSTONE: The Obama Administration has been very explicit about wanting more transparency in government and about reestablishing the rule of law. Do you think this is less likely to happen?

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: I don't see anything happening in this. I happened to just file a couple of Freedom of Information suits on a story that I'm working on, and they were blanketly rejected. I just don't think that the government is moving in the direction that the president has indicated.

Comments

[Brad Jacobson]

Lawrence Wright on Bush Admin Wiretapping Journalists (...And Whatever Happened to the Russell Tice Story?)

[martha thacker]

Why is it so hard to admit we live in a fascist country? This is what fascists do.The bank bail out ..Katrina was genocide. Supplies , food and water were not allowed in New Orleans. The military and local police killed black people. We won't get better until we use the right names.

[mike]

There are many things our government (supposedly) our representatives could do but won't.
1) Allow no more money into politics. All elections are publicly funded.
2)Term Limits. No person can serve over two terms of his/her elected position.
3) Federalize and make it mandatory that every voter receive a printed receipt for their vote.
4)RE-INSTATE THE FAIRNESS DOCTRINE. This is essential. so that our citizens are well(truthfully) informed and have access to differing points of view.
5) Distribute wealth equally and make it illegal to take advantage (profit) of people beyond a small percentage.
6) Single Payer healthcare for ALL.

There are many more things that need to be done, but this would be a great start.

[Randy Albert]

I run a taxi service in Elk City Oklahoma and for ten years our calls have been closely monitered. It really didn't bother me till they started blocking my customers calls and erasing my voice messeges to destroy my business. I can prove it 100 percent and still it doesn't seem like there is a way to fight these crooks. Sure don't feel like America the free. A Cab Taxi