"...a pocket full of quarters at a pay phone"...

[kentuck]

Brian Ross, reporter for ABC News was on Amy Goodman's show this morning and that is how he described reporters being fearful that their phones were tapped. There seems to be a pall cast over the reporters in Washington with this latest report about the journalists being tapped. The White House is pulling no punches in attempting to stop the leaks. The leaks are not good for them. They don't want the people to know that our government is torturing people in secret prisons. And they want to punish those that report those stories.

This White House and its security apparatus seem to have thrown a wet blanket over the First Amendment and the free flow of information. Few could have imagined the extent of their success but we are very close to losing our free press, also. There's a bad moon a rising.

[mdmc]

1. fight back!

Dems...please...before we go into IRAqN.

[ChiciB1]

2. I Posted This Two Times Today... Amy Goodman Interviewed

Brian today. Very good interview and worth checking out! Too, too scary!

www.DemocracryNow.org still open right now.

[napi21]

3. Boy, that's a problem! I know around here, there are almost NO

payphones left! I found 1 at a gas station, and the clerk at a drug store let me use their phone when I stopped there to ask where a payphone might be.

Maybe it's a dumb idea, but I know I've heard drug dealers and alquaida use prepaid cells and just toss them. Isn't that a better option for the news folks, or is that just too expensive?

[paparush]

4. Shoot, that pay phone won't do him any good...the spy sats are

WATCHING him. Face Recog software has him profiled. THey are tracing that pay phone call just as easy as tapping his office/residence phones. He's made. He's marked.

[ProfessorPlum]

5. Why does Bushco care if people find out what they are doing?

After all, it's all legal, right? Riight?

[rodeodance]

6. I recall scenes from Watergate movie of Robert Redford in the booth. of

course that was in the days before cell phones but.....

[OzarkDem]

7. Maybe they'll wake up and get busy reporting again

Sorry, but I'm surprised that they're surprised.

Did they think all the stories about Bush stealing elections, spying on Americans, circumventing democracy and destroying the Constitution in the name of Homeland Security were just liberal gossip?

[Totally Committed]

8. Not to mention that the possible outcome of this could be a

real cooling of people coming forward to talk at all about what they know. If there is not way a reporter can guarantee that sources will remain confidential if it a condition of their telling what they know, many won't chance coming forward at all. So, the WH wins that way, too.

What needs to happen is the reporters need to start going after them tooth and nail on this or soon they will be reporting ONLY stories the WH wants reported and nothing more.

All the more reason to defend the internet with all our might, I say!

TC

[mim]

9. Sounds like what happened during the McCarthy era

Anyone having an important tip had to use a pay phone and meet the reporter in the park.

The upside was that there were more pay phones then, and they could receive calls as well as send them.

Now the talk is that all sorts of things, even clothing, will soon include locator chips, so that even if you use a pay phone, the authorities will know who was using that pay phone at the corner of 96th and Broadway.