Back to the pay phone

Raw Story has published a rough transcript of ABC's Brian Ross's interview with Ed Schultz. Here's some of it, but go read the whole thing:

ES: A story that has been investigated by ABC news is that a senior federal law enforcement official is telling that network the government is tracking the phone numbers of reporters in an effort to root their confidential sources. Joining us now on the Ed Schultz show is Brian Ross, who is the chief investigative correspondent for ABC News. …

What can you tell us? How intrusive has this been?

BR: Well, uh, frankly it wasn’t intrusive until we discovered it. Now, it’s very worrisome. We always suspected we should be careful about who we call and what phones we use, and now we understand why we should be careful.

ES: No question about that. Other sources have said that the phone calls are also being traced by ABC News—to ABC news correspondents and the New York Times and Washington Post. Is it because of a story or is it—what do we know about this?

R: Well, you know there’s not a lot we know about. I mean, what we reported is that we have been warned they’re tracking the calls and they know who we’re calling, with a suggestion, change your phones. How they’re doing that, I’m not sure. This seems to have been triggered by our story along with that of the Washington Post about the secret prisons run by the CIA in Europe. At that point, there was a referral by the CIA to the Department of Justice, they call it a criminal referral which usually triggers a FBI investigation. They want to know how classified information became public, and they will go after the CIA person. They don’t go after reporters with criminal charges, generally, but they do go after the CIA people if they can find them. Revealing classified information, they could be charged with something as serious as espionage. So, once that investigation begins, I always assumed that they would probably be checking out who we called or who called us. And, uh, based on what we’ve been told, it seems like that certainly is what happened.

ES: Brian Ross, chief investigative correspondent, ABC News, with us here on the Ed Schultz Show. Is this—pretty much seems like a form of intimidation, isn’ it?

BR: Well, it certainly makes it very hard to do our job if we can’t pick up the phone. I have an expectation of privacy that that’s not something known to everybody, who I call. It interferes with my ability to do my work. I don’t want the government to know who I’m calling, whether I’m calling a whistleblower, or a top official, or somebody who is a dissident and a political rival?

ES: Why do I have these images of going back to garages, in the famous movie, All the President’s Men?

BR: Well, uh, we’re gonna go back to when we made in person meetings, or like some sort of mafio-coppo with a bag full of quarters going from payphone to payphone, if you can find one anymore.