NSA data used to snare leakers to press

Now, it's starting to come out what the NSA database of domestic phone information is really being used for. ABC reports that it's been told the data are being used to trace calls to the press in order to prosecute the leakers:

A senior federal law enforcement official tells us the government is tracking the phone numbers we call in an effort to root out confidential sources.

"It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation.

We do not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.

Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.

A hat tip to Atrios.