A Tale of Two Boingers
Xeni Jardin and Cory Doctorow both covered a story over at ABC's The Blotter:
A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we (Brian Ross and Richard Esposito) call in an effort to root out confidential sources. - Federal Source to ABC News: We Know Who You're Calling
Jardin was first out of the gate with Feds to news orgs: we know who you're calling. I have to say her snip covered the story pretty well.
Four hours and eight minutes later Doctorow followed with Fed to ABC news: we're tapping your phones . Ohh, I'd say tapping is stretching the point. He adds a introductory paragraph to his snip:
A federal law-enforcement agent tipped off ABC news that their phones were being illegally wiretapped by the government in an attempt to catch US government whistleblowers who call the news-desk:
As much as I hate to admit it:
Under Bush Administration guidelines, it is not considered illegal for the government to keep track of numbers dialed by phone customers. - The Blotter
That sort of screws the whole "illegally," and that "wiretapped" certainly gives the impression that conversations were being monitored. Remember, the source said the bad guys were tracking numbers. That's bad enough, and Doctorow didn't need to paint the lily.
I think Round One of the Dueling Boingers goes to Jardin.
Update: Sometime late on the 15th or early the 16th Doctorow's entry was removed from BoingBoing's front page, but the permalink was still active.
