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January 25, 2006
New York Times reporter gets "fresh"
The White House's domestic eavesdropping program has gotten a lot of attention, but the two New York Times reporters who broke the story aren't exactly household names.
One of the reporters, James Risen, spoke on Monday on NPR's "Fresh Air" hosted by Terry Gross. about breaking the story and his new book, "State of War: The Secret History of the C.I.A. and the Bush Administration".
In December, Risen and colleague Eric Lichtblau broke the news that the Bush administration had authorized a domestic eavesdropping program.
Although it seems Risen feels most Americans will come to accept the domestic eavesdropping program, he calls the anonymous sources who came forward as "patriots." He says the sources felt the program was wrong and, possibly, illegal.
He says there was concern that some of the information that was gathered through the program was used to get warrants through the secret court, FISA. Risen said that altough the program is primarily to discover patterns in domestic calling, at any one time the lines of 500 people are tapped. Those 500 are circulated in and out so the actual number is unknown.
In his book, Risen talks about the program and other major scoops, including the fact that the CIA gave Iran plans for a nuclear weapon, albeit faulty plans.
Risen said that the reporting that needs to be done now is to dig into the depth of domestic spying, not only by the NSA, but other arms of the government.
Posted by Beth Davidz at January 25, 2006 06:17 PM
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