Dear TSA: Bloggers Are Journalists.
December 31, 2009
They are.
I understand that you don’t like whistleblowers, but you’re going to have to suck it up: online magazines have every bit as much right to protect confidential sources as print magazines do.
Even those that are run by one person, or a few people.
Two travel journalists have just been served with DHS subpeonas for publishing the directive that placed limitations on airline travel in between Christmas and yesterday, in the wake of the Christmas “underwear bombing”: Steve Frischling of Flying with Fish, who spent two hours yesterday with Federal agents, and Chris Elliott of Elliott.com, who points out that his kids and his cats liked the agent who served him his subpeona.
I’m glad that the agents are being polite, but I wish the DHS would focus on its actual problems, rather than trying to root out whistleblowers.
UPDATE: I don’t think these subpeonas are making the TSA look very good at all.
More here.
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December 31st, 2009 at 7:36 am
What are they going to do next? Go after Bruce Schneier?
Money quote from that link:
I’ve started to call the bizarre new TSA rules “magical thinking”: if we somehow protect against the specific tactic of the previous terrorist, we make ourselves safe from the next terrorist.
January 2nd, 2010 at 6:41 pm
This is just what us bloggers would have needed, the government telling us what we can and can not publish on our blogs. I find it ironic how quickly TSA dropped the idea of Subpoenas.