Snoopgate starts to spread...

I've long been saying that there was a strong likelyhood that Bush's political rivals, rather than Americans involved in al Qaeda activities, were the target of the NSA Spying...and it appears that one of those targets was Christiane Amanpour of CNN.

At least Andrea Mitchell as NBC seems to think so - as she asked this question to New York Times Report Joe Risen when interviewing him about his book "State of War".

From Americablog

Mitchell: Do you have any information about reporters being swept up in this net?

Risen: No, I don't. It's not clear to me. That's one of the questions we'll have to look into the future. Were there abuses of this program or not? I don't know the answer to that

Mitchell: You don't have any information, for instance, that a very prominent journalist, Christiane Amanpour, might have been eavesdropped upon?

Risen: No, no I hadn't heard that.

What is also quite interesting is that Democratic Underground reports that the CNN Transcript of this interview was altered to remove the Amanpour question. When originally posted it was mere speculation, but apparently the salient details have been confirmed by NBC (regarding the question, investigation and it's subsequent scrubbing...)

NBC confirms it's investigating whether Bush spied on CNN's Christiane Amanpour
by John in DC - 1/04/2006 10:27:00 PM

That is the only way to read NBC's just-issued statement on why they deleted key portions of Andrea Mitchell's interview after we reported on it here earlier today. (snip)

Unfortunately this transcript was released prematurely. It was a topic on which we had not completed our reporting, and it was not broadcast on 'NBC Nightly News' nor on any other NBC News program. We removed that section of the transcript so that we may further continue our inquiry.

This is quite big. Note exactly what NBC said.

- NBC did not say it pulled the references to Bush spying on Amanpour because it was inappropriate conjecture about something which Andrea Mitchell had no evidence.

- No, NBC said it pulled the references because it was still investigating the accusation and didn't want to scoop itself before it was finished investigating. And make no mistake, NBC is "continuing their inquiry."

More...

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/01/nbc-confirms-it...

So NBC isn't ready to go public yet on this story...but if their investigation shows that reporters such as Christine Amanpour was caught up in the NSA Wiretap...

Why would Bush do this? Because, as I reported a few weeks ago, journalists have some of the best contacts out there and it's not unusual for journalists to talk to both sides of the story, or in this case, the good guys and the "evil doers." What a better, if not illegal, way to find the terrorists and their associates?

But before you say "yeah, go for it," consider the implications of tapping Christiane Amanpour's phones:

1. Such a wiretap would likely include her home, office, and cell phones, and email correspondence, at the very least.

2. That means anyone Christiane has conversed with in the past four years, at least by phone or email, could have had their conversation taped by the US government.

3. That also means that anyone who uses any of Christiane's telephones or computers (work or home) could also have had their conversation bugged.

4. This includes Christiane's husband, former Clinton administration senior official Jamie Rubin, who was spokesman for the State Department.

5. Jamie Rubin was also chief foreign policy adviser to General Wesley Clark's presidential campaign, and then worked as a senior national security adviser to John Kerry's presidential campaign.

6. Did Jamie Rubin ever use his home phone, his wife's work phone, his wife's cell phone, her home computer or her work computer to communicate with John Kerry or Wesley Clark? If so, those conversations would have been bugged if Bush was tapping Amanpour.

7. Did Jamie Rubin ever in the past four years communicate with any elected officials in Washington, DC - any Senators or members of the US House? Any senior members of the Democratic party?

8. Has Rubin spoken with Bill Clinton, his former boss, in the past 4 years?

What would any of this have to do with Al-Qaeda? And further, even if Amanpour were talking to people associated with al-Qeada - so what? She's a reporter, of course they want to talk to her in order to put out their spin of events -- that communication doesn't make her a co-conspirator or is it likely to reveal any vital security infomation that CNN wouldn't also reveal on their own.

Just what is going on here?

Vyan