WASHINGTON: A special Customs and Border Protection unit used sensitive government databases aimed at tracking terrorists to investigate 20 US journalists, including a Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press reporter, according to a federal watchdog.
Yahoo News, which published a comprehensive report on the investigation, also found that the unit, the Counter Network Division, queried the records of Congressional employees and perhaps members of Congress.
In 2017 Jeffrey Rambo, an agent who accepted ongoing checks on journalists, told federal investigators that the practice is routine. Yahoo News quoted Rambo as saying that when a name comes up on your desk, you run it through every system you have access to, that’s just the status quo, that’s what everyone else does.
The AP obtained a revised copy of the more than 500-page report by the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security that included the same statement, but blacked out the speaker’s name. The Border Protection Agency is part of DHS.
The revelations raised alarm in news organizations demanding a full explanation.
We are deeply concerned about this apparent abuse of power. Lauren Easton, the AP’s director of media relations, said in a statement, “This appears to be an example of journalists being targeted only to do their jobs, which is a violation of the First Amendment.”
In its own statement, CBP did not specifically address the investigation, but said, CBP investigation and investigation operations, conducted by the Counter Networks Division, are strictly governed by well-established protocols and best practices. CBP does not investigate individuals without a valid and legal basis for doing so.
An employee at Rambos Storymakers Coffee Roasters, a small storefront in San Diego’s Barrio Logan neighborhood, said Saturday that Rambo was not immediately available to comment. Rambo lives in San Diego.
The new revelations are the latest examples of federal agencies using their power to investigate the contacts of journalists and others.
Earlier this year Attorney General Merrick Garland formally banned prosecutors from seizing the records of journalists in the leak investigation, with limited exceptions, reversing years of department policy. The action came after revelations that the Trump Justice Department had obtained records relating to journalists, as well as Democratic members of Congress and their aides and former White House counsel, Don McGahn.
During the Obama administration, federal investigators secretly confiscated the phone records of some journalists and editors at the AP. Those seizures included office and home lines as well as cellphones.
The use of Rambo and the CBP unit’s database was more extensive than previously known. The inspector general cited possible criminal charges for misusing government databases and lying to investigators, but the Justice Department declined to prosecute Rambo and two other DHS employees.
Rambo complained to Yahoo News that CBP did not stand by him and that he was portrayed unfairly in news reports.
None of these articles identify me, a law enforcement officer who was exonerated of wrongdoing, who actually had a real motive for what I was doing, he said, and CBP refused to admit that. refused, refused to admit it, refused to right that wrong.
Rambo was previously identified as an agent who had accessed the travel records of Ali Watkins, a reporter working for Politico at the time, and questioned him about confidential sources. Watkins now writes for The New York Times.
Rambo was assigned in 2017 to a CBP unit, part of the National Targeting Center in Sterling, Virginia. He told investigators that he had initially contacted Watkins to make a wider effort to get journalists to write about forced labor around the world as a form of national security. Issue.
He also described similar efforts with AP reporter Martha Mendoza, according to an unpublished summary obtained by Yahoo News. The Rambos unit was able to investigate Mendoza as a distinguished reporter, before trying to establish a relationship with him because of his expertise in writing about forced labor. Mendoza won its second Pulitzer Prize in 2016 as part of a team reporting on slave labor in the fishing industry in Southeast Asia.
As Yahoo News reports, Rambos’ supervisor Dan White in Washington told investigators that his unit ran Mendoza through multiple databases, and CBP found that a phone number on Mendoza’s phone was linked to a terrorist. White’s case was also referred to the prosecution and rejected.
In response, AP Easton said, the Associated Press demands immediate explanation from US Customs and Border Protection as to why journalists, including AP investigative reporter Martha Mendoza, were run through a database used to track terrorists and Identified as a potential confidential informant recruit.
It was Rambo’s access to Watkins that led to the Inspector General’s investigation. While he apparently sought her to pursue his work on bonded labor, Rambo quickly focused on a leak investigation. Rambo also named it “Operation Whistle Pig” for the brand of whiskey when he met Watkins at a Washington, DC, bar in June 2017.
The only person charged and convicted of Rambo’s efforts is James Wolfe, the former Senate Intelligence Committee security director who had a personal relationship with Watkins. Wolfe pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with journalists.
During conversations with FBI agents, Rambo was widely questioned about his interest in Watkins. She used travel records to confront him about his relationship with Wolfe, claiming that Wolfe was his source for the stories. Watkins acknowledged the relationship, but insisted that Wolfe not provide information for their stories.
Rambo said Watkins was not the only reporter whose records he researched through government databases, although he said in his interview with the FBI that he was only looking into whether Wolfe was providing classified information. Rambo said he examined CBP records on “15 to 20 national security journalists,” according to a summary from the FBI, which was included in the Inspector General’s report.
New York Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhodes-Ha said the new details about the Watkins investigation raised new concerns.
“We are deeply disturbed to learn how US Customs and Border Protection conducted this investigation into journalistic sources. As the Attorney General has explicitly stated, the government should stop using leak investigations as an excuse to interfere in journalism. The time has come for Customs and Border Protection to make public the full record of what happened in this investigation so that such unfair practices are not repeated.
Watkins said she, too, was deeply upset at the length of time CBP and DHS personnel apparently went to identify journalist sources and dig into my personal life. It was cold then and it is still cold.
Associated Press writer Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.
Disclaimer: This post has been self-published from the agency feed without modification and has not been reviewed by an editor
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