Nasty Little Man

Did the NSA spy on Christiane Amanpour?

Hot talk in the blogosphere is an interview that NBC's Andrea Mitchell did with NY Times reporter James Risen, who originally broke the NSA spying story. Only a small portion of Mitchell's interview actually went over the air, but MSNBC.com posted the transcript of the entire interview. In the transcript, Mitchell asks Risen if he found that NSA was spying on journalists and he answered no. Mitchell followed up by asking if he found that the NSA was spying on CNN's Christiane Amanpour, and Risen again replied no.

When this hit the blogs, NBC took the paragraph with the Amanpour question out of the transcript and released a statement saying that the network is doing further inquiry.

Americablog has been hitting on this extensively. Here's the original post (NBC changes official transcript of Andrea Mitchell interview), and you can find updates by visiting Americablog's homepage.

If it's true that the NSA tapped Amanpour's communications, there could be a variety of reasons why, which are examined by Attytood (Was Christiane Amanpour spied on-and, more importantly, if so why?). My favorite possibility, as a moderate cynic? Her husband is Jamie Ruben, a former State Department officiall under Bill Clinton and a foreign policy advisor to both Gen. Wesley Clark and John Kerry in the 2004 campaign.

Aside: I heard this story listening to The Young Turks on Sirius Satellite Radio on my way home from work. I pick up great stories listening to these guys. They talk about the stories that I don't catch because I'm busy with the rest of my life. And you don't need Sirius to listen to them. Visit their website, and you can listen or watch live, 6pm-9pm ET. I highly recommend them. They are funny, young guys (and one young woman) with a dry sense of humor who talk about great stories.

posted by Kinder Gentler Little Man @ 10:23 PM