The chairman and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), sent the following letter Monday to FBI Director Robert Mueller:
Dear Director Mueller:
We were disappointed to learn that, in 2004, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) misused so-called “exigent letters” to obtain the telephone records of reporters working in the Jakarta, Indonesia, bureaus of The Washington Post and The New York Times. While we commend you for personally apologizing to the newspapers on behalf of the FBI, and for personally bringing this matter to the Committee’s attention, we expect to receive a more complete accounting of this violation of the Justice Department’s guidelines intended to protect privacy and journalists’ First Amendment rights.
Writ Large 