Results tagged “First_Amendment” from SpyTalk

U.S. Journalist Quizzed on Foreign Contacts After Landing at Miami

By Jeff Stein | June 29, 2009 6:05 PM | | Comments (2)

A veteran American journalist returning from Latin America on Saturday was closely questioned by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent about where he went and whom he talked to.

John Dinges, a former NPR managing editor for news and currently professor at Columbia University's School of Journalism, landed at Miami International Airport June 27 after visiting Venezuela and Chile.

After examining his passport, he said, the CBP agent asked him, "What were you doing on this trip?"

Tags: CBP, Columbia_University, Customs_and_Border_Protection, First_Amendment, Freedom_of_Speech, homeland_security, John_Dinges, journalism, protecting_sources, Reporters_Committee_for_Freedom_of_the_Press

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FBI Lawyers Threaten Bureau Critic for Using Official Seal on His Book Cover

By Jeff Stein | May 7, 2009 7:20 PM | | Comments (2)

You'd think that the nation's number one domestic counterterrorism agency would have better things to do than yap at authors and publishers about using the bureau's official seal on their books.

But I.C. Smith, a retired senior FBI counterintelligence agent who wrote a very critical book about the bureau in 2004, just found out otherwise.

A few weeks ago an FBI lawyer instructed Smith that he had to remove the FBI seal from his Web site, including one on the jacket of his 2004 book, "INSIDE: A Top G Man Exposes Spies, Lies and Bureaucratic Bungling Inside the FBI."    

The G-lawyer also told Smith that the publisher of his book, Thomas Nelson, Inc., would also be instructed "that if the book is reprinted, the cover be redesigned to remove the FBI Seal."

Tags: alphabet_agencies, censorship, CIA, copyright, counterespionage, counterintelligence, counterterrorism, FBI, FBI_seal, First_Amendment, Freedom_of_Speech, I.C._Smith, Justice_Department, lawyers, Lo_Jack, Mark_Olshaker, Ronald_Kessler, Secret_Service, trademark, whistle_blower

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