DHS has served subpoenas to two aviation/travel bloggers who posted the post-Christmas bomb attempt TSA security directive on their sites. Photographer Steven Frischling who runs Flying With Fish, and Christopher Elliott, a travel journalist for National Geographic, Washington Post and MSNBC, who posted it on his personal blog. Both were visited by DHS agents at their homes, who handed them papers demanding they turn over all communications, emails, etc in regard to the directive, i.e. who they got it from.
On one hand, what they did was likely illegal. On the other, they only did it after the TSA failed to properly communicate the new rules to travelers: Instead we had to rely on Air Canada, which for a couple days was the only reliable source of details. Also called into question is where the government draws the line for freedom of the press. Both of these men are journalists by trade, but they posted this info on their personal sites. Had the directive run on MSNBC.com, would there be any subpoenas? Probably not.
It sounds like DHS may be more interested in learning who leaked the document than prosecuting those who posted it. But who knows. The details of the directive were hardly any "inside baseball" stuff that would help a bad guy, but it did ignite a firestorm of anger versus the TSA that might not have been so bad had they only continued to release vague instructions.
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