The FBI says it will soon demand reporters' notes in its attempts to nail the so-called "Homeless Hacker," Adrian Lamo.
On Friday, FBI agent Christine Howard told me in a brief phone conversation to expect a federal order to surrender all notes related to Lamo. In March 2002, I wrote a profile of the 22-year-old Lamo from Sacramento, California, who has been charged with multiple computer crimes, including breaking into the New York Times intranet.
"All reporters who spoke with Lamo" should expect similar calls from the bureau in the days to come, said Howard, who is assigned to the Cybercrime Task Force in the FBI's New York field office. The FBI was seeking Department of Justice approval to subpoena journalists' records concerning Lamo. Once the go-ahead was given, she said, "you're going to have to turn it all over."
There's more, naturally, in my Wired News story.
THERE'S MORE: Last year, Instapundit Glenn Reynolds wrote about the strange case of Vanessa Leggett in the Wall Street Journal.
Leggett was putting together a book about a murder case -- one in which the defendant had been acquitted on state charges, "but the possibility of federal prosecution remained."
According to Glenn, the feds took the unusual step of subpoenaing "all of Ms. Leggett's records and notes -- not merely copies -- ... because it claimed that she was not a 'professional journalist.'"
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