Associated Press sues over fake FBI story

Associated Press sues over fake FBI story
AP has filed a lawsuit against the US Department of Justice over the FBI's creation of a fake news story to plant surveillance software on a suspect's computer.
3 min read
28 August, 2015
The FBI's director revealed that an undercover agent had impersonated an AP reporter [Getty]
The Associated Press filed a lawsuit against the US Department of Justice on Thursday over the FBI's failure to provide public records related to the agency's creation of a fake news story used to plant surveillance software on a suspect's computer.

The joint lawsuit filed by AP and the Reporters' Committee for Freedom of the Press concerns a 2014 Freedom of Information request seeking documents related to the FBI's decision to send a web link to the fake article to a 15-year-old boy suspected of making bomb threats to a high school near Olympia, Washington.

The link enabled the FBI to infect the suspect's computer with software that revealed the device location and internet address.

AP strongly objected to the ruse, which was uncovered last year in documents obtained through a separate FOIA request made by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
     It is improper... for government personnel to masquerade as The Associated Press or any other news organisation


"The FBI both misappropriated the trusted name of The Associated Press and created a situation where our credibility could have been undermined on a large scale," AP General Counsel Karen Kaiser said in a 2014 letter to then US Attorney General Eric Holder.

"It is improper and inconsistent with a free press for government personnel to masquerade as The Associated Press or any other news organisation," Kaiser wrote.

"The FBI may have intended this false story as a trap for only one person. However, the individual could easily have reposted this story to social networks, distributing to thousands of people, under our name, what was essentially a piece of government disinformation."

Impersonating journalists

In a November opinion piece in The New York Times, FBI Director James Comey revealed that an undercover FBI agent had also impersonated an AP reporter, asking the suspect if he would be willing to review a draft article about the bomb threats.

Comey described the tactic as "proper and appropriate" under Justice Department guidelines in place at the time.

He said such a ruse would likely require higher-level approvals now than it did in 2007, but that it would still be lawful "and, in a rare case, appropriate".

In a meeting with reporters the following month, Comey left open the possibility that an agent might again pose as a journalist - though he said such a tactic ought to be rare and "done carefully with significant supervision, if it's going to be done".

AP's records request also seeks an accounting of how many times since 2000 the FBI had impersonated media organisations to deliver malicious software.

In a response, the FBI indicated it might take nearly two years to find and copy the requested records. AP's lawsuit asks a federal judge to order the FBI to hand over the records.