Sharyl Attkisson Sues Obama Administration For Violating Her Rights

NewsBusters.org:

Fox News's Howard Kurtz reported on Monday that former CBS correspondent Sharyl Attkisson filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department and the U.S. Postal Service over the hacking of her computers. Kurtz noted that Attkisson "alleges that three separate computer forensic exams showed that hackers used sophisticated methods to surreptitiously monitor her work between 2011 and 2013." The journalist seeks $35 million in damages against the federal agencies.

The Fox News host later pointed out that Attkisson and her lawyers claim to "have 'pretty good evidence' that these efforts were 'connected' to the Justice Department." The correspondent asserted that she was "caught in a 'Catch-22,' forcing her to use the lawsuit and an administrative complaint to discover more about the surveillance through the discovery process and to learn the identities of the 'John Does' named in the complaints."

On her own website, Attkisson outlined that she filed "administrative claims under the Federal Tort Claims Act against the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Postal Service, and certain unnamed employees and/or agents of the federal government." She added that she had "filed a lawsuit in the District of Columbia alleging certain violations of her constitutional rights based on information implicating the federal government in illegal electronic monitoring and surveillance of her home and business computers and phones from 2011 to 2013."

Back in May 2013, the then-CBS journalist revealed that her personal and work computers had been hacked, and indicated during an interview with a radio station in Philadelphia that "there could be some relationship between these things and what's happened to James [Rosen]," who also had been investigated by the Department of Justice for his reporting about the CIA's intelligence on North Korea. Three weeks later, CBS News confirmed, via an investigation by an outside cyber security firm, that "Attkisson's computer was accessed by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions in late 2012. Evidence suggests this party performed all access remotely using Attkisson's accounts."

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