Taking Notes

There is no privacy on the internet.

   Keeping notes and records of conversations with sources is what journalists do. Historically, this stuff has not been available to legal beagles sniffing around for information that may be relevant to whatever it is they're investigating.
   In the past, reporters' notes and records of whom they contacted, when, and what was said could not be sifted through by investigators for two main reasons: a/ they are protected by law -- the legal doctrine of journalistic privilege -- and b/ they no longer existed, since many reporters destroyed them after a story was in print.
   In the rare event of a subpoena, reporters' responses would be that they stand by the report as it appeared in print, and the notes and source material no longer exist. And as for a prober's question as for why one bit of information was used or emphasized over another, the answer could be, "I don't recall."
   In addition to constitutional protection provided by the First Amendment, many states have legal protection for reporters under the doctrine of journalistic privilege, wherein reporters keep secret the identity of confidential sources.
   On the federal level, however, that doctrine does not always apply, so investigators periodically threaten reporters with arrest and jail time unless they reveal their sources. Some reporters have, in fact, gone to jail rather than comply with such a demand.
   Now we have the age of computers. Probers no longer need confront reporters to demand notes, records and the identity of sources. They can do it remotely, accessing computer files, email and telephone records, and then notify the reporter that they have the data.
   It became known this week that in their search for a leaker of government information, probers tapped into a journalist's email and phone records, and then, after they had done so, notified the reporter that they had picked up several years worth of data.
   Whether they were legally or constitutionally entitled to do so is now a debate and a court challenge.
   But a case can be made they the reporter should not have kept those records anyway.
   Granted, in this computer age it's very easy to keep every snippet of information, based on the chance that you may have need of it sometime, somehow, somewhere, maybe.
   But if it's easy for a journalist to save and have easy access to that trove of data, it's also easy for detectives to do the same, regardless of the journalistic privilege to protect a confidential source.
   It was easy enough for Woodward and Bernstein to keep their notes as they tracked down information for their long-running series of stories about the Watergate break-in and its connection to the Nixon White House. They didn't have computers, and the notes were physical pieces of paper that could be locked away in a desk drawer.
   That's not true in the computer age of electronic notes. There is no secrecy or privacy on the internet. The best a reporter can do is to send email notes and electronic drafts to the "delete" file. But that's not the same as destroying the text entirely, because a hacker can simply open the "delete" file and retrieve the documents. Even if the user "empties" the "delete" file, the computer simply transfers the data to another space in its memory -- call it the "empty delete" file. Next the information can be transferred to "clear empty delete" file, and so on.
   Computers never forget.
   Unless you follow the suggestion by Fox commentator Sean Hannity that you break up the machine, take out the memory chips, toss them into an acid bath and then smash them into tiny bits.
   Comes now a report that indicates the president has a habit of tearing up and shredding documents that he doesn't like, despite a law that says all White House documents that a president handles are public property and must be preserved for history.
   Meanwhile, does that mean that reporters must keep and divulge their notes despite constitutional protection of journalistic privilege, while the president is exempt from a federal law that says he must preserve and protect research and draft documents?
   By the way, several White House staffers spend several hours every day retrieving the shreds and carefully reassembling them into readable form.