A Watergate redo?

The American Progress Action Fund has a story out that should start folks asking some serious questions about just how far the spying by the Bush Administration has gone.

WAS CNN'S CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR BUGGED?: In an interview with New York Times reporter James Risen, NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell asked, "Do you have any information about reporters being swept up in this net?" Risen responded "No, I don't. It's not clear to me. That's one of the questions we'll have to look into the future. Were there abuses of this program or not? I don't know the answer to that." Mitchell's follow-up: "You don't have any information, for instance, that a very prominent journalist, Christiane Amanpour, might have been eavesdropped upon?" Risen responded that he didn't, but it appears Mitchell has some indication she was, otherwise she wouldn't have asked the question. Later in the day, NBC removed Mitchell's follow-up question from the online transcript. In a statement, NBC explained "Unfortunately this transcript was released prematurely. It was a topic on which we had not completed our reporting...We removed that section of the transcript so that we may further continue our inquiry."

This should scare people for numerous reasons. The obvious one is that government has no business spying on reporters. There is also something that was pointed out on 92.1 the Mic yesterday. Christiane Amanpour is married to former State Department official, Jamie Rubin. And what was Mr. Rubin's job during parts of 2004? He was a campaign advisor to Senator John Kerry. Is it too hard to imagine that Rubin might have used the same phones as Amanpour once in a while?