Josh Gerstein has followed up on yesterday’s ABC News report about law enforcement officials examining journalists’ phone records in order to find government leakers:

A former counterterrorism chief at the CIA, Vincent Cannistraro, told The New York Sun yesterday that FBI sources have confirmed to him that reporters’ calls are being tracked as part of the probe. “The FBI is monitoring calls of a number of news organizations as part of this leak investigation,” Mr. Cannistraro, who has worked as a consultant for ABC, said “It is going on. It is widespread and it may entail more than those three media outlets.” […] An FBI spokesman, Bill Carter, called the ABC report “misleading,” but did not dispute that journalists’ phone records have been obtained by his agency. “In any case where the records of a private person are sought, they may only be obtained through established legal process,” he said.

It seems more and more that this has nothing to do with the NSA’s phone data program, and is part of a routine investigation into the illegal disclosure of classified national security information. The FBI is entitled to subpoena phone records in the course of its investigation. Should journalists be exempt from that rule?