I don’t know that any special privilege applies, but the House and Senate probably defer to the chamber to investigate their own members. Also, not sure that Cruz and Hawley were in on the planning, and just being assholes doesn’t justify being targets unless some info comes up.
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He’s not in the oven!
He’s not in the fireplace!
He’s not in the wood chipper!
He’s not in the furnace!
-Bugs Bunny
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Those assholes should most definitely be targeted in this investigation!!!
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Doh! Apparently reading comprehension is not always my strong suit.
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I believe you’re wrong about that. This is from TheHill in 2014, and the percentage of Blackberry use is probably down close to zero by now:
The popularity of Apple devices among members of Congress far outstrips that of any other brand, a survey by The Hill has found.
Of the 102 lawmakers whose offices responded to The Hill’s questions, more than 71 percent use iPhones. Among those using tablets, 95 percent are iPads.
Those figures compare with just 9 percent of lawmakers with an Android phone and 28 percent with a BlackBerry. Many lawmakers have more than one phone, including at least two who have a flip phone in addition to their smartphones.
Also, note that the 1/6 committee is requesting metadata from several telcos to get Congress members’ data, which wouldn’t be the case if everyone was using some special government phone with a government server. Even Trump preferred using his smartphone to the official Presidential line, and they’ll need telco records for that too.
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“But the list, CNN reported, currently includes Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Jim Jordan (R-OH), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Mo Brooks (R-AL), Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Jody Hice (R-GA) and Scott Perry (R-PA).”
Whew! Quite the Rogues Gallery!
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Doesn’t tell you much anymore about whether it’s a government phone or not. Lot of the government switched over to iPhones a few years ago and blackberry’s have disappeared.
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Okay, so what’s your definition of a government phone? An iPhone is going to run through a civilian telco and not a government server. It’s the back-end that matters for the context of this discussion, which is about access to metadata.
Whether it’s paid for by the government and is managed by them. Apple provides services where corporate entities (including various government agencies as clients) manage the cell phones that they issue out. So if they’re using a government-provided cell phone, you would go through whichever office issued that to them to request any of the data.
Strzok, for example, had Samsung Galaxy phones.
The CNN source for this story says the following (my bold text):
The House Select Committee investigating the deadly January 6 riot is set to request that a group of telecommunications companies preserve the phone records of a group of GOP members of Congress and former President Donald Trump…
A “group of telecommunications companies” does not sound like a government-operated phone system to me.
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The type of device is COMPLETELY irrelevant. They are issued smartphones (ironic name, dontcha think?)
Old news source only because it’s no longer news. Wouldn’t need to go through the telecom folks if it’s government-provided stuff, so just likely implies they’re personal devices.
The OWNER of the device (in this case the House of Representatives) makes the call. Speaker Pelosi can simply call these traitors into her office and demand they turn over their GOVERNMENT-ISSUED phones. And if they’re stupid enough to have conducted personal business on their GOVERNMENT-ISSUED phone (like former FBI agent Peter Strozk), they are dead in the water.
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That’s the point! The members of Congress are using their own personal phones and not some special “government phones,” or else the committee wouldn’t be going after a group of telcos for the data. I think we’re going in circles on this one, I’m out.
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Andy Biggs is my rep. I get his weekly “news letter,” which has paragraphs containing words like "protect the border from communists, socialists, etc: the usual GOP talking points here in AZ. I’m going to enjoy responding to his missives with my own query: “Heard from the Select Committee yet?”
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They all use the same telco networks. I think some of the government-issued phones have additional security features, but when they make a call they’re still using the Verizon/AT&T/Sprint etc. network.
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I always take notes on my criminal fucking conspiracies, and when I conspire to overthrow the government I always use my government issued phone.
The House does not “own” the critters’ gummint phones, any more than they own the carpets in the capitol building. The phones will be owned by some procurement agency. The Speaker cannot simply demand that a member’s phone be turned over for a witch hunt or fishing expedition. Don’t you think Newt would have done that if he could? Paul Ryan would have succumbed to the demands to go after AOC’s phone. If a House committee wants a phone, they have to issue a subpoena, and the user of that phone has due process rights.
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moved
OK. I hadn’t heard anything that actually implicated those particular buffoons, but I could easily have missed something. In particular, I’m having trouble imagining anyone saying, “Hey, let’s see what Ted thinks” without a pause followed by, “I’m just fucking with you guys. I wouldn’t plan a menu with that guy, much less an overthrow of the gov’t.”
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Worked for the Cal State system for quite a while (CA government entity) and although they used to issue us phones, a few years ago they switched to paying a stipend upon receipt of a copy of my phone bill. They also did this for Internet access, it was all privately contracted. That doesn’t mean the Feds are doing the same, but we can’t just assume the hardware is Fed-owned.
And of course, even if the hardware is privately owned, they should still be able to subpoena the records they need…
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