Imagine if a news reporter posed as someone else to gain information. Imagine if the head of the newspaper had deemed it Ok for them to do so and said they weren’t breaking any laws.

There would be outcry from the public. There would be controversy. Condemnation would reign over that paper’s name and that reporter.

Now imagine that it was a government official working on a case. That person had decided that they weren’t getting enough information, so they decided to impersonate someone else.

Would there be outcry?

In 2007 an FBI agent posed as a news editor from the Associated Press to find the perpetrator of a series of bomb threats against a high school in Seattle. The undercover agent emailed the suspect, Charles Jenkins, a 15-year-old student attending the school and sent him fake links to articles that were embedded with a program to track Jenkins’ location. The program worked and Jenkins w was caught. The FBI did not release any documents regarding their actions, but in the same year “Wired” released a story pertaining to their decisions.

According to the Inspector General no laws were broken therefore what that person did was justifiable.

Not so fast though.

How could we declare it wrong for journalist to go undercover and lie about their identities, even if for the greater good of the people, but not for an FBI agent? 

What contradictory actions.

Upton Sinclair, Nellie Bly and more would look away in disgust at the hypocrisy of the entire situation.

How can one investigator be right over the other?

Being the watchdog of the government and of companies used to mean something when there was less hypocrisies. However, now it is okay for an FBI agent to lie and pose as, and this is the real irony, a journalist to get information.

If the tables were turned the paper would probably be sued and the journalist most likely fired or perhaps they would leave on their own regard.

As an editor there is utter disgust that lingers on the tips of my fingers as I write. Of all the things to impersonate nothing speaks more volume than pretending to be a journalist, the one thing people often seem to be confused in their liking for. Yet, here stands an agent willing to go beyond his right and act as if he is not in the same position that investigative journalists tend to face when trying to follow a scoop.

What is more outrageous is that this was considered perfectly fine by the Inspector General. For someone who is supposed to uphold the law, he had a complete disregard for the entire situation.

I understand that by posing as a journalist, this FBI agent was able to gain sensitive information that helped him solve his case, but the means by which they got it still lack the ideas of better judgement and comprehensive thinking.

If a journalist had actually partaken in the event, the public would have scrutinized that person for not abiding by the law and believing they were above everyone. Many times over and over again judges have ruled that journalist are not above other citizens and that us to have to follow the law, yet the FBI should not.

This idea alone makes a complete mockery of our justice department and justice system. Not only is the Associated Press disappointed in the behavior or lack thereof of the Inspector General and the agent, but many journalists find this to be distasteful to the name of journalism.

Imagine I pretended to be an FBI agent because I needed information for a story I was working on. Imagine my boss had allowed that. Imagine.