The Transportation Security Administration seems to have had second thoughts about those subpoenas it issued to two bloggers in an attempt to find out who leaked the agency’s new security directive, issued in the wake of the failed Christmas Day bombing attack.
On Friday evening, a TSA spokeswoman sent out the following statement:
TSA takes any breach in security very seriously. In light of the posting of sensitive security information on the web, TSA sought to identify where the information came from. The investigation is nearing a successful conclusion and the subpoenas are no longer in effect.
Steve Frischling, one of the bloggers, told Wired that a TSA lawyer apologized to him Thursday evening after Frischling told him about the heavy-handed tactics used by the TSA agent who served the subpoena — which included telling him that TSA would get him fired from his job as a blogger for KLM Dutch Royal Airlines if he didn’t cooperate.
