Is The Government Spying On CNN's Christiane Amanpour?

Well that is the hot blog question of the day. I am too tired to properly tackle the subject, but AmericaBlog has been on this like white on rice. So I'll settle for summarizing. AmericaBlog noted earlier today this passage from Andrea Mitchell's interview with New York Times writer James Risen on NBC Nightly News-

Mitchell: Do you have any information about reporters being swept up in this net?

Risen: 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: You don't have any information, for instance, that a very prominent journalist, Christiane Amanpour, might have been eavesdropped upon?

Risen: No, no I hadn't heard that.

That last part, about Amanpour, was soon deleted from NBC's transcript. And thus a mystery was born.

Many sites, including Salon among others, began asking questions.

Finally, NBC issued this statement:

Unfortunately this transcript was released prematurely. It was a topic on which we had not completed our reporting, and it was not broadcast on 'NBC Nightly News' nor on any other NBC News program. We removed that section of the transcript so that we may further continue our inquiry.

Certainly NBC (and Ms. Mitchell) know something, otherwise the question wouldn't have been asked at all. This wouldn't be without precedent. Conservative columnist William Safire confirmed this past weekend that he had been wiretapped at one point.

AmericaBlog has a theory on why the government might be interested in Amanpour and how broad this spying program may indeed be. Attytood has a theory too.

Curiouser and curiouser.

[Crooks and Liars has video of an earlier Risen interview... from the Today Show- James Risen Speaks]