The Amanpour story

Carolyn L. left a comment earlier about an NBC interview that suggested CNN's Christiane Amanpour had been targeted for surveillance by the NSA. CNN reports this morning that the NSA has denied this:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A senior U.S. intelligence official told CNN on Thursday that the National Security Agency did not target CNN's chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour or any other CNN journalist for surveillance.

NBC raised the question in an interview with The New York Times reporter James Risen, asking him whether he knew anything about possible surveillance of Amanpour by the NSA. Risen, author of a new book, "State of War: the Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration," said he had not heard anything about it.
...
The senior official said that from time to time NSA surveillance overseas "inadvertently" acquires recordings or copies of communications involving Americans -- or what the government calls "U.S. persons," which includes most U.S. residents and employees of American companies. By law, however, such materials are required to be erased or destroyed immediately, the official said.

Intelligence officials rarely comment on who they may or may not have collected information about, but because of all the speculation on Internet blogs, the senior official agreed to look into the matter for CNN.

Of course you can decide for yourself whether or not you want to trust the word of a "senior intelligence official" of our government.