Journalist's phone records stolen

The attempts to illegally access the journalist's phone records began on August 1, the day when the story went to the printer, Byron told CPJ. During a 10-week period, 48 phone calls were made to AT&T in an attempt to acquire the password to Byron's phone account and download his records from the AT&T Web site.

According to Byron, on October 16, AT&T informed him that a person claiming to be his wife had contacted an AT&T subcontractor the previous day and had convinced a representative to disclose 94 names and phone numbers of people Byron had called in July. An hour and a half later, someone else called claiming to be Byron himself and had the same representative read back all the phone records, apparently to check them for accuracy.

That evening, Byron reported the incident to the FBI. Since the day of the theft, at least one of the persons Byron talked to in July has had his own phone records stolen in the same manner.

Red Herring has posted a letter on its Web site signed by its editor, Blaise Zerega, and dated September 13, 2002, stating that the magazine has been sued for libel by Imagis Technologies in the Supreme Court of British Columbia. According to Red Herring, the lawsuit alleges that a column by Byron, posted online on August 5 and published in the September issue of the magazine, is defamatory. In the letter, Zerega wrote that the magazine had checked the accuracy of Byron's work and stands behind his column.