Former CBS News investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson has sued the federal government over claims that it hacked her computer,
Fox News reports.
In her lawsuit, filed in Washington, D.C., the veteran broadcast journalist says the federal government engaged in illegal surveillance of her work as she reported aggressively on the Obama administration, including the scandals surrounding Benghazi, Fast and Furious and Obamacare. She says the Justice Department hacked into her work computers between 2011 and 2013, a claim the department has publicly denied.
"To our knowledge, the Justice Department has never compromised Ms. Attkisson's computers, or otherwise sought any information from or concerning any telephone, computer, or other media device she may own or use," it said.
Attkisson, a University of Florida alumnus and Emmy Award winner who previously worked for CNN, says in her suit that three independent forensic investigations found that her computer had been hacked by someone with sophisticated skills and that the government spied on her work. She seeks $35 million in damages.
Attkisson resigned from CBS News in March 2014 after two decades at the network,
Politico reported. Some colleagues had suggested her work had become agenda-driven even as she aired her frustration that the network had stymied her reporting by its own liberal bias.
In December, Attkisson noted the poor treatment of reporters by some in the Obama administration. She said that several journalists were the recipients of "profanity-laced tirades" when officials didn't like their coverage, the
Daily Caller reported.
"They haven't just done this with me, but with reporters at The Associated Press and other colleagues. This is a tactic and a strategy," Attkisson told Newsmax TV host Steve Malzberg last fall.
She released a video bolstering her hacking claims in October. It "appeared to show words being deleted from her files without her control,"
Politico reported, noting that a subsequent investigation by Fox found that it was likely her computer simply had a stuck backspace key.
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