Take Cheney's post-911 warrantless wiretapping program. You had Bush's own top DOJ officials threatening to resign over it in 2004, and Jim Risen with a story about it ready to publish in the NYT before the 2004 election. But not only was the White House able to stave off the resignations (IIRC through some tepid FISA oversight of the program), they got NYT editor Bill Keller to scuttle the story on vague national security grounds. (NYT reluctantly published it after the election only because Risen threatened to scoop them in his upcoming book.)

Then in 2008, Obama claimed the need to "look forward, not backward" wrt this and the Iraq War. Plus his admin renewed Bush's subpoena against Risen on another national intelligence story he'd done!

Any effort to hold Cheney or the Bush administration accountable for this would have had to battle both parties at the same time as educating the public on the issue, without the help of and backing of media institutions like the NYT.

I'd be fascinated to hear how anyone in America could seriously make the case that such an indictment could ever be achieved. Even now, decades after the fact when the base of both parties has absolutely nothing but disdain for people like Dick Cheney. But that's just one old example out of many-- current ones obviously are harder since people currently in power tend to be implicated.

That doesn't seem correct, even leaving aside the obvious moral issues with that.

But that's not what Flock is claiming. They're claiming that they don't even have to consider the request because they don't own the data.

[0] https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-re...

[1] https://www.clarip.com/data-privacy/ccpa-erasure-exemptions/