Press under attack? - US Justice Dept lambasted for obtaining AP phone records

 WASHINGTON (AP):

The United States Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press (AP) in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprece-dented intrusion" into how news organisations gather the news.

The records obtained by the Justice Department listed outgoing calls for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters for general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Connecticut, and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP. It was not clear if the records also included incoming calls or the duration of the calls.

In all, the government seized the records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown, but more than one hundred journalists work in the offices where phone records were targeted, on a wide array of stories, about government and other matters.

WIDESPREAD CONDEMNATION

Reaction was swift. Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus called on Attorney General Eric Holder who heads the department to resign over the episode. The House minority whip, Republican Steny Hoyer, a Democrat, said, "This is activity that should not have happened and must be checked from happening again." The American Society of News Editors called the action "outrageous" and "appalling".

In a letter of protest sent to Holder on Monday, AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt said the government sought and obtained information far beyond anything that could be justified by any specific investigation. He demanded the return of the phone records and destruction of all copies.

"There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP's newsgathering operations and disclose information about AP's activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know," Pruitt said.

The government would not say why it sought the records. Officials have previously said in public testimony that the US attorney in Washington is conducting a criminal investigation into who may have provided information contained in a May 7, 2012, AP story about a foiled terror plot. The story disclosed details of a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an Al-Qaeda plot in the spring of 2012 to detonate a bomb on an airplane bound for the United States.

The AP delayed reporting the story at the request of government officials who said it would jeopardise national security. Once officials said those concerns were allayed, the AP disclosed the plot, though the Obama administration continued to request that the story be held until the administration could make an official announcement.

The Obama administration has aggressively investigated disclosures of classified information to the media and has brought six cases against people suspected of providing classified information, more than under all previous presidents combined.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said the use of subpoenas for a broad swath of records has a chilling effect both on journalists and whistleblowers who want to reveal government wrongdoing. "The attorney general must explain the Justice Department's actions to the public so that we can make sure this kind of press intimidation does not happen again," said Laura Murphy, the director of ACLU's Washington legislative office.