◼ Wow: “Govt obtains wide AP phone records in probe,” the Associated Press claims: - Ed Driscoll/PJM
The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative’s top executive called a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into how news organizations gather the news.◼ “Note to President Obama: IRS Scandal Is Why We Distrust Government,” - Jonathan S. Tobin/Commentary
The records obtained by the Justice Department listed incoming and outgoing calls, and the duration of each call, for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and the main number for AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP.
In all, the government seized those 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 100 journalists work in the offices whose phone records were targeted on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.
In a letter of protest sent to Attorney General Eric 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.
◼ Watergate Was For Amateurs: Justice Department Spied For Months On Associated Press Reporters - Tyler Durden/Zerohedge
◼ OH MY-A New Obama Scandal! Dept. of Justice Seizes AP Reporters Phone Records - Yid With Lid
◼ Obama DOJ secretly grabs AP phone records — We are all Tea Partiers now. - Le-gal In-sur-rec-tion
Seriously, journalists. When are you going to stop spinning for this administration.
Issa on AP: "Top Obama Administration officials increasingly see themselves as above the law."
— toddstarnes (@toddstarnes) May 13, 2013
◼ OBAMA'S SIGNATURE MOVE: UNSEALING PRIVATE RECORDS
