[governance] Associated Press condemns US telephone record seizure

[Riaz K Tayob]

How very droll... will the American's that take their Bill of Rights 
seriously please stand up... from Guantanamo lawyers who have attorney 
client privilege violated by being bugged through to the Leviathan 
monster that ate Aaron Schwartz (may he and his family know peace), the 
priorities even of some Libertarians (as I see from the outside) are 
misaligned...

14 May 2013 Last updated at 01:29 GMT


  Associated Press condemns US telephone record seizure

Man looks at his phone outside the offices of the Associated Press in 
Manhattan, New York (13 May 2013) The government would not say why it 
sought the Associated Press telephone records
Continue reading the main story 
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22519776#story_continues_1>

The Associated Press has described the US government's secret seizure of 
its journalists' telephone records as a "massive and unprecedented 
intrusion".

Chief executive Gary Pruitt said AP was told on Friday the justice 
department had gathered records of outgoing calls from more than 20 
phone lines 
<http://www.ap.org/Content/AP-In-The-News/2013/Govt-obtains-wide-AP-phone-records-in-probe>.

Mr Pruitt said there could be "no possible justification for such an 
overbroad collection".

The justice department has provided no explanation for the seizure.

However, officials have previously said the US Attorney's Office in the 
District of Columbia was conducting a criminal investigation into 
information contained in an AP story last year.

Published in May 2012, the article was about a CIA operation in Yemen 
that foiled an al-Qaeda plot to blow up a US-bound airplane.

Confidential sources

The story was embarrassing to the government, coming shortly after it 
had informed the public that there was nothing to suggest any such 
attack had been planned, says the BBC's David Willis in Washington.

Continue reading the main story 
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22519776#story_continues_2>


    "Start Quote

    I am very troubled by these allegations and want to hear the
    government's explanation"

Senator Patrick Leahy Judiciary Committee chairman

Records for the phone numbers of five reporters and an editor who were 
involved in the AP story were among those obtained in April and May 2012.

AP said the seizure of records for general switchboard numbers and a fax 
line at its offices in New York, Hartford, in Connecticut, Washington DC 
and the House of Representatives was unusual and largely unprecedented.

"There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection 
of the telephone communications of the Associated Press and its 
reporters," Mr Pruitt wrote in a letter to US Attorney General Eric 
Holder <http://www.ap.org/Images/Letter-to-Eric-Holder_tcm28-12896.pdf>.

"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."

It is not clear if the records seized included incoming calls or the 
duration of the calls. Nor is it clear whether a judge or grand jury 
approved the subpoenas.

News organisations are normally notified in advance if the government is 
seeking such information and are given time to negotiate.

The Obama administration has aggressively investigated disclosures of 
classified information to the media, bringing more cases against people 
suspected of leaking such material than any previous administration, our 
correspondent adds.

'Press intimidation'

Darrell Issa, the Republican chairman of the investigative House of 
Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee, criticised 
the seizure of records.

"They had an obligation to look for every other way to get it before 
they intruded on the freedom of the press," he told CNN.

Senator Patrick Leahy, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary 
Committee, said in a statement emailed to AP: "I am very troubled by 
these allegations and want to hear the government's explanation."

The American Civil Liberties Union accused the Obama administration of 
"press intimidation".

In a statement, the US Attorney's Office in the District of Columbia 
insisted it took seriously its obligations to "follow all applicable 
laws, federal regulations, and Department of Justice policies".

"Those regulations require us to make every reasonable effort to obtain 
information through alternative means before even considering a subpoena 
for the phone records of a member of the media," it said.

"Because we value the freedom of the press, we are always careful and 
deliberative in seeking to strike the right balance between the public 
interest in the free flow of information and the public interest in the 
fair and effective administration of our criminal laws," it added.

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