Posted on 05/13/2013 1:49:29 PM PDT by CWW
Edited on 05/13/2013 1:56:19 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
WASHINGTON (AP) — 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.
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.
The government would not say why it sought the records. U.S. officials have previously said in public testimony that the U.S. attorney in Washington is conducting a criminal investigation into who may have leaked 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-Qaida plot in the spring of 2012 to detonate a bomb on an airplane bound for the United States.
Wow. Talk about fouling your own nest.
He’s doing EVERYTHING to screw up now. It’s out of control and the MSM will only take so much.
Eric Holder allowed this? Color me skeptical.
Now...we know SOMEONE is really stupid...
The hits just keep on coming!
It seems there are more than a few whistleblowers within the evil bowels of this Obama infested government who have decided now is the time to reveal the reveal.
This should REALLY piss off the media; they are sacrosanct in their own minds and even the Messiah dare not undermine them. He will pay for this.
It’s ok, Holder will apologize. /s
Or skip drudge and just go straight to the story:
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/govt-obtains-wide-ap-phone-records-probe
just damn. I think this makes 4.
Gotta get to the bottom of this too.
I sincerely doubt it, but maybe a few journo pinheads will see the light thanks to this.
Mugged by reality and all that...
Hmm, seems like his handlers (the globalist banker elites) might have determined Hussein is no longer useful?
Is that including the Sibilius Flap that Lamar Alexander is on a screed about?
Now we know why the MSM are really pissed. Since the AP letter of protest was sent today, it is apparent they already knew about this last week.
Holder was OK with combat booted thugs on Election Day.
Holder was OK with exporting machine-guns to NarcoTraffickers.
Why would he not do this?
Tell me again why they’re buying up all that ammo, buying all those MRAPS..?
GOVERNMENT BY A KENYAN.
How does it feel to be targets of this bunch of thugs like conservatives have been saying forever!
You lie down with fleas, you’re going to eat dogs. Or something like that.
Constitution?
First amendment??
Meh! Bumps in the road.
This happened so long ago...what difference does it make????
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