Ride the Lightning

Justice Department Spied on AP Reporters' Phone Calls

May 14, 2013

This certainly was a potboiler story on all the networks and throughout the Internet yesterday.

Though the dust is settling on the facts and there is probably a lot we don't yet know, it appears that the Department of Justice (DOJ) notified the Associated Press (AP) last Friday about a surveillance operation in which the DOJ spied on phone lines used by up to 100 AP reporters. It apparently obtained subpoenas to access phone records for 20 phones lines used by AP staff members from April-May 2012.

News reports last night indicated that the surveillance had to do with leaks about a foiled Yemini terror plot that appeared in an AP story on May 7, 2012.

AP CEO Gary Pruitt wrote a letter to the Justice Department yesterday in which he said in part:

"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."

It seems to me that this is a concise and compelling summary.

Pruitt pointed specifically to a violation of regulation 28 C.F.R. §50.10, which requires that any subpoena "be as narrowly drawn as possible" Pruitt called for the DOJ to "immediately return to the AP the telephone toll records that the Department subpoenaed and destroy all copies. At a minimum, we request that you take steps to segregate these records and prohibit any reference to them pending further discussion."

The White House denied knowledge of the operation. The ACLU, Congress and many others are calling for an investigation – this should be an interesting story to follow.

As I have often lectured, none of us knows whether we are being watched, by whom, how, or for what reason. Welcome to the digital era.

Hat tip John Jones for some of this information.