Head of The A.P. Criticizes Seizure of Phone Records

The Justice Department has been widely criticized for the seizure, which covered 20 A.P. telephone lines, including its offices and the home phones and cellphones of journalists. The records were obtained without notice, directly from the phone company.

The Associated Press was informed of the action this month, without being given a reason for the intrusion. But the timing, and the targets, suggested that the move was related to a government investigation into A.P. coverage a year ago about the Central Intelligence Agency’s disruption of a Yemen-based terrorist plot to bomb an airliner.

“We don’t question their right to conduct these sorts of investigations,” said Gary Pruitt, president and chief executive of The A.P., said on Sunday on “Face the Nation” on CBS. But the manner in which it was pursued was an “unconstitutional act,” he said, characterizing it as overbroad and calculated to harass.

The interview was Mr. Pruitt’s first television appearance since the seizure was revealed.

Justice Department regulations say that subpoenas for journalists’ phone records should be a last resort, made when there would be a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation in notifying a news organization in advance. The seizures should be focused narrowly, the regulations say, and signed off by the attorney general.

The lack of notice, Mr. Pruitt said, denied The A.P. the opportunity to fight the seizure in court. The Justice Department, he said, acted as “the judge, jury and executioner in secret.”

The government is sending a message to officials, he said, “that if you talk to the press, we’re going to go after you.” It has already had an impact, he said. “Officials who would normally talk to us, and people we would talk to in the normal course of news gathering, are already saying to us that they’re a little reluctant to talk to us; they fear that they will be monitored by the government.”

He feared, he said, that “the people of the United States will only know what the government wants them to know.” He added, “And that’s not what the framers of the Constitution had in mind when they wrote the First Amendment.”

Mr. Pruitt was a First Amendment lawyer for McClatchy newspapers and rose to head the company. He was announced last March as chief executive of The A.P., a nonprofit news cooperative with 3,200 employees worldwide, and had served on its board for nine years.

There was no immediate response to a message seeking comment from the White House. But the Justice Department said in the immediate aftermath of the scandal that it sought “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.”

The administration has pursued six current or former government officials over leaks. Only three had been pursued in total under all previous presidents.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/business/media/head-of-the-ap-criticizes-seizure-of-phone-records.html?partner=rss&emc=rss