The Justice Department’s surveillance of news media extended beyond the Associated Press, according to the Washington Post (May 19). Court records document the efforts of FBI investigators to track the movements and communications of Fox News reporter James Rosen. Officials believed he might lead them to the person who revealed classified information about North Korea in 2009.
Confidential sources exposed in Justice Department’s seizure of media phone records
The Associated Press revealed on May 13 that the Justice Department secretly seized phone records for “more than 20 telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012.”More than 100 journalists work in the offices where phone records were targeted,” according to AP.
“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.” – AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt