The Obama administration wiretapped Associated Press journalists.

World Opera - The American news agency AP (Associated Press) stated this Monday (May 13th) that it was the target of telephone wiretapping by federal authorities during the months of April and May of last year. The company received this information through a letter from the US Department of Justice itself, sent last Friday (May 10th) by the Attorney General, Eric Holder, to the agency's president, Gary Pruitt.

Pruitt, in a protest response to Holder, criticized the Department's "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into the AP's news activities. According to him, the government obtained a number of pieces of information far beyond what would justify a specific investigation.

"There is no possible justification for such a large collection of telephone communications from the AP and its journalists. The records could reveal conversations held with confidential sources during journalistic activity carried out by the AP over two months, provide a map of journalistic operations, and disclose information about the AP's activities that the government has no right to know," Pruitt said in the letter addressed to Attorney General Eric Holder.

The tapped data includes incoming and outgoing phone call numbers, both to and from professional and personal numbers, and the duration of each of these conversations. The exact number of journalists whose phones were tapped during those two months is undetermined, but it is estimated to be over one hundred.

Pruitt considers this action by the department to be a "serious interference with the constitutional rights" of the agency and demands that all telephone records be returned and copies destroyed.

However, the agency did not reveal, in the letter to the news agency, what the reasons for this action were. According to the AP, the measure may be related to the fact that Holder publicly stated he was conducting an investigation related to an AP story revealing the Al Qaeda terrorist network's intention to carry out an alleged terrorist attack. Government officials reportedly tried to locate AP sources connected to a CIA (US Central Intelligence Agency) counterterrorism operation in Yemen – among the numbers tapped were those of journalists who participated in the investigative report.

The Associated Press, one of the world's oldest news agencies, founded in 1846, is a cooperative managed by the owners of a number of American newspapers and radio and television stations.
The Department of Justice has legal authorization to wiretap media outlets, but only with authorization from the country's attorney general and after all other alternatives have been exhausted. To date, the agency has not commented on the situation.

Repercussions

California Republican Congressman Darrel Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, criticized the administration in a statement: "Americans should realize that high-level officials in the Obama administration see themselves as above the law, feeling emboldened by the belief that they are not accountable to anyone."

The organization RSF (Reporters Without Borders) described the wiretapping scandal as a "very serious offense" against freedom of information and a "violation of telephone communications."

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) states that the US Department of Justice sent a letter to the AP on May 10th informing them about the investigation of 20 phone lines, but without specifying the reasons or the legal arguments for the procedure.

"We wholeheartedly endorse the words of Gary Pruitt, director-general of the AP, who denounces a 'massive and unprecedented intrusion'," the organization said in another letter sent to Eric Holder.

"Reporters Without Borders calls on the Department of Justice to respond without delay to the AP's request to destroy data from the phones. We also believe that actions contrary to constitutional guarantees require examination by a congressional investigative committee," RSF added in a statement.

Furthermore, the Paris-based organization "notes with concern that the current federal administration has not ended the practices in place during George W. Bush's two terms, which sacrificed private data and, above all, the right of citizens to be informed," it adds.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) believes this fact demonstrates the need for a federal law in the United States to protect journalistic sources, which is already in effect in 34 states.