
“There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters,” Pruitt said in the letter addressed to Holder.Īn AP story on the records seizure said the government would not say why it sought them.īut it noted that U.S. The AP on Monday described the seizures as a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into news-gathering operations.ĪP Chief Executive Gary Pruitt, in a letter posted on the agency’s website, said the AP was informed last Friday that the Justice Department gathered records for more than 20 phone lines assigned to the news agency and its reporters. In a decision made public on Friday, Holder ordered federal agents to secretly seize telephone records of AP offices and reporters for a two-month period last year. (1700 GMT) with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to discuss Medicare fraud but he was likely to face questions from reporters about his decision on the AP records. Holder, a frequent target of conservatives, was scheduled to appear at 1 p.m. The episode has created an uproar in Washington and led to questions over how the Obama administration is balancing the need for national security with privacy rights. Attorney General Eric Holder was likely to face a storm of questions on Tuesday over the Justice Department’s controversial decision to seize telephone records of the Associated Press, a move denounced by critics as a gross intrusion into freedom of the press. + Discussion: CNN, Morning Shots, Columbia Journalism Review, Raw Story, BizPac Review, Associated Press, The Sun, The Blue State Conservative, BuzzFeed News, The Reload, News Detectives, Alexander COVID News …, Short Punditry, The Daily Caller, American Free News Network, New York Post, Breitbart, The Racket News, Washington Examiner, USA Today, Austin American-Statesman, The Atlantic, The Daily Wire, Insider, Press Telegram,, The Wrap, Raw Story, East Bay Times, Breitbart, Just An Earth-Bound Misfit, I, Common Dreams, CNN, Townhall, Daily Kos, Mercury News, Heartland Signal, The Daily Caller, WPRI-TV, Fox News, New York Post, HotAir, Vanity Fair, Patterico's Pontifications, Jezebel, The Gateway Pundit, Reason, Townhall, IJR, RedState, Human Events, Twitchy, ARLnow.WASHINGTON, May 14 (Reuters) - U.S.
