In a move recalling the Nixon White House, the Obama administration secretly seized telephone records of lines assigned to The Associated Press in an apparent attempt to find out who leaked a report of a foiled al Qaeda plot on a US-bound airliner.
Federal agents obtained records in April and May 2012 of outgoing calls for more than 20 work and personal phone numbers of AP journalists in New York, Washington and Hartford, the news agency said.
The AP said the Justice Department disclosed the effort on Friday. Yesterday, the news agency denounced the “massive and unprecedented intrusion.”
The Obama administration, which has aggressively moved to plug news leaks with Watergate-era zeal, was apparently upset by a May 7, 2012 AP report.
The exclusive story described how the CIA thwarted a new “underwear bomb” attack on a US-bound flight that was planned for the first anniversary of the May 2, 2011, raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
The AP report said a would-be suicide bomber was training in Yemen when the FBI seized the bomb, a sophisticated new weapon that did not contain metal and might have foiled airport scanners.
Although the story said the plot was undone well before it could be carried out, its disclosure embarrassed the secrecy-conscious Obama administration.
Officials had claimed there was no al Qaeda plot linked to the bin Laden anniversary — and they wanted to be the first to reveal that one had been foiled, AP said.
The administration was so upset about the leak that even CIA Director John Brennan was questioned about whether he was the AP’s source.
The case was unusual because of the volume of material sought by the feds and by their secrecy.
Six AP journalists who worked on the al Qaeda story were among those whose phone records were seized. But more than 100 journalists work in the offices where the telephone records were targeted, on a wide array of stories.
In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder yesterday, AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt said the administration obtained information far beyond anything that could be justified by any specific investigation.
Also, when the government seeks phone records of a news organization, it typically notifies the target in advance and begins negotiations with it.
But this case was an exception, the government said in a letter to the AP. It cited an exemption to those rules that holds that prior notification can be waived if such notice, in the exemption’s wording, might “pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation.”