The president and chief executive officer of The Associated Press on Sunday called the government\u2019s secret seizure of two months of reporters\u2019 phone records \u201cunconstitutional\u201d and said the news cooperative had not ruled out legal action against the Justice Department.<\/p>\n
Gary Pruitt, in his first television interviews since it was revealed the Justice Department subpoenaed phone records of AP reporters and editors, said the move already has had a chilling effect on journalism. Pruitt said the seizure has made sources less willing to talk to AP journalists and, in the long term, could limit Americans\u2019 information from all news outlets.<\/p>\n
Pruitt told CBS\u2019 \u201dFace the Nation\u201d that the government has no business monitoring the AP\u2019s newsgathering activities.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd if they restrict that apparatus \u2026 the people of the United States will only know what the government wants them to know and that\u2019s not what the framers of the Constitution had in mind when they wrote the First Amendment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In a separate interview with the AP, Pruitt said the news cooperative had not decided its next move but had not ruled out legal action against the government. He said the Justice Department\u2019s investigation is out of control and President Barack Obama should rein it in.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s too early to know if we\u2019ll take legal action but I can tell you we are positively displeased and we do feel that our constitutional rights have been violated,\u201d Pruitt said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve been secretive, they\u2019ve been overbroad and abusive \u2014 so much so that taken together, they are unconstitutional because they violate our First Amendment rights,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n