Justice Dept. Seized AP Phone Records

What was that whole “freedom of the press” thing again? On Friday, the Associated Press was notified that the Justice Department had secretly obtained two months of phone records of AP journalists. The reason behind the tap is unclear, but prosecutors have been investigating how the AP learned of an al Qaeda plot in Yemen before it was public last year. The records were taken from individiual journalists, along with the AP number in the House of Representatives press room, and AP offices in New York, Washington, and Hartford, Connecticut. “There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters,” wrote AP President Gary Pruitt in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday.