AssociatedPress President and CEO Gary Pruitt on Sunday trashed the Department of Justice for its seizure of phone records and other confidential material during an investigation into what it termed matters of security.
Speaking on CBS' "Face the Nation," Pruitt said that the broad and clandestine manner in which the records were obtained was a direct violation of the First Amendment and therefore unconstitutional.
"Under their own rules, they are required to narrow this request as narrowly as possible so as to not tread upon the First Amendment," Pruitt said. "And yet they had a broad, sweeping collection, and they did it secretly. Their rules require them to come to us first, but in this case they didn't, claiming an exception, saying that if they had it would have posed a substantial threat to their investigation. But they have not explained why it would and we can't understand why it would."
The Department of Justice has said that it used the material obtained from the AP to help thwart a terrorist plot in Yemen and inflict damage on Iran's nuclear program.
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