This week, a story broke is of great concern to us here at the News: the revelation that the Department of Justice had subpoenaed two months of records from 20 phone lines of the Associated Press.

The DOJ story broke after the DOJ sent a letter to the AP informing them that the DOJ had subpoenaed the phone records from April to May of last year, and claims it followed proper guidelines.

Some of those guidelines are “narrow scope of the subpoena, seeking information from alternative sources and obligation to inform and negotiate.” 

The DOJ has failed on all counts. To begin with, 20 phone numbers do not sound like a “narrow scope.” It sounds more like a fishing expedition. 

If the DOJ had subpoenaed one or two lines, we could agree the focus was indeed narrow. However, taken into account that some of these lines were common lines used by a variety of journalists, it was a wide focus seeming to suggest DOJ employees had no idea what they were looking for.

Second, the DOJ claimed they were “seeking information from an alternative source.”

If the DOJ employees had indeed pursued alternative sources, they would have gleamed some sort of useful information that would have allowed for a “narrow scope of the subpoena.”

Finally, “obligation to inform and negotiate.” 

There is an exception in this guideline if prosecutors determine that negotiation would “ pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation.” 

Was the DOJ worried these records would be destroyed, or they would have a court challenge on their hands?

It is more likely the DoJ employees seeking this information were concerned with a court challenge, which would have impeded them getting a hold of the records they were seeking.

They found it better to wait a year before notifying the AP of this action, so they could not have taken this to a court of law.

DOJ officials have claimed they are investigating matters of “national security” in this case, and that is why there was no negotiating and they waited a year to inform the AP of this action.

But what it actually seems to mean when invoking “national security” is we will tolerate no further scrutiny on this matter.

The sad fact is it was not just the AP’s First Amendment rights being violated, but that of Americans calling or being called on these subpoenaed lines: those who may have been trying to report anonymously or whistle-blowing on government agencies and corporations.

So what information was the DOJ really after?