Freedom of the press, really?

There isn't one of you reading this newspaper that shouldn't be at least alarmed and at best incensed that the United States Justice Department used a secret subpoena to obtain two months of phone records for Associated Press reporters and editors without notifying the news organization.

Justice officials said that the move to seize two months of phone records of a number of AP reporters was necessary to avoid a "substantial threat to the integrity" of an ongoing leak investigation about an alleged Al Qaeda bomb plot in Yemen. In a letter of protest to Attorney General Eric Holder, AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt said the seizure was a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into newsgathering operations.

Disclosure of the seizure drew a swift rebuke from members of Congress and freedom of the press watchdogs, one of which called the move "Nixonian." U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen has failed to disclose the reason for obtaining the records, but it is known that he is conducting an investigation into the leak of classified information about a foiled terror plot in Yemen last year. An AP story last spring reported details of a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an Al Qaeda plot to detonate a bomb on an airplane bound for the United States.

The broad sweep of this action is chilling, especially for those of us who dedicated most of our lives to reporting and writing, being the watchdog for the rest of you who don't. It is worrisome to think that freedom of the press can be compromised, even ignored. It is maddening to see this happen without much of a public outcry.

Let me confess that I have been in the middle of this before. As a young correspondent for The Associated Press in a bureau in Southern Illinois in the early 70s, I received a call from an FBI agent in a city several hours away asking me about a telephone call I had made months earlier (the agent gave me a specific date and time of day that I made the call) to the TASS News Agency. From 1925 to 1991, TASS was the official news agency of the Soviet Union. It also was one of the world's major international wire services, distributing news throughout the Soviet Union and the rest of the world.

Scared spit-less, I managed to tell the agent that I would get back to him "after I looked at my notes." I called the AP Chief of Bureau (my boss) and told him about the call from the agent and about my original call to TASS to return a call from a TASS reporter who left me a voice mail. The reporter had questions about whom to call at Scott Air Force Base near Belleville, Illinois. The base was in my coverage area and it made sense to both of us that I would have the name of the base information officer. News service to news service. No intrigue, no espionage.

In fact, I determined that the information he was seeking would more likely be available at SAC in Bellevue, Nebraska. Belleville, Bellevue. The TASS reporter was lucky that he had called a Nebraska native. I gave him the phone number and called it another day at the office.

After the FBI call, I started wondering if they were monitoring the TASS news phone lines or the Centralia, Illinois, AP Bureau phone lines. It seemed ridiculous. There I was covering 33 counties of Southern Illinois coal mines, the Hollywood Brands (PayDay Salted Nut Roll) candy factory, a couple branches of Southern Illinois University and one Air Force Base, the home of the Military Airlift Command (MAC), NOT the Strategic Air Command (SAC).

The Chief of Bureau and the AP attorneys took care of the matter. I was told not to call the FBI agent back nor respond to further questions from him or anyone else in his organization unless directed to by my superiors. A minor hiccup at best in the life of a young reporter, but one that has stuck with me through the years. Something that has made me ever mindful of the importance and value of the Freedom of the Press.

Kudos to AP President Pruitt for fighting back.

Shame on the government for failing to ask in the first place.

A warning to editors and publishers and, yes, you the reader.

Don't ever take press freedom for granted.