May 20, 2013 3 min read

In the years since 9/11, one need not be among the more hysterical reaches of either the right or the left to be concerned about actions undertaken in the name of national security that have, in fact, eroded due process and endangered fundamental rights and liberties.

Torture. Warrantless wiretapping. The endless detention of inmates at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, without charges. Drone warfare conducted with few checks and balances.

Officials from both the Bush and Obama administrations have argued about the necessity of such measures in order to prevent another attack on the scale of the Sept. 11, 2001 atrocities. But we believe terrorism can be aggressively battled while American ideals of transparency and fair play continue to be upheld.

And now comes word the Department of Justice surreptitiously seized two months worth of phone records from reporters and editors from the Associated Press, apparently to unearth the identity of a source who leaked information to the news organization about a plot hatched in Yemen to blow up an airliner. Justice Department officials apparently got their hands on records from 20 different phone lines of Associated Press writers and editors in New York, Washington, D.C., and Hartford, Conn., including cellphone and home numbers. Attorney General Eric Holder said last week he did not make the decision to go after the records, passing that buck to Deputy Attorney General Jim Cole, but nevertheless defended it, arguing that sneaking classified information to AP represented a “very, very serious leak … within the top two or three most serious leaks that I have ever seen,” adding “it put the American people at risk, and that is not hyperbole.”

Of course, we have no way of evaluating whether this is hyperbole or not given the secrecy in which this is draped. And if the administration wanted to go after the source, it should have drawn up narrowly focused subpoenas, in keeping with the Justice Department’s own guidelines, rather than secretly casting a wide net to see what it would haul in. Actions such as these can’t help but have a chilling effect on the press’ vital watchdog role.

Gary Pruitt, the president and chief executive of the Associated Press, said it well in an indignant letter to Holder: “There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of the Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all newsgathering activities … and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know.”

No, Obama is not now, nor has he ever been, a dictator. Barring any unforeseen developments, he will be departing the White House on schedule Jan. 20, 2017, and leaving the keys to his successor, whether that is Chris Christie, Hillary Clinton, Marco Rubio, Andrew Cuomo, or someone from the back of the developing 2016 pack. But actions such as these are what you would expect from authoritarian rulers who operate under few, if any, restraints. Seizing the AP’s phone records sets a particularly troubling precedent. As someone noted in one of the articles written in the days since this story came to light, we had a right to expect a little bit more from Obama, who is, after all, a former professor of constitutional law.

The president says he supports a federal media shield law, which would safeguard reporters from having to reveal confidential sources. Fair enough. But, in this instance, the president’s rhetoric has fallen well short of his own administration’s conduct.