OSCE media freedom representative distressed about U.S. Justice Department seizure of reporters’ phone records

WARSAW, 14 May 2013 – The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Dunja Mijatović, today said she was distressed over revelations that in 2012 the U.S. Department of Justice secretly seized two months of office, home and cell phone records from up to 20 phone lines assigned to The Associated Press reporters.

The Justice Department admitted the surveillance on Friday. No reason was given for the action.

“There is simply no justification for such a broad violation of these reporters’ constitutional rights,” Mijatović said. “There may be occasions when, in the interest of security, a limited intrusion on reporters’ activities, judicially authorized, may be justified, but the sheer scope and breadth of this action is simply a deprivation of basic constitutional rights,” Mijatović wrote in a letter to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. “The action also calls into question the ability of sources to talk to reporters without fear of government eavesdropping.”

“It is now urgent for the authorities to conduct a fully transparent investigation into who ordered the seizure and why,” she said.

Mijatović is currently in Warsaw for an OSCE media-freedom event.