By Daily Wire. On Thursday, the Columbia Journalism Review reported on the results of a Freedom of Information Act request for documents related to the Obama Justice Department’s attempts to crack down on leaks to reporters which reveal that the Obama administration’s actions against the press “were broader than previously known.”

The report — which begins by warning against the threat the Trump administration poses to the freedom of the press — presents an alarming picture of the previous administration’s efforts to surveil the press and track down sources of leaks (h/t Ed Morrissey). . .

“In 2013, the Justice Department launched a brazen attack on press freedom, issuing sweeping subpoenas for the phone records of the Associated Press and several of its reporters and editors as part of a leak investigation,” the authors report. While those subpoenas have long been understood as “a massive intrusion into newsgathering operations,” they note, the recently unearthed 2014 report reveals that the subpoenas targeting AP “told only part of the story.”

The Office of Professional Responsibility’s report on the Obama Justice Department’s subpoenas of AP phone records reveals that “the DOJ’s actions against the AP were broader than previously known, and that the DOJ considered subpoenaing the phone records of other news organizations, including The Washington Post, The New York Times, and ABC News,” the authors explain. The report also reveals “how narrowly the DOJ interprets the Media Guidelines, the agency’s internal rules for obtaining reporters’ data.” (Read more from “Obama Administration’s Actions Against Press Worse Than Previously Known” HERE)

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Report Reveals New Details About DOJ’s Seizing of AP Phone Records

By Columbia Journalism Review. A new report obtained by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and the Freedom of the Press Foundation (where the authors work) under the Freedom of Information Act shows that the DOJ’s actions against the AP were broader than previously known, and that the DOJ considered subpoenaing the phone records of other news organizations, including The Washington Post, The New York Times, and ABC News. Moreover, they reveal how narrowly the DOJ interprets the Media Guidelines, the agency’s internal rules for obtaining reporters’ data.

In May 2012, the AP published several articles about a successful CIA operation that thwarted a Yemen-based bomb plot. These articles contained classified information and their publication prompted a leak investigation. In February 2013, then Deputy Attorney General James Cole approved a request by DOJ attorneys to subpoena the telephone records of the AP as part of this investigation. . .

The report, which was submitted to then–Attorney General Eric Holder in 2013, reveals that the leak probe was broader than previously understood. It reveals, for example, that, while the Justice Department obtained telephone toll records for 21 telephone numbers, the agency in fact issued “30 subpoenas to obtain telephone toll records for 30 unique telephone numbers.” The report reveals that those 30 subpoenas were intended to target seven reporters and editors, and covered a period of six weeks spanning April 1, 2012 to May 10, 2012.

The report also shows that, at least at one stage of their investigation, Justice Department attorneys considered subpoenaing the records of The Washington Post, The New York Times, and ABC News. What’s more, the report strongly suggests that the attorneys went so far as to obtain “telephone numbers and other contact information” for reporters and editors at those organizations who had worked on articles about the Yemen bomb plot. The report records, however, that the attorneys ultimately decided against issuing additional subpoenas. (Read more from “Report Reveals New Details About DOJ’s Seizing of AP Phone Records” HERE)

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