Journalists on Monday called the news the Justice Department seized records from phone lines assigned to Associated Press offices and its reporters over a two month period “chilling” and a “dragnet to intimidate the media.” 
 
 The AP reported the Justice Dept.  White House: 'No knowledge' of AP phone record seizure 
 
 By Justin Sink - 
 
 The White House on Monday distanced President Obama from the Department of Justice’s seizure of Associated Press telephone records. The Justice Department said in a letter to the AP on Friday that it had gathered records on at least 20 office, cell phone, and home phone numbers — including the AP's desk in the House of Representatives press gallery. The DOJ better be following the law and the Constitution.” 
 
 In a statement on Monday, the DOJ wrote “we take seriously our obligations to follow all applicable laws, federal regulations, and Department of Justice policies when issuing subpoenas for phone records of media organizations.” 
 
 “Those regulations require us to make every reasonable effort to obtain information through alternative means before even considering a subpoena for the phone records of a member of the media,” the statement read.
– News that the government seized two months of phone records from the Associated Press has drawn blistering criticism of the White House from a wide variety of news organizations, Politico reports. Fox's Greta Van Susteren says the Justice Department's action "sounds like a dragnet to intimidate the media" instead of a criminal investigation, while CNN's John King said the move "sends a chilling message from the government to people in our business and the AP, I think, is justifiably outraged." AP chief Gary Pruitt says the seizure, which may have been related to a story about a thwarted al-Qaeda terror plot in Yemen, is "a massive and unprecedented intrusion by the Department of Justice into the newsgathering activities of the Associated Press." White House spokesman Jay Carney, meanwhile, did his best to distance President Obama from the scandal, the Hill reports. "We are not involved in decisions made in connection with criminal investigations, as those matters are handled independently by the Justice Department," he said in a statement.