Overreacting To The AP Subpoenas

Wired recently reported that four members of Congress have introduced the Telephone Records Protection Act, which would require federal law enforcement to obtain a court order before obtaining telephone toll records – whether from reporters or anyone else – in an investigation.

However well-intentioned, this bill is an extreme overreaction to the frenzy over DOJ having used a "secret" subpoena to obtain telephone records of AP reporters in a national security leak case. First, grand jury subpoenas are by definition "secret" – by law, the grand jury process is conducted in private in order to protect the integrity of ongoing investigations and the reputations of innocent people who may be investigated and later exonerated. Second, DOJ guidelines require review of media subpoenas by a number of career employees at various levels of the Department before the subpoena even reaches the desk of the Attorney General or, in this case, the Deputy Attorney General, and there