Washington: U S Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said on Sunday he believes journalists can be prosecuted for publishing classified information, citing an obligation to national security.
The top U.S. law enforcer also said the government will not hesitate to track telephone calls made by reporters as part of a criminal leak investigation, but officials would not do so routinely and randomly.
"There are some statutes on the book which, if you read the language carefully, would seem to indicate that that is a possibility," Gonzales said, referring to prosecutions.
"We have an obligation to enforce those laws. We have an obligation to ensure that our national security is protected."
In recent months, journalists have been called into court to testify as part of investigations into leaks, including the unauthorised disclosure of a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative's name as well as the National Security Agency's warrantless eavesdropping program.
Executive Director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Lucy Dalglish, said she presumed that Gonzales was referring to the 1917 Espionage Act, which she said has never been interpreted to prosecute journalists who were providing information to the public.
"I can't imagine a bigger chill on free speech and the public's right to know what it's government is up to, both hallmarks of a democracy, than prosecuting reporters," Dalglish said.
Gonzales said he would not comment specifically on whether The New York Times should be prosecuted for disclosing the National Security Agency (NSA) program last year based on classified information.
He also denied that authorities would randomly check journalists' records on domestic-to-domestic phone calls in an effort to find journalists' confidential sources.
"We don't engage in domestic-to-domestic surveillance without a court order," Gonzales said, under a 'probable cause' legal standard.
But he added that the Constitutional right of a free press should not be absolute when it comes to national security. If the government's probe into the NSA leak turns up criminal activity, prosecutors have an 'obligation to enforce the law.'
"It can't be the case that that right trumps over the right that Americans would like to see, the ability of the federal government to go after criminal activity," Gonzales told ABC's This Week.
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