Eric Holder defends AP seizure citing major security threat to public
Both Republican and Democratic members of Congress lined up to condemn the move against the AP, as did civil rights organisations and groups representing journalists. At the Department of Justice, Holder said the decision to seize the phone records was connected to a criminal investigation into the leak that led to the AP's story about the Yemeni terror threat. 

Gov't probe obtains wide swath of AP phone records
The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news. The records obtained by the Justice Department listed outgoing calls for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters...  

Lawmakers rip Justice Department over AP phone records grab
Lawmakers from both parties sharply questioned the Justice Department late Monday over its reported effort to secretly obtain two months of phone records from Associated Press journalists, with House Speaker John Boehner’s office saying “they better have a damned good explanation.” "I am deeply concerned by numerous reports of misconduct by the administration, from (whistle-blower) testimony regarding Benghazi to the Internal Revenue Service targeting groups based on political ideology and now the Department of Justice monitoring journalists with the Associated Press,” he said.