FBI illegally obtained journalists' phone records

The telephone records of journalists at The Washington Post and The New York Times were among those illegally obtained by the FBI between 2002 and 2006 by creating false terrorism emergencies and using other under-the-radar methods, The Washington Post reported.

A Post investigation uncovered e-mail messages that detailed how counter-terrorism officials within the FBI did not follow bureau procedures put in place to protect civil liberties and instead used tactics like convincing phone companies to provide records and filing false urgent requests.

In all, the FBI’s tactics were used to retrieve more than 2,000 records.