News broke this week that the U.S. Justice Department secretly seized telephone records from Associated Press offices and reporters for two months last year.

The AP called it a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into news-gathering operations by the U.S. government.

U.S. Rep. Trey Radel, who started his career as a television reporter, said he is not happy either.

Radel, R-Fort Myers, has since bought and sold a small newspaper in Southwest Florida and gained fame in the area as a conservative talk radio host. 

However, Radel is now a freshman Congressman. He said as a member of the U.S. House he is still concerned about journalists’ rights. Radel said he is appalled the U.S. Justice Department secretly seized the Associated Press office phone records. 

“Reporters and journalists across the nation thrive, live upon, and do their jobs successfully based on trust,” he said. “If you are a member of the public and you are a whistleblower, if you are someone who wants to shine light on an injustice, how can you trust that privacy and that security and that bond that you share with a journalist will not be broken when you have a big heavy-handed government intruding?”

Reuters reported that the U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington was conducting a criminal investigation into an AP story about a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped a terrorist plot. The story ran before officials announced the operation.

The U.S. government obtained records for more than 20 phone lines assigned to the Associated Press.