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In the wake of the AP scandal, in which federal investigators obtained the phone records of journalists using only a subpoena, four lawmakers have introduced legislation in the House that would prevent federal agencies from seizing any phone records without a court order.

Just days after news broke that the Justice Department had secretly obtained AP journalists’ phone records as part of its ongoing crackdown on leaks, the New Yorker released a new tool -- Strongbox -- to enable people to safely and securely leak electronic files. The late Aaron Swartz largely built the system.

America is on the verge of a wireless traffic data jam so bad, it could bring America to its knees. Or not.

If you had to pick one word to describe the Obama administration’s scandal-plagued, power-abusing and buck-passing week it would have to be "Nixonian."

For the second time in as many weeks, the Internet usage in Syria disappeared mysteriously with little to no warning. So, is it another case of the Assad regime trying to disrupt rebel communications or are they really having technical difficulties?

Since news that the Justice Department had secretly obtained journalists’ phone records broke, the story has been developing quickly. Here is a quick overview of the issues.

The nomination of Tom Wheeler, longtime president and CEO of the Cellular Telecom and Internet Association, to head the FCC has produced predictable bursts of praise and criticism. Both sides make some valid points, but the simple truth is that we don’t know where Wheeler stands on some of the most critical issues the FCC will face in the coming years -- issues that will have a huge impact on consumers. Before confirming Wheeler’s nomination, the Senate should insist on clear, specific answers to the following questions.

Content providers will soon pay mobile carriers to exempt their traffic from consumers’ mobile data plans, says AT&T’s Randall Stephenson. That may seem like a good deal for consumers but in the long-term it’s actually a raw deal.

The Obama administration sought to revive legislation that would provide greater protections to reporters from penalties for refusing to identify confidential sources, and that would enable journalists to ask a federal judge to quash subpoenas for their phone records, a White House official said.

The potential Tribune sale would be a high-profile litmus test of the unions' financial self-awareness. Public-sector workers from Massachusetts to California can force their investment managers to make a choice: sell to the Kochs, or keep managing their retirement billions. If the Kochs want to buy newspapers, this is a free country, and nobody can stop them. But the people whose benefits they want to slash don't have to help them get there.

Since news broke that the Justice Department had secretly accessed the phone records of Associated Press reporters and editors over a two-month period -- likely as a result of its anonymously sourced story on a foiled al Qaeda plot to blow up a U.S.-bound plane -- no watchwords have gotten more exercise than “chilling effect.” But does federal overbearance really have a “chilling effect”?

ESPN President John Skipper said he isn’t too worried about proposed legislation from Sen. John McCain that would allow consumers to pick what channels they want instead of buying a big package of networks.

Since 1996, cable bills have continued to increase at nearly three times the rate of inflation. This trend is only getting worse. Since the 2008 recession, the average annual rate of inflation has been 1.4 percent, but the price of expanded basic cable service has increased by an annual average of 5 percent. And these figures don’t include mandatory equipment-rental costs, which continue to skyrocket.
To learn more, read our new report: Combating the Cable Cabal: How to Fix America’s Broken Video Market.

It was just revealed that the Justice Department secretly obtained a huge cache of phone records from reporters and editors at the Associated Press. The AP has called this a “massive and unprecedented” violation of journalists’ constitutional right to gather and report the news. But this is not just a journalists' issue. It’s a democratic issue that has implications for all Americans.

Free Press joined the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and major news organizations in calling on the Justice Department to return the phone records it secretly obtained from more than 100 journalists.

Members of labor unions and activists protested outside the Los Angeles headquarters of Oaktree Capital Management to protest a possible sale of Tribune Co.’s newspapers to the billionaires Charles and David Koch. Oaktree has a large stake in Tribune Co.

Due to the controversies over the IRS and (especially) the DoJ's attack on AP's news gathering process, media outlets have suddenly decided that President Obama has a very poor record on civil liberties, transparency, press freedoms and a whole variety of other issues on which he based his first campaign.

As his Justice Department faces bipartisan outrage for searching phone records of Associated Press reporters and editors, Attorney Gen. Eric Holder says he is not sure how many times such information has been seized by government investigators in the four years he's led Justice.

When the Justice Department launched its investigation of alleged leaks of national security information by the Obama administration a year ago, we were skeptical. The history of such probes is mainly a tale of dead ends and unintended negative consequences. That this effort to criminalize a leak was launched amid an election-year uproar seemed especially inauspicious.

Barbara Walter's announcement that she would soon bring her long career to a close elicited the obligatory tributes to her as a trailblazer for women and an exemplary figure in broadcast journalism. But those plaudits may not go far enough. Whether or not Walters was exemplary, she may be the single most important TV personality of the last 50 years -- just not for the reasons we've heard. More than any other journalist, she tore down the wall separating news from entertainment, the serious from the frivolous, the public figure from the celebrity.