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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, for general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford (CT) and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP. It was not clear if the records also included incoming calls or the duration of the calls. In all, the government seized the records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown, but more than 100 journalists work in the offices where phone records were targeted, on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.

The government would not say why it sought the records. Officials have previously said in public testimony that the U.S. attorney in Washington is conducting a criminal investigation into who may have provided information contained in a May 7, 2012, AP story about a foiled terror plot.

Consumer groups are outraged about a potential plan for ESPN to subsidize smartphone data usage, saying it would violate the principle of network neutrality.

They argue that all Internet traffic should be treated equally and that major corporations should not be able to pay for preferential treatment that wouldn't be available to a small personal blog or a start-up mobile app. The consumer groups argue that the Internet should remain an open platform that provides equal access to all websites, apps and services. Michael Weinberg, a vice president at Public Knowledge, warned that the ESPN deal could lead to a two-tiered Internet — one for wealthy corporations and one for everyone else. “That becomes a problem for any new entrant,” he said. “It changes the dynamic of how we see competition and growth online.” Matt Wood, policy director for advocacy group Free Press, said the deal would be “very discriminatory,” and would tilt the marketplace toward “the ESPNs and the other large content providers of the world.”

Free Press released a comprehensive analysis of the economics of the cable industry. The new report investigates why cable bills continue to increase annually at three times the rate of inflation and examines policies that could bring consumers more choice and lower prices.

Among the report’s findings:

• Despite flat and in some cases declining subscriber growth, multichannel video providers have raised the prices of their video services by more than 22 percent since 2007 — continuing this practice throughout the most recent recession. This trend has resulted in a 27 percent increase in video revenues.
• Despite these increasing revenues, the distributors’ video profit margins are declining since programmers are demanding higher fees to carry their channels. However, cable providers like Comcast are using their highly profitable broadband offerings to cross-subsidize their declining video profits.
• The owners of the cable channels have substantial pricing power. These programmers’ revenues have grown 36 percent since 2007. Over the past two decades, the programming industry’s cash-flow margins grew from 24 percent to 41 percent, even as many of these channels lost viewers.

Verizon Wireless announced that its Board of Representatives has declared a distribution to its owners, payable on June 25, 2013, in proportion to their partnership interests on that date, in the aggregate amount of $7.0 billion. Verizon Wireless is a joint venture between Verizon Communications Inc., which owns 55 percent of the partnership, and Vodafone Group Plc, which owns 45 percent of the partnership.