The Justice Department has secretly obtained two months of telephone records of journalists for The Associated Press in what AP's top executive says is an unprecedented intrusion into newsgathering.

Prosecutors took records showing incoming and outgoing calls for work and personal numbers for individual reporters, plus for general AP offices in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn. The government also seized those records for the main phone number for AP in the House of Representatives press gallery.

The Justice Department disclosed the seizure in a letter the AP received Friday. The letter did not state a reason, but prosecutors have previously said they are conducting a leaks investigation into how the AP learned about an al-Qaida bomb plot in Yemen before it was made public last year.

Prosecutors have sought records from reporters before, but the seizure of records from such a wide array of AP offices is unusual.