Associated Press President and CEO Gary Pruitt, once a First Amendment (of the US constitution) lawyer, has lashed out at US President Barack Obama for his administration's aggressive stance against whistleblowers and journalists.

Addressing the National Press Club in Washington on Wednesday, Pruitt described the government's actions against journalists as unconstitutional and a violation of First Amendment rights. Such actions include seizing AP journalists' phone records by the US Justice Department in the name of national security and naming Fox News reporter James Rosen a co-conspirator in a case involving his source, a State Department contractor now charged with violating the Espionage Act for leaking information to Rosen for his story on the nuclear program of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Pruitt warned that the government's actions would make sources reluctant to talk and thus prevent journalists from fulfilling their job of reaching news to the public, which to a certain extent has become the case since counter-terrorism, and national security became catchwords in the US after the Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.