Freedom of the Press

Kalamazoo Public Library, via Flickr.

Late one night nearly a decade ago, an anonymous source contacted journalist Bastian Obermayer: “Hello. This is John doe. Interested in data? I’m happy to share.” This cryptic message was the start of the Panama Papers investigation, the Pulitzer Prize-winning series of exposés based on a trove of leaked documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca revealing tax fraud and other financial misdeeds of the rich and powerful.

If not for encryption, however, the Panama Papers may never have been published. The source, concerned about threats to their life if their identity were revealed, insisted on using encrypted channels to talk to reporters and share data. The hundreds of journalists who collaborated on the investigation through the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists also relied on encryption to protect their source and collaborate remotely on a global scale.

But now a trio of bad internet bills before Congress threatens the very journalists who rely on encryption to safely and securely communicate with confidential sources for important reporting on national security, local news, corporate malfeasance, and more.

The EARN IT Act, the STOP CSAM Act, and the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA — all with the worthy goal of protecting children online — each would make it legally risky for tech companies to offer end-to-end encryption. That's the form of encryption in which only the sender and intended recipient can read a message, and which offers some of the strongest protections for both journalists and sources.

If any of these bills pass, platforms may stop offering encryption altogether. That would make everyone — including journalists and their sources — less safe when they communicate online.

When the EARN IT Act was introduced in a past Congress, for example, the popular encrypted messaging service Signal wrote that it may not be able to operate in the U.S. if the bill became law. EARN IT has morphed from its original form since then, but its threat to encryption remains. Not only would EARN IT allow states to hold platforms liable for offering encrypted services under state law, but the bill specifically says that the use of encryption can be one piece of evidence to prove a platform’s liability.

Similarly, STOP CSAM also creates a legal nightmare for platforms that offer encryption, as the ACLU explained in a letter joined by Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) and dozens of other groups. The bill encourages platforms to scan their services for child sexual abuse material, or CSAM, by opening them up to liability for hosting CSAM even if they lack actual knowledge of the CSAM on their service. (Federal law already makes it illegal to help spread CSAM knowingly.) As the ACLU explains, a platform could be found liable merely because a court decides it was reckless to offer end-to-end encryption knowing that it can be used to spread CSAM.

Finally, PEN America and others have sounded the alarm about how KOSA would “result in the disappearance or degradation of end-to-end encrypted services” by forcing platforms to choose between filtering content to comply with the law or offering encryption. KOSA requires platforms to take action against content that the government says is “harmful” to kids, such as content likely to make them anxious or depressed. Not only does this provision raise serious First Amendment concerns, but it also encourages platforms to weaken or stop offering encryption entirely, so they can comply with their new duty to identify “harmful” content and stop it from reaching kids.

Protecting children from CSAM and other online harms is important. But it’s ironic that in bills meant to protect children, Congress could heedlessly and unnecessarily undermine the end-to-end encryption that is one of the strongest protections for online security and privacy, including for children.

Hindering encryption is bad for kids, reporters, and the public. Quite simply, without the confidentiality that end-to-end encryption provides, the next whistleblower with Panama Papers-level information probably won’t be “happy to share.”

Two new cases will call on the Supreme Court to interpret fundamental First Amendment protections for the press. "File:Panorama of United States Supreme Court Building at Dusk.jpg" by Joe Ravi is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

There’s plenty for journalists to complain about when it comes to social media platforms. Harassment of journalists runs rampant, online ads bleed revenue from local news outlets, and some platforms have shut out news entirely. But when it comes to two new cases before the Supreme Court, journalists and the news media must stand up for platforms’ First Amendment rights — or risk undermining their own.

NetChoice v. Paxton and Moody v. NetChoice both involve the First Amendment right of platforms to engage in content moderation, or enforcement of rules around what users can say on a social media service. These cases have the potential to reshape First Amendment rights online. But they could also impact the First Amendment rights of journalists and news organizations, by teeing up the court to reconsider fundamental First Amendment protections for the press.

At issue in both cases is the court’s decision in Miami Herald v. Tornillo, a landmark free press decision from 1974. In Tornillo, the court struck down a Florida law that gave candidates for office a right to publish an answer to a newspaper’s criticism of their “personal character or official record.” It held that the First Amendment prevents the government from regulating newspapers’ exercise of “editorial discretion,” i.e., decisions about what to print and how to cover newsworthy issues. Without this protection, the court said, the government could censor what people are allowed to read and know.

In the NetChoice cases, the platforms argue that under Tornillo, the First Amendment also protects their right to decide what content to host or remove. The Fifth Circuit rejected this argument and upheld the Texas law prohibiting platforms from removing content based on the poster’s viewpoints. But the Eleventh Circuit struck down a similar Florida law and agreed that the platforms’ content moderation decisions are constitutionally protected exercises of editorial judgment. Now, the Supreme Court will decide whether and how Tornillo applies to platforms’ content moderation.

The court’s decision has the potential to weaken Tornillo’s protections for editorial discretion — not just for social media platforms, but for the traditional news media, too. For example, if the court decides that Tornillo doesn’t apply to platforms because they’re too dissimilar to print newspapers, as the Fifth Circuit held, that could have troubling implications for modern news organizations.

Online news sites and journalists who publish on blogs or social media today also operate differently from print newspapers of the past. For example, they’re not subject to the same space limitations that can make it difficult for physical newspapers to print candidates’ rebuttals. But those differences don’t mean their decisions about what to publish or not are any less deserving of First Amendment protection.

The same is true for social media platforms. A lot of content moderation requires making nuanced judgment calls about what falls on one side of a platform’s rules or another: Is a post impersonating someone fraudulent or is it satire? Does a post contain forbidden sexual content or is it sex education? And even if a post doesn’t violate any rules, platforms are free to decide what content they want to carry, just like book stores can choose what books to sell.

These are precisely the kinds of editorial decisions that Tornillo held are protected. Just like the government can’t tell a newspaper it must print a politician’s reply to criticism, it can’t tell a platform it must carry particular content. On the flip side, the government also can’t forbid a newspaper from publishing or a platform from hosting content that’s legal, like hate speech or disinformation, both of which are constitutionally protected speech. (Of course, we’re all still free to use our First Amendment rights to condemn newspapers or platforms that decide to publish or host that content.) If the court undermines this principle for platforms in the NetChoice cases, it could also undermine it for the press in the future.

And while politicians may be going after social media for “anti-conservative bias” today, those same attacks threaten the news media. For example, former (and perhaps future) President Donald Trump hasn’t been shy about his desire to go after broadcasters that he views as being “too liberal.” As president, Trump suggested the government could revoke NBC and other broadcasters’ licenses in retaliation for unfavorable reporting. More recently as a candidate, Trump has promised to investigate Comcast for “treason” if he’s re-elected, claiming the reporting of its subsidiaries NBC News and MSNBC is “dishonest and corrupt.”

There are a lot of legal problems with Trump’s plan to revoke broadcast licenses based on content, as his own FCC chair pointed out when Trump first threatened NBC. But if the court accepts Texas and Florida’s arguments in the NetChoice cases — that market “dominance” can justify government limits on editorial decision-making power — it could also diminish First Amendment protections for broadcasters and other news outlets at a perilous moment for the news media.

The court will also consider another First Amendment issue in the NetChoice cases: the constitutionality of provisions requiring the platforms to tell each user when their content is moderated. While we’re all for voluntary transparency, this kind of government-mandated transparency raises First Amendment concerns. Depending on how the court resolves this second issue, its decision could open the door to future transparency mandates aimed directly at the press.

Although social media platforms and journalists can be at odds, for now their First Amendment fates may be bound. Journalists and news outlets shouldn’t be shy about defending the platforms’ First Amendment freedoms in the NetChoice cases, no matter how upset they may be about some platforms’ recent attitudes towards the press. The news media’s own rights may depend on it.

Yuma, Arizona police arrested and assaulted journalist Lucas Mullikin for legally recording them and requesting a badge number. He's the latest journalist who had to accept a "deferred prosecution" deal to get rid of baseless charges against him.

Screenshot of body camera footage released by Yuma Police Department

Prosecutors pushing frivolous cases against journalists have a little-known trick in their bag: deferred prosecution agreements. Rather than dismiss charges arising from unconstitutional arrests, they offer journalists a “deal” to throw out the case in, say, one year, as long as they behave themselves. Sometimes they even charge the journalist a fee for the privilege.

That’s what recently happened to Arizona journalist Lucas Mullikin. When he tried to record a violent trespassing arrest by the Yuma police in May, an officer illegally shoved him away from the scene and threw him to the concrete. The entirely inappropriate level of force was made more egregious by the fact Arizona courts had already ruled that a law trying to restrict how closely people could record police officers was unconstitutional.

But the last straw was when Mullikin got off the ground to demand his assailant’s badge number. “You’re under arrest,” the officer responded, before assaulting the journalist yet again.

For that, Mullikin was charged with resisting arrest and failing to obey officers. He told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that prosecutors first offered him a “deal” that would’ve required him to spend 40 days in jail. When he declined, the next offer was a “deferred prosecution” agreement whereby charges would be dismissed so long as Mullikin isn’t arrested again for a year. If he is, prosecutors are free to resume the case. Mullikin accepted those terms in September.

It’s understandable why a freelance journalist like Mullikin would agree to a deal like that rather than risking jail time and paying lawyers to fight the charges. But the potential chilling effect on journalism is obvious. To avoid prosecution Mullikin needs to make sure he’s not arrested again by the same police department that already demonstrated its willingness to handcuff him for doing his constitutionally protected job. How could he not at least think twice about hitting “record” if he witnesses more abuses by police?

Mullikin was also forced to pay a $500 “deferred prosecution fee” despite not pleading or being found guilty. Prosecutors must think calling it a “fee” rather than a “fine” lets them evade double jeopardy if they end up prosecuting Mullikin. But if it’s not a fine then what’s the basis for the charge? Authorities can’t have it both ways — either double jeopardy bars further prosecution or they effectively sentenced Mullikin without due process (or both). Mullikin has said he’s considering filing a lawsuit over his violent and unconstitutional treatment by Yuma police — let’s hope he recovers far more than $500.

Arizona isn’t the only state playing these games with journalists’ constitutional rights. New York photojournalist Stephanie Keith also accepted a deferred prosecution agreement in August. It was her easiest way to get rid of a baseless case arising from her photographing officers at a vigil for Jordan Neely in May. Chief of Patrol John Chell said at a press conference that Keith had somehow interfered in three arrests but video from the vigil showed no such thing. The New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board has reportedly opened an investigation.

Rather than dropping the baseless case like they should have, prosecutors offered Keith a deferred prosecution agreement whereby charges will be dismissed if Keith doesn’t get in further trouble for six months. But that’s cold comfort as long as the New York Police Department considers recording cops to be troublesome in the first place.

Police departments that wrongly arrest journalists for doing their jobs need to own up to it, apologize, and discipline the officers involved — not abuse their leverage to attempt to extract obedience and money from journalists they know did nothing wrong.

But that only seems to happen in cases that get enough attention to embarrass officials. As we’ve said before, the national media needs to cover cases like Mullikin’s and Keith’s so prosecutors stop getting away with taking advantage of independent journalists.

Over 50 organizations sent a letter demanding transparency over the FBI's May raid of journalist Tim Burke's home newsroom. The government's failure to explain how it believes Burke's newsgathering broke the law threatens to chill reporting by journalists who dig for news online.

Courtesy of Tim Burke

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

An FBI raid on the home newsroom of Florida journalist Tim Burke in May prompted over 50 organizations to send a letter to the Department of Justice today demanding transparency about how the government believes Burke’s newsgathering broke the law. Burke is perhaps most well known for his 2013 reporting for Deadspin that revealed that Heisman Trophy winner Manti Te'o's girlfriend, and her supposed death, were a hoax.

The FBI raided Burke’s home after he obtained outtakes of Tucker Carlson’s interview with Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) where Ye made antisemitic and other offensive remarks. The investigation, according to court filings, involves alleged violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, or CFAA, and a federal wiretapping law. The letter notes that concerns about efforts to criminalize journalism under computer crime laws are heightened by the August police raid of the Marion County Record over a reporter verifying a news tip using a government website.

The CFAA is the federal anti-hacking law that prohibits unauthorized access to a computer. But Burke says he got the outtakes from websites where Fox News uploaded unencrypted live streams to URLs anyone could access, using publicly accessible login credentials. “If that’s true, it’s highly problematic for press freedom,” said Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Advocacy Director Seth Stern. “Journalists cannot be expected to refrain from using the internet to find newsworthy content just because powerful companies would prefer to keep it private.”

The public does not know exactly why prosecutors believe Burke broke the law because the government fought successfully to keep the affidavit supporting the search warrant sealed from public view, and authorities have not issued any meaningful public comment. This lack of transparency is why FPF, Florida’s First Amendment Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union took the lead on the coalition letter.

The letter is also signed by national organizations including the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, PEN America, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the Society of Professional Journalists, as well as broadcast media giants like Nexstar Media Group and Gray Media Group. Advocates from Burke’s home state, like the Florida Press Association and Florida Association of Broadcasters, also joined.

In addition to the lack of transparency, the letter takes issue with prosecutors’ arguments that Burke is not actually a journalist, in part because he did not work for an established news outlet at the time he obtained the outtakes. Burke has a long history in journalism. In addition to his reporting on the Manti Te’o hoax, Burke was also behind the widely circulated 2018 video compilation showing dozens of Sinclair Broadcasting Group anchors reciting the same script.

But even putting aside Burke’s background, the letter explains that “Courts have rightly warned against limiting the First Amendment’s press clause to established media outlets — a warning that is especially important as technological advances give rise to new forms of journalism while traditional news outlets close their doors at alarming rates.”

The organizations behind the letter raise concern — and demand answers — regarding whether the government’s apparent belief that Burke was not a journalist led it to eschew procedures for searches of journalists’ newsgathering materials required under the federal Privacy Protection Act of 1980 and the DOJ’s own policies. Those policies were revised last year to better protect journalists’ rights in light of Trump-era abuses.

“The public relies on a fair and free press as protected by the First Amendment. Law enforcement policies and laws must support journalists’ rights to investigate and report on important matters of public interest, such as corruption, misconduct, and abuse of power, without fear of retaliation or censorship,” said Jennifer Granick, surveillance and cybersecurity counsel with the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. “This case, as with the recent raid on the Marion County newspaper, shows that we must do more to protect our journalists from abuses of power.”

“We need to make sure that rules meant to protect the newsgathering process are being followed and American traditions safeguarding a vibrant free press are not being abandoned for judicial and prosecutorial convenience, whether by a local police department in rural Kansas or the FBI in Tampa,” said Bobby Block, executive director of the First Amendment Foundation.

“Journalists need to know where the DOJ draws the line between computer savviness and computer crime,” said FPF Deputy Advocacy Director Caitlin Vogus. “Otherwise, they’re going to refrain from digging for news online out of fear that if they do their jobs a little too well they might be investigated or prosecuted.”

“We are concerned about the lack of transparency around federal investigators' raid on the home of journalist Tim Burke. The Justice Department should unseal the affidavit in this case and provide the public with an explanation as to why they conducted the raid in the first place,” said Katherine Jacobsen, U.S. and Canada program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists.

“It is always critical for the Society of Professional Journalists to stand up for the First Amendment rights of all journalists, whether newsroom staff employees, student journalists or freelancers. Any government agency’s attempt to infringe upon those First Amendment rights must be fought to ensure there is no chilling effect for other journalists. We stand behind Mr. Burke and his request for the immediate return of his devices from the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” said Ashanti Blaize-Hopkins, national president of the Society of Professional Journalists.

You can read the full letter here or below.

The judge who authorized the illegal warrant under which police raided the Marion County Record happened to be a lawyer. But she didn't have to be. Kansas and other states allow non-lawyer judges, often called magistrates or justices of the peace, to decide matters with important press freedom implications.

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Laws are only as good as the judges tasked with upholding them. And lately, journalists across the U.S. have learned that the legal protections they thought they could rely upon often exist only on paper. But what they may not realize is that, in many states, some judges deciding their constitutional rights aren’t even required to go to law school.

The August raid of the Marion County Record, purportedly to investigate whether a journalist illegally accessed driving records, is illustrative. The warrant application failed to mention the federal law -– the Privacy Protection Act of 1980, or PPA — that bans newsroom searches except in limited, inapplicable circumstances. It also ignored Kansas’ shield law and the federal Drivers Privacy Protection Act, or DPPA, expressly allowing records to be used for research.

The judge who approved the warrant anyway, Laura Viar, is now the subject of a judicial ethics complaint, while journalists investigate her background and potential conflicts. Viar was chosen by a local “nominating commission” to serve as a “magistrate” judge in November 2022 — less than a year before she issued the warrant, which was withdrawn by county attorneys within days.

Viar happens to be a lawyer — but she didn’t have to be in order to become a magistrate judge. In Kansas, anyone with a high school degree who passes an exam can take the bench and issue search warrants. Local magistrate judges — known as justices of the peace in some states — generally serve rural areas, which are often news deserts (fortunately, Marion is an exception). That means the local press is unlikely to serve as a check to stop nominations of unqualified judges. And when those judges enter unconstitutional rulings, struggling outlets may not have the means to appeal.

The Marion ordeal led lawmakers in Kansas to introduce a bill to prevent magistrates from issuing warrants. Hopefully it succeeds, but Kansas is far from the only state that empowers magistrates to trample on press freedoms.

In Arizona this April, Judge Amy Criddle issued a restraining order against journalist Camryn Sanchez at the request of a state senator. The senator, Wendy Rogers, claimed Sanchez stalked her by knocking on her door while investigating whether she lives in her district. In what should have been a glaring red flag, Rogers told the judge her goal was for the reporter to “learn their lesson and then leave the situation alone.”

Like Viar, Criddle is a lawyer, making her ridiculous restraining order all the more inexcusable. But the state leaves it up to cities to decide whether to require municipal judges like Criddle — who have the power to issue warrants, as well as restraining orders — to be lawyers.

And there’s more: Sanchez’s recourse following Criddle’s order was to appeal to another municipal judge, Howard Grodman. Fortunately, Grodman, also a lawyer, got it right and struck down the restraining order, correctly citing its obvious constitutional problems. But Arizona law makes it entirely possible that the next journalist hit with an unlawful restraining order or warrant will have to go through two unelected nonlawyers before they can get in front of a judge with some understanding of the First Amendment (not to mention obscure laws, like the PPA and DPPA, that many experienced lawyers haven’t even heard of).

Other states where any adult resident is eligible to issue warrants and restraining orders against journalists (or anyone else) include Texas and Mississippi. Still others go even further, allowing nonlawyer judges to convict and sentence defendants charged with misdemeanors. That, too, should concern journalists, especially considering the recent convictions of two reporters for violating a park curfew by recording newsworthy police conduct at night.

That said, you may have noticed that the judges discussed in this article are lawyers, even if they’re not required to be. And plenty of other legally trained judges have issued blatantly unconstitutional orders against journalists. Take, for example, the North Carolina judge who recently seized a reporter’s notes and gagged her from reporting a juvenile court hearing she lawfully attended. Law school didn’t stop that judge from ignoring the 1977 Supreme Court case that pondered the exact same scenario and sided with the journalist. Or, consider the St. Louis judge who recently barred a newspaper from publishing documents it lawfully downloaded from the court’s website, again in defiance of clear Supreme Court precedent.

Clearly, then, eliminating nonlawyer judges from the lower courts won’t solve all the judiciary’s problems. Judges don’t grapple with journalists’ rights every day, and even experienced trial judges need training on how to do so. Plenty of lawyers, after all, go their whole careers without litigating a case involving journalists.

But proposals like the one in Kansas to at least require a law degree are a good place to start and will encourage further scrutiny of judicial nominees’ qualifications to decide constitutional questions. And, hopefully, they can prompt some much-needed conversation around why judges — lawyers or not — can’t seem to get press freedom right these days.

Justice may be blind, but when it comes to our legal system, the public isn’t meant to be. Yet access by journalists and others to the most important antitrust trial in recent years has been severely limited.

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Before a single witness could utter a word of testimony in the Google antitrust case on Tuesday, the public and the press were temporarily barred from the courtroom. It’s just another step in a long list of anti-transparency measures styming access to the case: documents and testimony have been repeatedly sealed; exhibits used in open court have been removed from the internet; and only those who can actually make it to the courtroom are permitted to listen to the testimony (when they’re allowed in at all, that is).

Despite these restrictions, reporters and courtwatchers have been doing their best to inform their audiences about the trial. But if the federal judge presiding over the case, Amit Mehta, doesn’t act soon to stop this tsunami of secrecy, people may be left mostly in the dark about the biggest antitrust lawsuit of the 21st century.

Behind this anti-transparency push are Google and other big tech companies arguing that letting people observe the case fully could reveal trade secrets or otherwise embarrass them by generating “clickbait.” There is some precedent for closing parts of trials or redacting court documents to avoid disclosing trade secrets. But not to save corporations from embarrassment. Virtually every trial has the potential to embarrass someone.

Nevertheless, Mehta has repeatedly yielded to the companies’ demands to shield the trial from the public and the press. Here are three ways Mehta has chosen secrecy over access.

Capitulating to corporate secrecy claims

During pretrial discussions about what documents and proceedings should be kept secret, Mehta suggested he would defer to the tech companies’ claims that public access would cause them competitive harm. No one, he explained, understands the industry and the markets like the companies. Maybe so, but companies don’t understand the First Amendment the way federal judges do — or, at least, should.

But a judge’s job isn’t to simply accept a party’s claim that public access to a trial would cause the sky to fall. Imagine, for example, that courts had acceded to tobacco companies’ demands to keep court records proving the dangers of smoking under seal. Instead, judges should skeptically examine parties’ justifications for secrecy (which are often completely illegitimate) and only permit sealing if the presumptive right of access to court proceedings is overcome by a compelling reason. By deferring to the companies’ claims of financial harms, Mehta has abdicated his role as the protector of the public’s interest in open court proceedings.

Criticizing making public documents…public

Mehta has also scolded the government for putting trial exhibits online, saying he should have been told about the posting first. But exhibits entered into evidence are public records. There’s no reason a judge should be informed before they’re posted publicly, since there’s nothing he could do to order them to be removed — at least not legally. Rather than reproach the government, Mehta should applaud it for taking actual steps to improve people’s access to court proceedings for a change.

After Mehta’s reprimand, the government unfortunately caved and removed the exhibits from its website. It’s now asked the court for permission to publicly post new trial exhibits at the end of each day, but Google wants a 24-hour delay before posting. There’s no reason for any delay in posting these trial exhibits, and courts have said that people have a contemporaneous right of access to court records. But by demanding that the government ask for permission to give the public documents that are by law public records, Mehta has opened the door for delay.

Barring broadcast of trial testimony

Finally, Mehta denied a request to broadcast audio of the trial, meaning that only those who are within commuting distance of the courthouse can follow it live. Reporters and others who can’t attend the trial in person must rely on expensive transcripts or news reports. That’s better than nothing, but it’s no substitute for live audio, which can reveal nuances in witnesses’ tone or demeanor that can’t be captured in writing.

Mehta’s hands were tied by a new Judicial Conference policy that prohibits the audio broadcasting of civil trials with witness testimony, despite the success of those permitted on an emergency basis during the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s an unfortunate example of how the new policy is already rolling back access to civil trials that were afforded during the pandemic.

By repeatedly ruling in favor of secrecy, Mehta is rapidly undermining the public’s trust in the judicial system and the eventual outcome in this case. As the Supreme Court recognized more than 40 years ago, “People in an open society do not demand infallibility from their institutions, but it is difficult for them to accept what they are prohibited from observing.” Unless Mehta allows for more openness soon, we all will find it hard to trust the antitrust trial of the century.

The raid of the Marion County Record prompted some to ask whether the Record's aggressive journalism was appropriate for a small town. We wrote for the Columbia Journalism Review that the fact that question was even asked shows how the decline of local news has warped perceptions of the role of the press.

Kansas Reflector/Sherman Smith. Used with permission. Original image available at https://kansasreflector.com/2023/08/16/with-return-of-marion-county-record-equipment-the-time-has-come-for-answers-and-consequences/

Last month’s police raid of the Marion County Record’s newsroom and its publishers’ home sparked nationwide outrage. But some also questioned whether the Record may have been asking for trouble through its aggressive approach to small-town reporting.

We wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review that the reason for the misguided debate over the role of newspapers in small towns like Marion is:

"not because newspapers like the Record are crossing the line by agitating small-town officials [but] because those officials have grown unaccustomed to healthy scrutiny. And perhaps some of their constituents have forgotten the benefits of a robust Fourth Estate.

….

The prevalence of “news deserts” has apparently led some to think it’s normal for neighborhood news outlets to function as lapdogs rather than watchdogs."

You can read the full article here.

Body camera footage shows police slamming journalist Lucas Mullikin to the ground and arresting him after he asked for the badge number of an officer who had previously assaulted him for recording an arrest. Unlike arrests of journalists employed by major news outlets, the story has gotten little national attention.

The New York Times, CNN, and many other national outlets reported on NewsNation journalist Evan Lambert’s arrest at a news conference in Ohio earlier this year. Same when Phoenix police detained Wall Street Journal reporter Dion Rabouin outside a bank.

We’re glad those arrests made headlines — if anything, they should have gotten more coverage. The publicity prompted Phoenix’s mayor to apologize to Rabouin for his detainment and Ohio’s governor to denounce Lambert’s arrest while authorities dropped the charges. Without the backlash, who knows — his case might have proceeded to trial.

But since a video posted last week showed police in Yuma, Arizona, arresting freelance journalist Lucas Mullikin for lawfully recording a violent arrest and asking for the badge number of an officer who assaulted him (police have since released bodycam footage), we’ve heard crickets from the national media.

When Atlanta officers twice detained independent journalists documenting protests over the “Cop City” police training center, the only outlet to cover the stories (besides our U.S. Press Freedom Tracker), as far as we can tell, was the Atlanta online outlet Saporta Report.

And when police arrested Asheville Blade journalists Matilda Bliss and Veronica Coit for recording them evicting a homeless encampment at a public park, you couldn’t find coverage outside North Carolina. Only after they were unjustly convicted (they’re appealing) did the national media begin to take some interest — and even then, few outlets covered the case in any detail. The Tracker is full of additional examples of journalist arrests that went unnoticed.

It’s unfortunate that so many major news outlets only seem concerned with police harassment of journalists when the victim is one of their own. Maybe the trend has less to do with what journalists care about than what business people think readers will click on. Whatever the reason, though, it creates the appearance that the mainstream media is less concerned with press freedom than with protecting members of their club. And that’s terribly shortsighted.

The protection of the First Amendment’s press clause isn’t only for journalists who are employed full time by a well-known news outlet. Nor is it limited to journalists who graduated from J-School or who strive for “objectivity” (a concept that was unheard of when the First Amendment was drafted). The Constitution is meant to safeguard the rights of anyone engaging in acts of journalism — not just professional journalists.

The other side of that coin is that reporters who do work for major media powerhouses are nonetheless bound by legal precedents set by cases involving everyone from freelancers to bloggers to citizen journalists, regardless of whether they consider them their journalistic equals. If Bliss and Coit’s convictions are upheld on appeal, that means no journalist in North Carolina can legally record cops at parks after curfew, just like if Julian Assange is convicted for obtaining and publishing government secrets, the Washington Post could be next.

And as established news outlets continue to shrink and shutter, more and more of the law on press freedom is going to be shaped by cases involving unconventional journalists from outside the bubble. They may not have the funds to mount effective legal defenses (and may not know about the free legal resources available to them), so it’s especially vital that journalists who do have national platforms use them to help stop prosecutions before they start.

The August raid of the Marion County Record was a noteworthy exception — it made national news even though the Record is far from a household name. That was likely due to the sheer outrageousness of an entire police force ransacking a local newsroom and publisher’s home, as well as the raid’s tragic aftermath (the paper’s elderly co-owner Joan Meyer died after the raid, seemingly from shock). The public’s interest in the story proved readers do care about press freedom violations, even when they haven’t heard of the victims.

Would stories about less dramatic incidents in places like Asheville and Yuma get the same spotlight as the reporting on the Marion raid? To be honest, probably not. But they might help journalists retain the legal protections that allow them to write the stories that do.

Since May, an unconstitutional prior restraint has stopped the St. Louis Post-Dispatch from publishing a court record that the government accidentally made public.

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A St. Louis judge doubled down on an unconstitutional prior restraint last week, extending her previous order prohibiting the St. Louis Post-Dispatch from publishing a mental health evaluation of a man accused of killing one police officer and injuring another.

In an op-ed in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Deputy Advocacy Director Caitlin Vogus and First Amendment attorney Steve Zansberg explain the laundry list of errors in Judge Elizabeth Hogan’s latest order.

Vogus and Zansberg wrote:

“Prior restraints — laws or court orders barring the publication of information — are the most extreme, and least tolerable form of censorship. … Prior restraints on the press threaten our democracy by allowing the government to control the media landscape.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly said that they are almost always unconstitutional, striking down attempts to stop publication over and over again. Perhaps most famously, in the Pentagon Papers case, the court rejected attempts to prevent newspapers from printing a secret government history of the Vietnam War given to them by whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg. …

Hogan’s ruling, however, doesn’t bother to grapple with Supreme Court precedent, perhaps because that court has never upheld a prior restraint on the press.”

Spyware like the NSO Group’s Pegasus poses severe risks to journalists and their confidential sources.

Blogtrepreneur via Flickr, CC BY 2.0.

News broke last week that exiled Russian investigative journalist Galina Timchenko’s phone was infected with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware while she was in Berlin and went undetected for more than four months. It’s an alarming reminder of just how important it is for journalists everywhere to remain vigilant about threats to their digital security and to take steps to secure their devices and communications.

It’s also a reminder to Americans who care about press freedom that we must continue to push our government to do more to combat Pegasus.

Pegasus gives governments access to photos, notes, and encrypted communications stored on a phone. It can even use a phone’s microphone and camera to turn it into a listening device. Once infected, journalists’ phones can reveal their confidential sources and details of unpublished investigations.

Disturbingly, Pegasus has been found on the phones of journalists and their associates hundreds of times, including on the phone of the fiancée of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist brutally murdered by the Saudi Arabian government. In fact, journalists are consistently among the most frequent targets of Pegasus and other spyware used by governments, according to Citizen Lab, the leading civil society organization researching Pegasus. The founder of NSO Group once even defended the use of the software to hack journalists.

NSO Group claims it won’t allow Pegasus to be used in the United States. We have our doubts, especially since the FBI has acknowledged purchasing Pegasus. But even if Pegasus was never used to target a single phone in America, it still threatens press freedom here. For one thing, foreign governments have used Pegasus to target journalists who work with U.S. news outlets from abroad, like Khashoggi and others.

Even if governments only targeted journalists who work exclusively for foreign news organizations, it would still chill reporting that Americans rely on. Americans often watch or read non-U.S. news outlets to learn about world events or get a different perspective on U.S. news. For instance, Timchenko writes for Meduza, whose English-language website provides independent reporting about Russia’s war on Ukraine for a global audience.

While the U.S. government has taken some steps to restrict Pegasus’s funding and access to technology and dry up the market for commercial spyware, it must do more.

Under President Joe Biden, the Commerce Department added NSO Group to a government blacklist that makes it harder for it to do business in the U.S. or with Americans. But NSO Group has been furiously lobbying officials to reverse that decision, and there’s no guarantee a future administration would keep it on the blacklist. So we need legislation that permanently bars sharing technology with or providing funds to companies that create spyware that targets journalists, human rights activists, and dissidents.

The government must also enforce laws that criminalize the use of spyware like Pegasus against journalists and others. For example, the government could use the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, or CFAA, or other computer hacking laws to prosecute NSO Group, rather than try to use these laws to go after journalists. In the absence of criminal prosecutions, U.S. courts should recognize civil claims under the CFAA against NSO Group, such as the case brought by the Knight First Amendment Institute on behalf of journalists at a Salvadoran news outlet whose iPhones were infected with Pegasus spyware.

Biden also signed an executive order prohibiting the government from using commercial spyware implicated in human rights abuses. But there’s nothing in the order to stop the U.S. government from using spyware it creates itself against journalists or others. Such an easily circumvented “ban” on spyware is really no ban at all. The U.S. should ban government use of any spyware against journalists and other human rights defenders.

These measures may not be the golden bridle that ultimately tames Pegasus. After all, there’s only so much impact that the U.S. can have on spyware created by a foreign corporation and used by foreign governments. But there’s undoubtedly more the U.S. government could be doing to rein in Pegasus, or any spyware that threatens freedom of the press, no matter where it’s deployed.

Londres (Reino Unido), 18 de Agosto 2014

Tomorrow a delegation of Australian politicians from across the political spectrum will descend upon Washington, D.C., to attempt to persuade U.S. officials to finally drop the prosecution of Julian Assange. Assange is also expected to be a major focus of an official state visit by Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in October.

It’s nothing short of a national embarrassment that foreign officials have to explain to our government that prosecuting a publisher for work that helped expose war crimes is a threat to the First Amendment. Yet that’s where we find ourselves, with Assange set to be extradited to face trial, possibly within weeks. He’s indicted under the Espionage Act, but the charges have nothing to do with spying — rather, he’s accused of obtaining and publishing secret documents from a source, just like investigative reporters do all the time.

As Australian Barrister Greg Barns told the Guardian, “You’ve now got China using the Assange case as a sort of moral equivalence argument. So the message [of the Australian delegation] is going to be: this is very dangerous for journalists around the world and a race to the bottom that’s going on.” We’ve similarly argued that the U.S. loses credibility in opposing Russia’s sham espionage prosecution of Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich when it is simultaneously pursuing espionage charges against Assange.

The Australians are far from the first to warn the Biden administration of the dangers of the prosecution. Last November, five of the world’s most respected newspapers wrote to the Department of Justice to explain: “Obtaining and disclosing sensitive information when necessary in the public interest is a core part of the daily work of journalists. … If that work is criminalized, our public discourse and our democracies are made significantly weaker.” And dozens of press freedom and civil liberties groups have urged prosecutors to drop the case.

Seven members of Congress, led by Rep. Rashida Tlaib, called for the end of the prosecution earlier this year, warning it “greatly diminishes America’s credibility” as a defender of journalistic values. We commend them for doing so, but more lawmakers should’ve joined.

Even the Obama administration — no stranger to dangerous Espionage Act prosecutions of whistleblowers — recognized the risks of prosecuting Assange. Prosecutors back then reportedly restrained themselves due to the “New York Times problem” — any criminal theory they could use to charge Assange could be used by a future administration against the Times.

President Trump was, unsurprisingly, less concerned about setting adverse precedents for journalists but, so far, the Biden DOJ has shown no inclination to distance itself from the prosecution initiated by its unabashedly anti-press predecessor. Recent remarks from Secretary of State Antony Blinken appeared to double down on the administration’s stance.

Meanwhile, the repercussions of criminalizing journalism under the overbroad, archaic language of the Espionage Act — which prohibits “willfully retaining” defense documents —- have already begun to play out. The government’s failure to draw a red line against prosecuting routine newsgathering emboldens prosecutors to weaponize against journalists other overbroad statutes, like the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and state computer crime laws.

After all, if journalists can be prosecuted for obtaining defense documents under the Espionage Act, why can’t they be investigated for “unauthorized” access to public websites under the CFAA? Or, as the Marion County Record recently learned, for accessing a government website to verify a tip? Investigative journalists have no choice but to tread cautiously for fear that, if they do their jobs a little too well, officers might come knocking.

And if it’s this bad now, imagine the climate for investigative journalism if Assange is ultimately tried and convicted.

Of course, any discussion of the Espionage Act these days must acknowledge the elephant in the room — the Espionage Act case against Trump. Trump is also the reason many Democrats are unbothered by Assange’s prosecution — Wikileaks, they argue, helped Trump win the presidency by publishing documents damaging to Hillary Clinton. Assange therefore deserves what’s coming to him, even though his indictment has nothing to do with the 2016 election.

Not only is that view shortsighted when it comes to First Amendment freedoms but its proponents are cutting off their collective nose to spite their face. If you want to see Trump convicted under the Espionage Act, why would you want the government to invite a strong constitutional challenge to the same law by pursuing legally dubious charges against Assange? If a challenge by Assange to the act’s overbreadth were to succeed before Trump is convicted, it would severely weaken prosecutors’ case against Trump. If it succeeds afterward, it’ll give endless ammunition to Trump’s defenders to question the validity of the conviction.

There is no good reason to extradite and try Assange and countless reasons not to, many of which should have long been obvious to an administration that claims to value press freedom. Hopefully, the Australian delegation will succeed where many others have failed and persuade the Biden DOJ to finally drop this un-American prosecution. After that, Congress should repeal or reform the Espionage Act so it can’t happen again.

Lawmakers around the country are revoking contracts to publish public notices or changing laws requiring their publication in newspapers in an attempt to financially freeze out community newspapers that criticize them.

Matt Popovich, via Flickr, CC0 1.0.

A proposal to dump sewage sludge from Austin, Texas, onto ranchland miles away near the Colorado River may have gone unnoticed if not for a public notice printed in the local newspaper. Informed by the public notice of the permit application and outraged at the thought of having some of the 100,000 cubic yards of Austin’s “biosolids” dumped in their backyard, local residents protested, and the dumping company eventually withdrew its application.

Laws requiring public notices to be printed in local newspapers are powerful transparency tools. They’re also a critical source of funding for small newspapers battered by financial losses that are putting them out of business at an alarming rate. Despite these benefits, however, two disturbing trends threaten the public’s right to know.

The first is government officials retaliating against media outlets whose coverage they dislike by threatening or actually revoking contracts to print public notices. This year, for example, the new mayor of Johnston, Rhode Island, yanked a public notice contract from a newspaper days after his inauguration.

The newspaper’s publisher said the mayor had made his displeasure with the outlet’s reporting clear in private meetings and threatened to revoke advertising contracts unless the editor was fired. The mayor denied that the decision had to do with the newspaper’s coverage but then publicly criticized its reporting, including about public corruption.

Retaliation against newspapers using public notice contracts is not new, and it’s happening around the country. It also violates the First Amendment. For example, the Wet Mountain Tribune recently settled a lawsuit it brought against officials in Custer County, Colorado, alleging that officials violated the newspaper’s First Amendment rights by withdrawing their public notice contract in retaliation for critical reporting. The county revoked the contract after the newspaper questioned the decision to appoint a public health official with dubious credentials in the midst of the pandemic.

Perhaps because they’ve learned not to single out specific newspapers for retaliation, some government officials are trying a second tactic: changing laws that require public notices to be published in newspapers altogether. Last year in Florida, for instance, Gov. Ron DeSantis — no friend of the free press — signed a law that gives local governments the option to provide public notices on their websites, rather than in community newspapers.

In another recent example, a quirk of Kansas law has allowed localities to exempt themselves from the state law requiring publication of public notices in local newspapers. Several bills that would eliminate the requirement that public notices be published in newspapers were introduced in other states in 2023.

Some argue that requiring public notices in newspapers is outdated now that they can be posted on government websites instead. But, despite the undeniable decline of print journalism, newspapers remain an important source of information for many, especially older people and people without internet access. The public is also much more likely to happen upon important public notices while flipping through a newspaper than by perusing government websites. Afterall, when was the last time you visited a government website just to browse?

Proponents of these bills also argue that publishing public notices in newspapers is too expensive. Aside from the fact that public notice contracts are a drop in the bucket for many municipalities’ budgets, this argument ignores the significant economic benefit to a community from a local news outlet. Government payments for public notices in local papers provide vital transparency for the public and allow local newspapers to survive. That’s money well spent.

While public notices aren’t usually the most scintillating part of the news, they’re key to newspapers’ financial survival and an important source of information for the public. We’re rightfully outraged when politicians try to silence the press by denying them access to sources or bringing meritless lawsuits. Every community that is still fortunate enough to have a local newspaper must be on alert about the pernicious effects of government officials trying to censor the press through denials of public notice contracts, too.

Charges against ‘Cop City’ protesters frame everything from talking to journalists to using encryption as evidence of criminality.

Chad Davis

Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Advocacy Director Seth Stern wrote for the Intercept about the threats to press freedom posed by Georgia prosecutors’ indictment of 61 opponents of the police training facility that critics refer to as “Cop City.”

Stern explains that prosecutors cite, as evidence of a purported “conspiracy,” everything from protesters talking to the media to publishing anti-establishment literature to using basic digital security practices that shield them from surveillance.

“The implications of the indictment for press freedom may seem like an afterthought considering everything else that is terrible about it,” he writes. “That said, the threat to press freedom is real and shouldn’t be ignored. Any source considering talking to a journalist about a protest or controversial cause couldn’t be blamed for thinking twice after reading the indictment.”

Read the full article here.

Police often seize equipment from reporters outside the newsroom and then refuse to return it after months or years, despite federal and state law largely prohibiting such actions.

Tom Woodward, via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.

When police arrived at the Marion County Record with a search warrant, reporter Deb Gruver tried to use her cellphone to call the publisher. According to a lawsuit Gruver later filed, Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody “snatch[ed] the phone out of her hand.” It was one of the first pieces of equipment seized during the now-notorious raid.

Thanks in part to a national outcry, police (belatedly) returned the Record’s equipment. But other seizures of journalists’ equipment — ones that aren’t part of a shocking newsroom raid — often receive less attention and far worse outcomes.

Here are three other examples of police taking journalists’ equipment. These seizures likely violate federal law, and they certainly chill reporting. Perhaps most disturbingly, in each case, the equipment has yet to be returned — despite the seizure occurring months or even years ago, and no journalist having been convicted of violating any law.

Photojournalists and protests: It’s no secret that police routinely harass and arrest journalists covering protests. Unsurprisingly, journalists are at heightened risk of equipment seizures at protests too. According to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, searches and seizures of journalists’ equipment soared in 2020, coinciding with the Black Lives Matter protest movement.

In one example, sheriff’s deputies in Los Angeles County seized photojournalist Pablo Unzueta’s cellphone and camera while Unzueta was documenting a protest over the police killing of Dijon Kizzee, a Black man. Despite repeatedly identifying himself as press, Unzueta was brutally arrested.

Police later obtained a search warrant for Unzueta’s cellphone, apparently without telling the court that he was a journalist and ignoring the Privacy Protection Act of 1980, or PPA, a federal law that provides additional protections against searches of journalists’ equipment. It’s far from the only time police conveniently neglected to mention the PPA in a warrant application to search a journalist’s phone.

The charge against Unzueta was later dropped, and, with a lawyer’s help, Unzueta got his camera and cellphone back. However, police didn’t return his camera’s memory card — which contained two years worth of Unzueta’s freelance work — claiming it was “lost” during his arrest.

Unzueta later settled a civil suit against the authorities. The settlement is an important reminder to police that they can’t arrest and seize equipment from journalists who are just covering demonstrations. But Unzueta still lost years’ worth of work, and the public never saw his pictures showing police violently dispersing the protest.

Charges dropped, equipment held anyway: As in Unzueta’s case, police routinely arrest journalists on meritless charges to stop them from reporting, only to later drop the charges when they might have to defend them in court. While Unzueta got (most of) his equipment back, however, other journalists simply don’t.

For example, in the fall of 2022, police seized a laptop belonging to the Scotio Valley Guardian and the cellphone of Guardian Editor-in-Chief Derek Myers after the newspaper published audio of court testimony from a murder trial given to it by a confidential source. Myers was later charged with felony wiretapping.

Prosecutors left the charges against Myers pending for more than nine months but eventually dropped them in August 2023. However, the laptop and cellphone remain in police custody, even though the seizures likely violated the PPA and state shield law.

Holding equipment like this can prevent reporting in the immediate aftermath of the seizure, as well as chill future reporting. The seizure of the laptop stopped the Guardian from providing an authorized livestream of the murder trial. Myers also told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he was “extremely concerned about the potential search of the devices as they contain sensitive work product and source communications.”

The low-tech seizures: Unzueta and Myers had computers, cellphones, and cameras seized, but let’s not forget about the simple reporter’s notebook. Police sometimes seize — and keep — journalists’ handwritten notes.

For instance, in May 2022, police detained freelance journalist Ryan Fatica while he was covering a protest in Atlanta, Georgia. Fatica was filming the protest and identified himself as a journalist when he was being arrested. Nevertheless, police took his reporting notebook. According to Fatica, an officer “started looking through the notes, then said something like, ‘You’re not getting this back,’ and put it in her pocket.”

Fatica was later released without charges, but his notebook wasn’t returned. He’s far from the only reporter to have his notes seized by authorities. More recently, a North Carolina judge seized notes by a reporter covering a juvenile court proceeding and placed her under a gag order.

Taking reporters’ notes makes it harder for them to accurately report on newsworthy events and raises the risk that law enforcement will learn confidential information about journalists’ sources or other unreported material. It’s also almost always prohibited by the PPA and may be prohibited by state shield laws as well. Unfortunately, government officials seem all too willing to flout the law and seize journalists’ notes anyway.

Not only do each of these equipment seizures violate the law, they also harm the public’s right to know. Without their equipment, reporters can be hamstrung in publishing the news they’ve gathered. When sensitive information contained on equipment falls into the hands of police, it undermines journalists’ ability to gather and report news in the future.

That’s why legal protections for journalists’ equipment aren’t limited to newsroom raids. Our outrage over police seizures shouldn’t be either.

When payment processors like Paypal and GoFundMe aren’t transparent about their policies and practices for account freezes and closures, journalists can’t know what crosses the line and the public can’t hold these companies to account.

kenteegardin, via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.

We’ve long warned of the dangers to free expression when powerful financial institutions cut off journalists from using their services — whether we agree with the journalists’ point of view or not. Now, another controversial publisher is facing a financial roadblock after GoFundMe summarily shut down its fundraiser with little explanation.

According to The Dissenter, GoFundMe recently halted a fundraiser for Grayzone, which describes itself as an “independent news website,” and refused to transfer over $90,000 raised to the organization. GoFundMe responded to a request for an explanation by Grayzone by saying only, “Due to some external concerns, we need to review your fundraiser to make sure it complies with our Terms of Service.” No additional information was provided.

We’re not here to defend Grayzone as a model of journalistic excellence or endorse the veracity of any story they have published. Many have criticized Grayzone for praising authoritarian regimes and ties to foreign state media, among other things. The outlet is often accused of spreading disinformation and propaganda. Even if we were to assume that is all true, we would still strongly object to GoFundMe freezing it out and then refusing to explain why.

Payment processors aren’t news editors, fact-checkers or disinformation experts. They’re not making their decisions on who to block based on careful analysis of an outlet’s content. They’re making them based on popular opinion and their own bottom lines. Are you comfortable with them making those decisions in secret, whether or not you agree with their decision this time around?

This time, GoFundMe decided to block Grayzone. What about the next disfavored critic of U.S. foreign policy? Imagine, for example, how GoFundMe might have reacted to a fringe news outlet critical of the Iraq War if it existed at the height of the war’s popularity.

Some may brush aside “slippery slope” arguments, believing that GoFundMe’s recent actions were a unique response to particularly offensive content that won’t happen again. We (and the facts) beg to differ. Payment processors and fundraising sites have repeatedly blocked news sites in the past. In addition to its notorious financial blockade on Wikileaks, Paypal canceled the account of Consortium News and froze its funds. Around the same time, Paypal and GoFundMe both banned MintPress News. In another case, PayPal froze the account of News Media Canada.

These blockades have real consequences for news outlets and freelancers, who often rely on payment processors to keep the lights on and pay for their reporting. In the digital age, they can (figuratively) stop the presses. That’s why FPF and many other civil society organizations have repeatedly called on payment processors to be transparent about their policies and practices for account freezes and closure. Without transparency, members of the public can’t assess whether they agree with these sites’ policies and practices, whether they’re applying their policies consistently, or whether governments are working behind the scenes to suppress speech.

Transparency is also necessary for government regulators and lawmakers to understand how financial services exclude certain groups and businesses. Members of Congress have repeatedly expressed concerns about the impacts of financial service companies’ arbitrary terms, prompting the end of one controversial Justice Department program that pressured finance companies to shut off lawful accounts and renewing concerns about the disparate impact of financial exclusion on Muslim communities.

GoFundMe’s nebulous terms of service, for example, allow it to prohibit fundraising for anything it unilaterally determines is “an abuse of power” or “causes reputational harm.” Those terms could just as easily be used to kick your favorite opinion columnist off GoFundMe as they were used against Greyzone. They would allow GoFundMe to block us from fundraising on its service for writing this article and harming its reputation. They’d also allow it to block you if you criticize this article and harm ours. Journalists who rely on GoFundMe may think twice before expressing unpopular viewpoints after seeing what happened to Grayzone.

Of course, as private companies, payment processors and fundraising websites have the right to choose who they do business with. But they also have an obligation to the public to be transparent about how they make those decisions and provide meaningful mechanisms for account holders to appeal those decisions.

In the case of Grayzone, for example, GoFundMe pointed to “some external concerns” that sparked its “review.” If those external concerns were raised by the United States government or another government, then the law and the constitution does come into play. GoFundMe’s allusion to “external” factors, without identifying them, raises concerns about the government circumventing the Constitution by commandeering private companies to do its bidding.

Again, this problem is not hypothetical. Then-Sen. Joe Lieberman helped spark Visa, Mastercard and PayPal cutting off Wikileaks in 2011, after it published secret government documents (he also floated the idea of prosecuting The New York Times, speaking of slippery slopes). In fact, Freedom of the Press Foundation was founded in part to counteract this financial blockade and prevent the action from becoming commonplace. Similarly, Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart infamously bullied Visa and Mastercard out of working with Backpage.com, an action that a federal appellate court found violated the First Amendment.

Given this context, criticisms of Grayzone become irrelevant — it’s far from the first outlet to receive this treatment. And if people accept it this time just because they dislike Grayzone, it surely won’t be the last. Distractions and emotions aside, the bottom line is this: Do we want financial services companies, loyal only to their investors and with no particular interest in First Amendment freedoms, deciding which publishers should be able to pay the bills?

Passed in the wake of a police raid on the Stanford Daily, the federal Privacy Protection Act of 1980 is meant to protect journalists and newsrooms from searches and seizures. But more could be done to shield reporters from search warrants under state law.

John Loo, via Flickr, CC BY 2.0.

After the police raid on the Marion County Record earlier this month, an often overlooked federal law was on the lips of press freedom advocates and media lawyers everywhere: The Privacy Protection Act of 1980, also known as the PPA.

As every police officer, prosecutor, and judge should know — but too often don’t — the PPA prohibits government searches and seizures of journalistic materials in almost all criminal cases. But government authorities and reporters should also be aware that in certain states, state law gives additional protection against newsroom searches.

According to a guide by the Student Press Law Center, at least eight states "have their own laws governing newsroom search and seizures: California, Connecticut, Nebraska, New Jersey, Oregon, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin.” Journalists in those states should familiarize themselves with these laws and have a copy of them (and the PPA) ready in case police come knocking on their newsroom door with a search warrant.

Lawmakers in states without their own prohibitions on newsroom raids should consider enacting them. While the PPA applies to state and local law enforcement, it’s not enough to rely on federal law. All too often, police and even judges don’t know the PPA exists — or conveniently forget to mention it.

That’s a problem, because the process for obtaining a search warrant doesn’t involve the targeted journalist or newsroom. When police apply to a court for a search warrant, reporters and news outlets are left to rely on law enforcement officers and judges knowing about the PPA and applying it correctly. That can result in judges issuing search warrants in blatant violation of federal law.

Enshrining prohibitions on searches of journalists and newsrooms in state law may make state and local police and state court judges more likely to be aware of them.

Lawmakers can also use state law to give stronger protection against searches of journalists and newsrooms than that in the PPA. For one thing, the PPA has certain limited exceptions allowing government officials to sometimes use a search warrant for journalistic material. State law doesn’t have to include those exceptions. The California law, for example, flatly prohibits the use of search warrants targeting information about journalists’ confidential sources or unpublished information.

State laws that absolutely prohibit searches and seizures of journalistic material would lessen the risk of law enforcement abusing “exceptions” to spring a search on a newsroom. At the same time, they wouldn’t necessarily prevent police from accessing critical information, since police could still attempt to subpoena materials from journalists. Subpoenas allow journalists to have their day in court to object to their propriety, including under state shield laws that limit when journalists can be required to disclose sources and newsgathering materials.

If lawmakers must make exceptions to state laws prohibiting searches of journalists and newsrooms, they should be limited. One common exception found in both the PPA and most existing state-level protections is the “suspect exception,” which permits police to use a search warrant if the targeted journalist or news organization is suspected of committing a crime.

Suspect exceptions, however, can be problematic when the “crime” that a journalist is accused of committing is related to journalism itself, such as obtaining and publishing information that the government would prefer to keep secret. (That’s why, in most cases, the PPA’s suspect exception doesn’t permit a search if the crime the target is accused of consists of the “receipt, possession, communication, or withholding” of journalistic material.)

Any state-level suspect exception should also make clear that crimes related to newsgathering or publishing information can’t be the basis for invoking the exception. Exceptions should include “lawful obtainment,” in addition to “receipt,” because journalists are entitled to actively seek records that others procured illegally. The law on that point may not have been entirely clear when the PPA was enacted, but it is now.

Finally, state lawmakers could create stronger enforcement mechanisms for their laws than those found in the PPA. The PPA allows journalists to sue state officers or employees who violate their rights under the law. But it also grants defendants a broad “good faith” exception that allows them to escape liability if they had “a reasonable good faith belief in the lawfulness of [their] conduct.” Lawmakers could give state laws real teeth by permitting civil suits without a good faith defense. It’s fair to expect that police know they shouldn’t raid newsrooms.

Police raids like the one in Marion chill newsgathering and reporting in the public interest. The PPA provides strong protection, but clearly, it’s not enough. To prevent another Marion, state lawmakers must act to prohibit searches of newsrooms and journalists under state law. That said, even state protections are no panacea. Despite a California law prohibiting searches for information about journalists’ confidential sources, San Francisco police still obtained a search warrant for freelance journalist Bryan Carmody.

So, in addition to enacting these laws, we need to ensure that police and judges are educated about them.

Police failed to mention federal and state protections against newsroom raids when applying for a warrant to seize equipment from the Marion County Record.

Kansas Reflector/Sherman Smith. Used with permission. Original image available at https://kansasreflector.com/2023/08/24/altered-evidence-list-indicates-marion-police-kept-illegal-copy-of-evidence-from-kansas-newspaper/

When police applied for a warrant to raid the Marion County Record, they didn’t bother mentioning the Privacy Protection Act of 1980 — a federal law that largely bans newsroom seizures. They claimed afterwards that they knew about the PPA but didn’t think it applied (we have our doubts). And the judge who issued the warrant was apparently clueless about the law.

Authorities in Marion are far from the only ones to ignore the PPA. We noted earlier this year that police in Asheville, North Carolina, neglected to mention it when they applied for a warrant to search a journalist’s phone. And federal prosecutors are struggling to explain how the FBI raid of journalist Tim Burke’s Florida home could have complied with the PPA.

It’s a real problem that law enforcement and judges seem so confused (at best) about such an important press freedom law. It’s crucial that journalists themselves know their rights, especially when the government doesn’t. That’s why Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) collaborated with the First Amendment Foundation on a guide covering journalists’ rights under the PPA (and state shield laws), as well as how journalists should respond if police knock on their doors or otherwise attempt to seize their newsgathering equipment.

You can read and download the guide below.

Nearly the entire police force raided the Marion County Record in August 2023. The search warrant was later withdrawn after the Marion County Attorney determined that it was based on “insufficient evidence.”

Marion County Record

Caitlin Vogus spoke to the Lawfare podcast last week about the police raid of the Marion County Record, its chilling effect on the press, and steps journalists can take to protect themselves against future police raids and other searches.

As Vogus, deputy director of advocacy for Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), told Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien:

“The raid on Marion was rare, but it is not the only type of violation of press freedom that’s in a similar vein that we’re concerned about at Freedom of the Press Foundation. … We have to stay vigilant about press freedom in the U.S. We can’t be complacent and think we have the First Amendment and everything is fine.”

Listen to the whole podcast.

FPF also led national discussions on News Nation with Chris Cuomo, Scripps News Morning Rush, and the News in Context podcast.

Police in several states have withheld the names of officers involved in shootings or other altercations while on duty, citing Marsy’s Laws.

Image created by Harris Lapiroff using Midjourney, CC BY-NC

What if the names of the police officers who participated in the murder of George Floyd had never been made public, because they claimed they were the victims of an attempt by Floyd to resist his arrest? It may sound far-fetched, but if Minnesota had a crime victims’ rights law known as Marsy’s Law, it could have happened.

The original Marsy’s Law, passed in California in 2008, prohibited the release of victims’ confidential information to a defendant. But now, while the exact language of Marsy’s Laws differs from state to state, some newer versions prohibit the release of victims’ information to anyone.

That change opened the door to police officers using the law to hide their identities when they’re involved in on-duty incidents. Law enforcement officers around the country are arguing that Marsy’s Laws shield the names of officers who wound or even kill people while on duty. Police departments have relied on the laws to withhold officer names from press releases and even refuse to supply them in response to journalists’ public records requests.

The latest examples of this troubling trend are from Wisconsin and Ohio. In Wisconsin, the identity of a police officer who shot a suicidal man at the end of June has been withheld, even from court records, thanks to its Marsy’s Law. In Ohio, the Columbus police department is withholding the names of the officers involved in four separate fatal shootings in July and August, citing its Marsy’s Law. In one instance, the Columbus police are refusing to release the names of all eight officers involved in a shootout on a highway that left one person dead.

Incredibly, officers in states with Marsy’s Laws have claimed to be victims even when the other person involved in an incident did nothing to harm them. For example, police in Florida cited the provision in refusing to release the name of the officer who chased and tried to pull over a 13-year-old boy riding a dirt bike. The boy crashed and died. It’s nonsense for the pursuing officer to claim he is the “victim” in that scenario. But this type of claim is common. According to one investigation, “Officers sustained no injuries in at least half of the incidents for which they claimed victims’ rights.”

Protecting the rights of actual crime victims is important. But officers involved in altercations while on the job shouldn’t be considered “victims'' entitled to keep their information private. Police are using Marsy’s Laws to hide from public accountability and scrutiny. The public has a right to know what individual police officers are doing in their official capacity, on behalf of the public. Withholding officers’ names makes it harder for journalists to report about police actions, and for the public to hold both individual officers and law enforcement institutions responsible for misconduct.

Without officer names, the press and the public couldn’t identify officers who repeatedly violate the law or police rules. For example, if an officer who shoots a suspect can demand that their name be withheld from news reports, the public will be unable to look at past reporting to determine if a particular officer has a pattern of shootings. And journalists’ investigations into bad cops will also be stymied if police names can be scrubbed from public records.

A 2020 investigation by USA Today and the Invisible Institute, for instance, used misconduct reports to identify nearly 2,500 officers who have been investigated on 10 or more misconduct charges and 20 officers who “faced 100 or more allegations yet kept their badge for years.” That investigation would have been impossible if these officers could withhold their names under Marsy’s Laws.

Even states that don’t have Marsy’s Laws are negatively impacted by them. By potentially shielding the names of problematic officers from disclosure, the laws make it easier for them to move to states and continue to work in law enforcement. Journalists have relied on being able to report the names of officers found guilty of misconduct in one state when they simply move on to work in another.

It’s been years since police first started claiming to be victims entitled to keep their names secret under Marsy’s Laws, and legal battles over this issue are playing out in at least one state. There’s ample notice of the law’s anti-transparency impact. Yet campaigns to pass Marsy’s Laws in other states continue without acknowledging this fundamental flaw.

Lawmakers in states without Marsy’s Laws should reject any version that allows police officers to keep their names secret, and states with this law on the books should amend it to prevent law enforcement misuse. When police officers carry out their official duties, they’re acting on behalf of the public. Laws that wrongly hide their names, including from journalists, do a disservice to the public — and ultimately to real victims.

The outrageous raid of the Marion County Record got plenty of coverage. But it's far from the only noteworthy recent press freedom violation.

Kansas Reflector/Sherman Smith. Used with permission. Original image available at https://kansasreflector.com/2023/08/16/with-return-of-marion-county-record-equipment-the-time-has-come-for-answers-and-consequences/

The Aug. 11 police raid in Marion, Kansas, shocked the nation — and rightfully so. It was a uniquely egregious assault on the press and it might have actually killed someone.

The raid was outrageous, its aftermath tragic. Still, it was heartening to see the media focused on press freedom. Hopefully that continues. But here are ten other ongoing violations of journalists’ rights that, unlike Marion, are not getting the coverage they deserve.

The other raid: The FBI raided Tim Burke’s home in May after he published outtakes of Tucker Carlson’s interview with Kanye West, which Burke says he found on a public website. The government hasn’t explained how he broke the law. And in court papers this month, it questioned whether he’s entitled to protections for journalists. That’s worrisome, especially coming from the same Department of Justice prosecuting Julian Assange. Burke, like Assange, published information of public interest. That’s journalism and it’s protected by the First Amendment, regardless of whether they work for established outlets. And if the raid proves as baseless as the one in Marion, it deserves the same condemnation.

California clawback: The City of Los Angeles sued journalist Ben Camacho to get back photographs of undercover cops it inadvertently provided to him. One problem: The Supreme Court has held repeatedly that once the government releases records, even accidentally, it cannot claw them back nor restrain publication. But Judge Anthony Mohr ignored the law and let the lawsuit proceed. Why he thinks police secrecy is the exception to the rule against “prior restraints” is anyone’s guess.

Silenced in St. Louis: In May, Judge Elizabeth Hogan barred the St. Louis Post-Dispatch from publishing information it obtained from a court website. Three months and several continuances later, the paper is still barred from publishing. Hogan held a hearing last week only to kick the can down the road again. Even if she withdraws her unconstitutional order, the damage is done. As the Supreme Court explained, "The loss of First Amendment freedoms, for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury."

Gagged in Greensboro: The Supreme Court has also held that judges who allow journalists into juvenile courts can’t stop them from publishing what they hear. But Judge Ashley Watlington-Simms in Greensboro, North Carolina, nonetheless barred journalist Kenwyn Caranna from covering a hearing she was allowed to attend, even seizing her notes. Most reporters carefully consider privacy concerns when covering minors. But that’s a decision for journalists — not judges. Judicial seizures of reporters’ notes should never happen in this country.

Censorious SLAPPs: In contrast to Marion, where a restauranteur’s complaint prompted a newsroom raid, the more common playbook for the powerful is drowning critics in legal fees from strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPS. The New York Times recently wrote about a Wisconsin state senator’s abusive lawsuit and appeal over an article reporting he used a homophobic slur. The ordeal has cost the nonprofit news outlet he sued almost $150,000 so far and may put it out of business.

Prosecuting photography: Photojournalist Stephanie Keith was arrested in May for photographing a vigil for Jordan Neely. This month, prosecutors agreed to an “adjournment in contemplation of dismissal.” That basically means they’ll dismiss the case as long as Keith behaves for the next six months. We understand why Keith would accept that deal rather than waste time fighting baseless charges. But what message does it send when, to avoid prosecution, authorities force a journalist to promise not to … do what exactly? Take pictures?

Ohio’s intimidation tactics: Ohio journalist Derek Myers was charged last year with wiretapping for publishing a source’s recordings from a murder trial. Prosecutors, rather than embarrass themselves in court (the Supreme Court has held journalists are not responsible for sources’ illegal recordings), let their deadline to pursue the case expire this month. As we’ve said, “Officials don’t file these kinds of cases to win but to intimidate.”

Confidentiality undermined: Federal Judge Christopher Cooper ordered journalist Catherine Herridge to identify confidential sources this month. She’s appealing. As we told CNN, “Requiring journalists to reveal their confidential sources deters whistleblowers and others from coming forward.” The case underscores the need for the bipartisan PRESS Act “to make clear that reporters can’t be forced to burn their source.”

Lawmakers play editor: Two legislators — including one known for toting guns in front of Christmas trees — introduced a resolution that condemned “irresponsible and sensationalistic” coverage of mass shootings and then made unsolicited “recommendations” to the press. Ironically, those behind the resolution have previously insisted government attempts to influence content are illegal censorship. They should practice what they preach — Americans don’t elect representatives to tell journalists how to do their jobs.

Kansas code of silence: Back in Marion, Record publisher Eric Meyer says the paper investigated why Police Chief Gideon Cody left his prior job in Kansas City before orchestrating the raid. The Kansas City Star reports Cody was under disciplinary review, but police won’t release complaints against him, citing open records exceptions for documents generated during investigations. Obviously, the complaints predate any investigation. It’s the latest abuse of investigative exceptions to open records laws. Marion residents deserve to know the truth about the chief who brought “Hitler tactics” to their town of 1,902.

What can be done

In the Record’s case, Meyer says the paper may sue, and victims of anti-press antics should do so whenever possible. Journalist Bryan Carmody settled for almost $400,000 after San Francisco police raided his home in 2019. Oakland journalist Timothy Ryan also recently settled for $400,000 after he was injured by police in 2020. Settlements like those not only compensate journalists for damages but force officials to think twice about retaliating against the press.

But Marion shows that journalists cannot rely solely on the legal system for recourse — many press freedom violations are perpetrated or enabled by a judiciary that clearly needs a refresher on the First Amendment. Until then, journalists and others should continue calling attention to abuses. Perhaps the court of public opinion will better serve the press than a court of law.