Freedom of the Press

As protesters paint signs for another round of “No Kings” demonstrations this Saturday, journalists are getting ready in their own way: Charging camera batteries, notifying emergency contacts, and rinsing old tear gas off their shatter-resistant goggles.

At similar events since June, well over a hundred journalists have been injured, detained, or arrested by police. Now two cities — Los Angeles, California, and Chicago, Illinois — are expecting their largest protests since federal judges issued multiple rulings exempting the press from general dispersal orders and restricting law enforcement use of “less lethal” munitions.

Those are big wins on paper, but only if you know how to use them.

The law exists in two separate but unequal places: the court and the street. And you’ll never win a philosophical argument on a skirmish line.

Sure, you’re probably right. You’re armed with the First Amendment. But the average police officer is armed with a baton, handcuffs, body armor, tear gas, and at least a couple of guns. They may also be tired, overwhelmed, hungry, and see you standing between them and a bathroom break.

As they’ve been known to say, “You can beat the rap, but you can’t beat the ride.”

It’s no longer “Listen to me,” it’s ideally “Here’s a signed order from your boss.”

Covering a protest, an immigration raid, or an immigration hearing is no place to give up your rights. Instead, you can learn to invoke them more effectively.

The press is one of two professions (alongside religious practitioners) distinguished by its constitutionally guaranteed freedoms. Policing is the opposite, marked by rigid command structure and a sworn duty to enforce very specific codes and regulations.

But cops are supposed to be trained and held accountable by their department. They shouldn’t need reminding of the law they’re supposed to uphold. And it’s not the job of journalists to train them.

As professional communicators, journalists may find it more productive to translate conversations into the language of law enforcement.

For example, in California, it won’t get you very far to tell an officer you’re exempt from dispersal orders thanks to “Senate Bill 98.” You might be talking to a kid fresh out of the police academy or a detective pulled off desk duty to earn overtime. They have no idea what passed the statehouse four years ago. At best, they’re trained to speak in terms of “penal code.” Mentioning “Penal Code 409.7,” the statute established by that bill, might be your better ticket out of handcuffs. (This state law only applies to local law enforcement, not to federal operations like Immigration or Customs Enforcement or other Department of Homeland Security agencies.)

For journalists in the Chicago and Los Angeles areas, recent court rulings, including one for the LA Press Club in which I’m a plaintiff, have made things much clearer. Ideally you don’t need to print out 80 pages of preliminary injunctions. An officer will likely ignore that anyway, figuring it’s up to department lawyers to interpret. Instead, try to print the version of orders their boss(’s boss’s boss) was required to issue. The following list of PDFs are being updated as those materials are released by each agency, so use your judgment and print what might be applicable to your situation.

• Chicago-area Temporary Restraining Order (Northern District of Illinois)
  • As each DHS subsidiary agency provided their own cover sheet to personnel, it may be useful to print each of the following.
  • Federal Protective Service Cover Sheet
  • Immigration and Customs Enforcement Cover Sheet
  • Customs and Border Patrol Cover Sheet
  • Department of Justice Cover Sheet
• Los Angeles Police Department’s “Chief’s Notice” to all personnel
  • This is an earlier version based on an initial TRO. It will be updated with a newer version based on a more recent preliminary injunction, which is even more favorable to press.
• LA-area Preliminary Injunction (Central District of California)
  • DHS has not shared details on how this order was distributed. As a longer document, you may wish to only print the cover page along with pages 43 to 45, which contain the injunction itself.

This puts things in law enforcement terms — from the top of their command structure. It’s no longer “Listen to me,” it’s ideally “Here’s a signed order from your boss.”

You want a printed copy, since your phone could run out of battery, be lost, or shatter. And it’s never a good idea to hand your unlocked phone to police. Also, if you need to pull out these orders (or a press pass), state clearly what you’re reaching for before placing your hand in a pocket or bag. Officers don’t love those sorts of unannounced movements.

A piece of paper isn’t much of a shield from a raging officer swinging a baton and screaming, “Leave the area.” But if you can engage with them, you want to ensure the precious few words that they hear will resonate. And it bears repeating: Everyone has a boss.

Protests involve a lot of turnover on the front line, so you may never see the same officer twice. If possible, communicate early and often. Ask to meet a supervisor or public information officer during a calm moment, and get their name so you can ask for them if you have trouble later on.

Unfortunately, even a signed order from the chief isn’t always a “get out of jail free” card. After a temporary restraining order was issued against the LAPD this summer, officers still put several journalists in zip ties during a protest. Two lawyers who had won the TRO showed up with a copy of official paperwork instructing officers to leave press alone. After they handed it to the incident commander, police still drove two photojournalists away in the back of a squad car.

The LAPD later suggested those photographers were ”pretending to be media.” The pair’s credits include The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Business Insider, The Washington Post, New York Magazine, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, and even a cover for Time magazine.

A federal judge later wrote of the LAPD, “The Court expresses no approval for this conduct. To the contrary, the evidence presented is disturbing and, at the very least, shows that Defendants violated the spirit if not the letter of the Court’s initial restraining order.”

Of course, the photojournalists beat the rap. But they didn’t beat the ride.

Attending a protest outside of LA or Chicago? You still have First Amendment rights, even if you don’t have a court order. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has been investigating and documenting serious violations in cities from New York to Portland, Oregon. If you experience or witness law enforcement violating press rights anywhere in the country, please send us tips and any available evidence to tips@pressfreedomtracker.us.

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

It’s been two weeks since Atlanta journalist Mario Guevara was deported and 207 days since Rümeysa Öztürk was arrested for co-writing an op-ed. Read on for more about this weekend’s planned protests, actions you can take to protect journalists, and events you can catch us at this month.

When the law’s on your side but ICE doesn’t care

As protesters paint signs for another round of “No Kings” demonstrations this Saturday, journalists are getting ready in their own way: charging camera batteries, notifying emergency contacts, and rinsing old tear gas residue off their shatter-resistant goggles.

Two cities — Los Angeles, California, and Chicago, Illinois — are expecting their largest protests since federal judges issued multiple rulings exempting the press from general dispersal orders and restricting law enforcement’s use of “less lethal” munitions.

Those are big wins for journalists, but only if they know how to use them. Our new deputy director of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), Adam Rose, wrote about how journalists can prepare for the weekend. Read more here.

Administration ignores flotilla abuses

Three U.S. journalists have been abducted from aid flotillas bound for Gaza and detained by Israel. All three reported experiencing or witnessing abuse and even torture.

Photojournalist Noa Avishag Schnall recalled, “I was hung from the metal shackles on my wrists and ankles and beaten in the stomach, back, face, ear and skull by a group of men and women guards, one of whom sat on my neck and face, blocking my airways … Our cell was awoken with threats of rape.”

Jewish Currents reporter Emily Wilder said she “announced … ‘I’m a journalist, I’m press.’ The woman to my left hissed, ‘We don’t give a fuck,’ and the other dug her nails into my scalp and pulled me by my hair across the port.”

In normal times, this would be a major scandal. We joined Defending Rights & Dissent and others in a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio explaining what should be obvious — the U.S. shouldn’t sit silently as its ally assaults its journalists. Read it here.

First rule of Qatari jets? Don’t talk about Qatari jets

We sued the Trump administration for refusing to share its legal rationale for approving the president’s acceptance of a $400 million jet from the Qatari government, despite the Constitution saying he can’t do that. Now the administration wants to strike our complaint, claiming the background discussion of the gifted jet is “impertinent” and “scandalous.”

That’s rich, especially weeks after the president’s frivolous defamation lawsuit against The New York Times got dismissed for rambling on about how he was once on WrestleMania and “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” (he’s since filed an amended complaint).

Read about our response.

Public records expert: ‘We can do better’

If fewer newspapers exist to request public records, does the government become less transparent? That’s the question at the heart of “Dark Deserts,” a new research paper by David Cuillier of the Freedom of Information Project at the Brechner Center for Advancement of the First Amendment and law student Brett Posner-Ferdman.

Cuillier told us about what he and Posner-Ferdman found and what it means for the public’s right to know. Read the interview here.

Standing with student journalists

Last week we told you about the lawsuit filed by The Stanford Daily to stop the Trump administration’s unconstitutional and appalling push to deport foreign students who say or write things it doesn’t like.

This week we joined the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, the First Amendment Coalition, and others in a legal brief in support of that important lawsuit.

Read it here.

Congressional secrecy bill advances

The Senate passed Sens. Ted Cruz and Amy Klobuchar’s bill to protect themselves — but not you — from data broker abuses and otherwise allow federal lawmakers to censor the internet.

FPF’s Caitlin Vogus wrote for The Dallas Morning News about how the bill threatens journalism — for example, by stifling reporting on its co-sponsor vacationing while his constituents endure natural disasters. Read more here.

Tell the House to kill the bill.

What we’re reading

Pentagon reporters have now turned in their badges – but plan to keep reporting (The Guardian). Journalists told The Guardian, “the restrictions won’t stop the work, with some even saying they plan to take a more aggressive tack.” Good. The policy is highly unconstitutional, but it’s an opportunity to omit Pentagon lies and spin from reporting.

LAPD wants judge to lift an order restricting use of force against the press (LAist). Rose, who is also press rights chair for the LA Press Club, said that “Instead of holding the department accountable, the city is spending even more money to hire an outside law firm so they can effectively beg a judge for permission to keep assaulting journalists for just doing their job.”

Facebook suspends popular Chicago ICE-sightings group at Trump administration’s request (Chicago Sun-Times). So much for Facebook’s renewed commitment to free speech. And so much for this administration’s condemnation of social media censorship.

Victory: Federal court halts Texas’ ‘no First Amendment after dark’ campus speech ban (FIRE). A federal court blocked a ridiculous law that banned almost all speech on public college campuses in Texas at night, including student journalism. As we explained in the Houston Chronicle, free speech does not have a curfew.

Upcoming FPF events

Oct. 22: Join FPF’s Adam Rose and others on Oct. 22 at 3 p.m. EDT for an online conversation hosted by the American Constitution Society about the impact of federal law enforcement violence on your First Amendment rights. Register here.

Oct. 24: If you’re in Chicago and fortunate enough to not have to hide from ICE invaders, come to Northwestern for a panel on Oct. 24 at 10 a.m. CT featuring FPF Advocacy Director Seth Stern. We’ll discuss the numerous digital and physical challenges journalists are facing. Register here.

Oct. 29: FPF’s Caitlin Vogus will join an online panel of experts to break down how the Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission are targeting journalists and the First Amendment and how to fight back. Register here for the Center for Democracy and Technology’s Future of Speech 2025, “Working the Refs” panel on Oct. 29 at 12:10 p.m. EDT.

That same day, join us for a conversation about making public records-based reporting free, featuring Vogus as well as our Chair on Government Secrecy Lauren Harper, in conversation with leadership at Wired and 404 Media, including Wired global editorial director and FPF board member Katie Drummond. The event starts at 2 p.m. EDT; RSVP on Zoom here.

Oct. 30: Join an online discussion on Oct. 30 at 1 p.m. EDT about digital safety and legal rights for journalists reporting on immigration in the U.S., featuring FPF Director of Digital Security Harlo Holmes and several other experts from the U.S. Journalist Assistance Network. Register here.

If fewer newspapers exist to request public records, does the government become less transparent? That’s the question at the heart of “Dark Deserts,” a new research paper by David Cuillier of the Freedom of Information Project at the Brechner Center for Advancement of the First Amendment and law student Brett Posner-Ferdman.

Cuillier, who’s taught more than 10,000 journalists, students, and citizens how to wrest public records from government agencies, told us about what he and Posner-Ferdman found and what it means for the public’s right to know.

Let’s start with the big finding of “Dark Deserts”: States with fewer local papers and weaker press associations are more likely to break public records laws. Why does that matter for everyday people?

This is incredibly important for all of us because we are reaching the transparency tipping point — where we will lose any effective ability to see what our governments are up to.

We know from research that public record laws directly lead to less corruption, cleaner drinking water, and safer restaurants. According to Stanford economist James Hamilton’s research, for every dollar spent on public records journalism, society benefits $287 in saved lives and more efficient government. Freedom of information ensures concrete benefits for all of us.

Yet, we are losing it very quickly. According to the Department of Justice’s own statistics, if you asked for a record in 2011, you would get it about 38% of the time. Now it’s down to 12%. We see the same downward trends in the states. What happens when it gets to 0%?

The death of transparency will affect all of us in the pocketbook, in the quality of government services we receive, and in the loss of liberties we hold sacred as Americans.

The death of transparency will affect all of us in the pocketbook, in the quality of government services we receive, and in the loss of liberties we hold sacred as Americans.

Surprisingly, you found that having more digital-only media outlets doesn’t result in better public records request compliance. Why do you think that is, and what advice would you give to digital outlets trying to hold government accountable?

It is difficult to know for sure. For one, there aren’t as many data points to effectively measure their effects as well as we would like. For example, the Institute for Nonprofit News membership stands at about 500 so far and there are 3,143 counties in the country. A strong, local, independent digital outlet might have an effect on local compliance with public record laws, but there probably aren’t enough to have an impact on state agencies.

Also, while many are doing great work, I suspect they have less influence at a statewide level than newspapers. A lot of digital-only outlets don’t have the funds to sue for public records. Also, my sense is that government officials don’t take digital-only media outlets as seriously, and that politicians are essentially blowing them off and not considering them “real” journalism. That is too bad, because many are doing better journalism than legacy media.

Digital-only outlets will need to double down on public records. And support organizations like Freedom of the Press Foundation, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, MuckRock, state FOI coalitions, and others can help.

Beyond subscribing to their community’s newspaper or supporting funding for journalism, what can people who care about press freedom and transparency do to encourage state governments to take their public record laws seriously?

Of course, write to your local city council, legislator, governor, and congressional representatives. They listen if enough people speak up. But everyone says that, right? And how many people actually act?

The solutions will take much more work than strongly worded letters. It’s time for other institutions to fill the gap. Nonprofits with an agenda are probably our last hope — American Oversight, Heritage Foundation, Judicial Watch, ACLU, League of Women Voters, etc. A new citizen-driven nonprofit in Jacksonville, “Nassau County DOGE,” has been pushing for public records. Environmental groups and those seeking police reform and rights for transgender Americans are pushing for records. Whatever your passion is, join an organization that will fight for your right to know.

The solutions will take much more work than strongly worded letters. It’s time for other institutions to fill the gap.

Then, we need strong coordinating bodies, such as state freedom of information coalitions, to help direct these energies toward real legislative reform and litigation. One thing I’ve noticed is that all it takes is one or two passionate people in a state to make a huge difference in freedom of information. It really is doable!

What states have the strongest public records law, and what sets them apart? If you had the power to rewrite public records laws, what’s the one thing you’d add or fix right away?

No state is perfect. But most of the studies indicate that the states with the best compliance overall with public record laws tend to be Washington, Idaho, Connecticut, and some others. The most effective changes to public records laws rely on four things.

First, we need mandatory attorney fee-shifting in every state, where agencies are required to cover the attorney fees of people who sue for public records and prevail. In the third of the states that have this, there are attorneys happy to sue on behalf of journalists and others, with the hope they will get paid.

Second, strong financial penalties for noncompliance are critically important. Washington is probably the most transparent state overall, because if an agency breaks the law, is sued, and loses, it can be forced to pay up to $100 per record per day that it dinged the requester around. That can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Third, elimination of search and redaction fees, which are abused terribly. There are some countries where no fees are charged at all, and it works very well. In reality, fees collect very little of the actual cost of administering public record laws — less than 1%-3% according to most studies. Yet, they are wielded by agencies to make people go away, particularly journalists.

Lastly, and probably most importantly, we need alternative enforcement mechanisms in addition to court. Not everyone can afford to hire an attorney and sue. We need independent information commissions in every state to enforce the law and punish bad agencies, as they have in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and in more than 51 nations across the planet.

You’re also a member of the federal Freedom of Information Act Advisory Committee. What’s something you’d fix in the federal FOIA?

So many fixes, so little time.

The FOIA Advisory Committee, since its inception in 2014, has provided 67 recommendations to improve the law and process, yet the most substantive suggestions have mostly been ignored. Amendments every decade or so tweak the law but are insufficient in keeping up with increasing secrecy.

I’ve noticed that in Washington, D.C., there tends to be a culture of exceptionalism, that we are the king of democracy in the world and have the best law on the books. In reality, FOIA’s strength on paper is rated in the bottom half of the 140 nations that have public record laws — 78th, to be exact. That is embarrassing. So many improvements could be made if we swallow our pride and look to other countries for guidance.

FOIA’s strength on paper is rated in the bottom half of the 140 nations that have public record laws — 78th, to be exact. That is embarrassing.

For example, we need an independent agency with the power to enforce the law on behalf of citizens, like we see in dozens of other countries. We need stiff penalties — even firing and jail time — for intentional noncompliance of FOIA, as they have in Ghana, Barbuda, and Finland. We need direct funding of FOIA offices by Congress to carry out the FOIA mission, particularly now as agencies are gutting staff. We need better technology to search for records and redact. We need FOIA to be applied to all branches of government, and to private corporations that conduct taxpayer-funded business on behalf of the government, as in South Africa, Armenia, and Colombia.

A lot of people consider these ideas extreme, yet they are common in other countries. We can do better.

Press freedom wins in Chicago court, but fight continues

Chicago journalists won a big First Amendment victory Oct. 9, when a federal court temporarily curbed federal officers’ abuses at protests. But the fight isn’t over.

The order still allows officers to potentially remove journalists along with protesters, a serious threat to press freedom that must be fixed.

We also can’t rely on courts alone. Local officials must step up, especially to protect independent journalists, who’ve been the main targets of these violations.

That’s why Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) led a coalition letter urging the Broadview, Illinois, Police Department and Illinois State Police to investigate attacks on independent journalists covering protests.

Read more about the order here.

Strengthen presidential library transparency

A segment on “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” about corruption and secrecy surrounding presidential libraries cited FPF’s Lauren Harper, who has been warning about Trump’s purported library since before his inauguration.

Oliver is right. Secret donations to presidential libraries enable bribery, while public access to presidential records is at an all-time low. Use our action center tool to tell Congress to close the secrecy loopholes and increase transparency.

Write to your lawmakers here.

Army lawyer thinks journalists are stenographers

The Pentagon attempted to walk back its policy restricting reporters from publishing news the government doesn’t authorize. But the revised policy is still a nonstarter to which no journalist should agree.

Meanwhile, a nominee for general counsel for the Department of the Army, Charles L. Young III, effectively endorsed the unconstitutional restrictions during a Senate hearing this week, opining that the First Amendment authorizes the government to punish journalists for publishing information that it did not approve for public release.

That’s disqualifying. A journalist’s job isn’t to keep the government’s secrets. It’s to report news the government does not want reported.

Tell Congress to reject Young’s nomination.

State Department must stand up for journalists detained on flotillas

Israel continues to hold American journalists captured in international waters aboard aid flotillas. The latest are Jewish Currents reporter Emily Wilder and Drop Site News reporter Noa Avishag Schnall. Previously, Israel detained Drop Site News reporter Alex Colston, who has said he and other detainees were abused and denied medical care.

But the State Department is doing little if anything about these detainments, presumably because the journalists in question don’t agree with the administration’s policies. Lawmakers need to raise their voices and pressure the administration to do more.

Write to your member of Congress here.

Student journalists fight Trump’s anti-speech deportations

It’s not every day a student newspaper takes on the federal government. But that’s exactly what The Stanford Daily is doing.

The Daily sued Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem in August over the Trump administration’s push to deport foreign students for exercising free speech, like writing op-eds and attending protests.

We spoke at the start of Stanford University’s fall term with Editor-in-Chief Greta Reich about why the Daily is fighting back. Read more here.

It’s time to end the SEC gag rule

We’ve written before about the unconstitutionality of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s “gag rule,” which bars those who settle with the SEC from talking to reporters, to protect the SEC’s reputation.

We shouldn’t need to say this, but the government doesn’t get to censor its critics to make itself look good. Last week, we filed a legal brief explaining to a federal appellate court why the ridiculous rule must be struck down. Read the brief here.

What we’re reading

ICE goes masked for a single reason (The New York Times). FPF’s Adam Rose tells the Times that immigration officers “seem to feel they can just willy-nilly shoot tear gas canisters at people and shoot them with foam rounds that can permanently maim people.”

The New York Times wins right to obtain info Musk wanted kept private (The New Republic). A court ruled that the public’s interest in knowing if Elon Musk has a security clearance and access to classified information outweighs any potential privacy interests.

Press Freedom Partnership newsletter (The Washington Post). “Journalists who are considering covering the story are going to think twice about it and stay home because they don’t want to be jailed and shot. It’s a major problem,” we told the Post about law enforcement targeting journalists covering anti-deportation protests in and around Chicago.

Journalism has become more challenging, for reporters and sources (Sentient). Sources have backed out of news stories — even seemingly uncontroversial ones — out of fear of being targeted by the Trump administration.

MAGA slams ‘fake news’ but embraces ‘The Benny Show’s’ misinformation (Straight Arrow News). “Plenty of past presidents would have loved to exclude serious journalists … and bring in the Benny Johnsons of their time. They just were under the impression that the public wouldn’t tolerate that,” we told Straight Arrow News. Now it’s up to the public to prove those past presidents right and the current one wrong.

A federal judge just reminded the government that the First Amendment still applies in Chicago.

On Oct. 9, Chicago journalists and protesters scored a major legal win, when Judge Sara Ellis issued a temporary restraining order reigning in federal officers’ repeated First Amendment violations at protests.

It’s a big victory for press freedom. The order prohibits arrests and use of physical force against journalists and restricts the use of dangerous crowd-control munitions. It defines “journalists” broadly, in a way that includes independent, freelance, and student reporters. It also enhances transparency by requiring federal officers to wear “visible identification,” like a unique serial number.

This order and similar rulings in Los Angeles last month are powerful reminders that journalists working together can vindicate their rights in the courts. They also highlight the crucial role that independent journalists and smaller news organizations play in defending press freedom. In both Chicago and Los Angeles, it’s been freelancers, community news outlets, local press clubs, and unions who’ve taken the lead, teaming up with protesters, legal observers, and clergy to take the government to court.

Unconstitutional dispersals of press still possible

But the fight isn’t over. The Chicago order unfortunately leaves open the possibility that, at least in some instances, federal officers may order journalists to leave areas where protests are being broken up or officers are attacking protesters.

Although the order prohibits dispersal of journalists from protests as a general matter, it also states that officers can “order” journalists to “change location to avoid disrupting law enforcement,” as long as they have “an objectively reasonable time to comply and an objectively reasonable opportunity to report and observe.” (In contrast, a similar order in Los Angeles states only that federal officers may “ask” journalists to change location.)

Federal officers are likely to use this as a loophole to continue to violently remove the press from protests, on the pretext that it’s necessary to avoid disruption. The order’s requirement that press must be able to continue to report and observe is also too lax; far better would have been an order specifically requiring that press be able to continue to see and hear the protest and law enforcement response.

Even when police can disperse protesters who break the law, the First Amendment doesn’t allow them to disperse journalists, too.

The weaker language around dispersals of journalists in the court’s order is a shame, especially for the public’s right to know. In recent days, Chicago journalists have been reporting about the violent tactics used by federal agents to disperse protests. If journalists can be ordered to leave alongside protesters, they can’t observe what’s happening or capture the images they need to keep the public informed.

It also makes dispersals more dangerous for protesters. As Unraveled Press noted, “Again and again, we’ve seen cops are most likely to get more violent with demonstrators when out of public view.” (Unraveled Press co-founder Raven Geary is a plaintiff in the Chicago lawsuit.) And while the court’s order prohibits dispersal orders aimed at peaceful protesters, if federal officers violate that order and also disperse the press to avoid a “disruption,” it will be much harder for the public to learn about it.

By declining to simply prohibit federal officers from dispersing the press, except when necessary to serve an essential government need such as public safety, the court also got the law wrong. Even when police can disperse protesters who break the law, the First Amendment doesn’t allow them to disperse journalists, too.

We’re not the only ones who say so. Just last year, the Department of Justice issued guidance stating as much:

“In the case of mass demonstrations, there may be situations—such as dispersal orders or curfews—where the police may reasonably limit public access. In these circumstances, to ensure that these limitations are narrowly tailored, the police may need to exempt reporters from these restrictions. …”

The DOJ also said so in a previous report, reprimanding the Minneapolis Police Department for its suppression of protesters and the press following George Floyd’s murder:

“The First Amendment requires that any restrictions on when, where, and how reporters gather information ‘leave open ample alternative channels’ for gathering the news. Blanket enforcement of dispersal orders and curfews against press violates this principle because they foreclose the press from reporting about what happens after the dispersal or curfew is issued, including how police enforce those orders.”

And in an important decision from 2020, the federal court of appeals in the 9th Circuit also disapproved of blanket dispersal orders being enforced against the press. That case arose from very similar circumstances to those today: federal authorities abusing the First Amendment while policing federal property during Black Lives Matter protests in Portland, Oregon.

In the 2020 case, the 9th Circuit affirmed a legal order that exempted journalists from general dispersal orders issued by the federal government. Journalists, it wrote, “cannot be punished for the violent acts of others.”

These authorities make it clear: Journalists cannot be ordered to move simply because it would be more convenient for officers. Journalists can only be dispersed if it’s essential to a compelling government interest, and only if they continue to have another vantage point from which they can see and hear what’s going on in order to report.

It’s frustrating that the court’s order leaves the door open for the government to evade this well-established principle. But the fight isn’t over. The court’s temporary restraining order is just a first step. When it issues a more permanent ruling, it will have another opportunity to get the prohibition on dispersing the press right.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Press freedom advocates were pleasantly surprised when police in Broadview, Illinois, announced plans to investigate federal immigration officers’ shooting of a local CBS News journalist with pepper balls, and when the Illinois State Police offered help.

But the same advocates were alarmed by subsequent reports of local police assisting federal agents rather than reining them in. They also questioned why widely reported attacks on independent journalists — who have made up a significant majority of those victimized by federal officers while covering the protests — were not being similarly investigated.

Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) led a letter demanding answers today, signed by over 20 local and national press freedom and civil liberties groups that came together to demand protection and justice for independent journalists risking their safety to inform the public.

“ICE’s violent attacks on journalists and others exercising their First Amendment rights, in Broadview and nationwide, should all be thoroughly investigated by the local authorities whose states and municipalities ICE has invaded. Any local law enforcement presence should be solely focused on mitigating the harm ICE is causing to our neighborhoods, our free press, and our Constitution, not on enabling more of it,” said Seth Stern, director of advocacy at FPF.

“The violence and unlawful detainment of members of the press should concern us all. As demonstrations escalate, it’s imperative that authorities allow journalists to do their jobs of documenting what we are seeing on the ground. No one should have their First Amendment rights violated, especially journalists,” said Brandon Pope, president of NABJ-Chicago.

“The Chicago Journalists Association stands with journalists everywhere who are working to keep their communities informed,” the CJA board of directors said. “They should be free to exercise their First Amendment right to freedom of the press without intimidation, whether they’re fully employed by a news organization or practicing independently.”

You can read the letter here or below.

Please contact us if you would like further comment.

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

After over 100 days in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, Mario Guevara was deported today. Read on for more about this and other press freedom abuses, and take a minute to tell your lawmakers to stand up for journalists victimized by ICE.

ICE is on a violent rampage against the press

Federal immigration officers reportedly promised a “shitshow” last weekend in response to criticism from the mayor of Broadview, Illinois, who didn’t appreciate her city being invaded. They delivered, and journalists were well represented among their victims.

One journalist, Steve Held, was arrested. Others, including Held’s reporting partner at Unraveled Press, Raven Geary, were shot in the face with pepper ball rounds. According to lawyers on the scene, the protests the reporters were covering were peaceful and uneventful until ICE officers decided to unleash chaos.

A few days later at an immigration court in New York City, where ICE agents have been trying to intimidate journalists for months, agents assaulted at least three journalists, one of whom couldn’t get up and had to be hospitalized. You can read what we told Chicago’s The Triibe about the Broadview attacks and New York’s amNY about the New York ones.

More importantly, you can tell your lawmakers to speak out against ICE’s abuses using our new, easy-to-use action center. Take action here.

Journalist Mario Guevara deported to El Salvador

After months of hard-fought battles in both the court of law and the court of public opinion, the Trump administration deported journalist Mario Guevara today. This case wasn’t about immigration paperwork — Guevara had a work permit, and the administration argued in court that Guevara’s reporting on protests posed a national security risk.

“The only thing that journalists like Guevara threaten is the government’s chokehold on information it doesn’t want the public to know. That’s why he’s being deported and why federal agents are assaulting and arresting journalists around the country,” FPF’s Seth Stern said after Guevara’s family announced his deportation.

Read the statement here.

Guilty of journalism in Kentucky

Student journalist Lucas Griffith was convicted of one count of failure to disperse and fined $50 plus court costs after a jury trial on Thursday.

That’s unconstitutional — even the U.S. Department of Justice recognizes journalists’ right to cover how law enforcement disperses protesters.

But it also shows what a giant waste of taxpayer funds it is to prosecute journalists for doing their jobs. Before the trial, we led a coalition letter from press freedom advocates and journalism professors objecting to the charges. Read it here.

FPF and 404 Media sue DHS

FPF and 404 Media filed a lawsuit against multiple parts of the U.S. government, including the Department of Homeland Security, demanding they hand over a copy of an agreement that shares the personal data of nearly 80 million Medicaid patients with ICE.

It’s just one of several recent lawsuits we’ve filed under the Freedom of Information Act. We also surpassed 200 FOIAs filed in 2025 this week. Subscribe to The Classifieds newsletter for more on our FOIA work.

Read more from 404 Media.

FCC censorship moves from prime time to prison

Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr has taken a lot of heat for his “mafioso”-style extortion of ABC over Jimmy Kimmel’s show. But his latest censorship effort is even more dangerous. It could strip those inside America’s most secretive institutions — its prisons — of a tool that has proved extremely effective in exposing abuses.

We partnered with The Intercept to publish incarcerated journalist and FPF columnist Jeremy Busby’s response to the FCC’s efforts to allow prisons to “jam” cell phones. Busby used a contraband phone to expose and force reform of horrific conditions in Texas prisons during the pandemic. Read his article here.

Photography is not a hate crime

The arrest of Alexa Wilkinson on hate crime charges for photographing vandalism at The New York Times building has prompted hair splitting about whether they’re a journalist. It’s giving us flashbacks to the pointless obsession over whether Julian Assange was a journalist, and not whether his prosecution endangered press freedom.

Stern explains that regardless of how we categorize Wilkinson’s work, the charges set dangerous precedents that threaten the constitutional protections journalists depend on to do their jobs. Read more here.

What we’re reading

DC Circuit rejects Fox News reporter effort to duck subpoena over anonymous source (Courthouse News). “This decision does real damage to bedrock principles of press freedom, and we urge the Court of Appeals to re-hear this case with a full panel of judges,” FPF’s Trevor Timm said.

Can the US government ban apps that track ICE agents? (BBC). “That somebody might use the app to break the law doesn’t mean the app can be banned,” Stern told BBC. After the interview, news broke that the administration successfully pressured Apple to pull the app.

Reporter’s suit over access to Utah Capitol dismissed (U.S. Press Freedom Tracker). This dismissal is nonsense. FPF’s Caitlin Vogus explained why in the Salt Lake Tribune earlier this year.

Israel illegally boards humanitarian flotilla heading to Gaza (Dropsite). A U.S. journalist was on board. The U.S. Department of State should be all over this and it should be headline news. Neither is likely, because the government considers critics of Israel terrorists and the media often shuns reporters who oppose slaughtering their Palestinian colleagues.

FPF welcomes Adam Rose to bolster local advocacy

FPF is excited to welcome Adam Rose as the new deputy director of our advocacy team. Adam will primarily focus on protecting press freedom at the local level, where we have seen a sharp increase in arrests and assaults of journalists all around the country — many of which have not made national headlines.

Adam comes to FPF after serving as the chief operating officer of Starling Lab for Data Integrity and as the press rights chair of the Los Angeles Press Club, where he has been a tireless advocate for the press freedom rights of journalists in the LA area. He successfully lobbied for a California law that prohibits police from arresting or intentionally interfering with journalists as they cover protests. Most recently, as a plaintiff in multiple press freedom-related lawsuits, his efforts have resulted in landmark federal court orders against both the Department of Homeland Security and Los Angeles Police Department for violating the rights of the press. Read more here.

The arrest of Alexa Wilkinson on felony hate crime charges for photographing vandalism at the New York Times building has prompted hairsplitting about whether they’re a journalist. The New York Times explained that Wilkinson’s “lawyers described them as a journalist, but did not name any publications for which Mx. Wilkinson works.”

Wilkinson certainly has a track record as a journalist. Whether the content they were charged for is journalism or PR is, I suppose, up for debate. But should we even bother debating it? Regardless of how we categorize Wilkinson’s work, the charges set dangerous precedents that threaten the constitutional protections journalists depend on to do their jobs.

As we all learned — or should have learned — from the Julian Assange prosecution, obsessing over whether a particular defendant meets someone’s arbitrary definition of journalist is a waste of time. What that case left us with at the end of the day is a Trump administration armed with a bipartisan consensus that routine journalistic acts, like talking to sources, obtaining government secrets, and publishing them, can be prosecuted as a felony under the Espionage Act. Those who change their tune when the next defendant is someone they like better than Assange will be easily discredited by their hypocrisy.

The same dangers apply when Wilkinson’s photography is treated as a hate crime. Wilkinson’s case stems from a July protest in which activists doused the Times headquarters in red paint and spray-painted “NYT lies, Gaza dies” on its windows. In addition to charging the vandals, New York prosecutors charged Wilkinson, who photographed the scene, with aggravated harassment as a hate crime.

New York authorities should be combating these cynical attempts to use antisemitism to justify authoritarianism. Instead, they’re fueling the trend.

But there was no hate crime. Vandalizing a building to protest perceived pro-Israel bias in news coverage is a political statement, not an antisemitic one. The vandalism may well be illegal, and we condemn it, as news outlets large and small are under increased threat in this charged political environment. We even documented the vandalism itself in our U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

But labeling actions that criticize a newspaper’s editorial decisions as a hate crime conflates political views with bigotry. Many journalists object to Israel’s slaughter of their peers in Gaza — and the U.S. media’s relative silence about it — for reasons having nothing to do with anyone’s religion. And many Jews themselves oppose Israel’s actions in Gaza and object to coverage they view as excusing or normalizing Israel’s conduct.

I’m one of those Jews, and I think what’s antisemitic is to assume that we monolithically share the politics of Benjamin Netanyahu and his ilk, who I consider the worst thing to happen to Judaism since the 1940s. As the saying goes, one day everyone will have been against this. When that time comes, efforts to conflate anti-Israel or anti-genocide views with antisemitism will leave Jews holding the bag for Israel’s reprehensible actions, America’s role in supporting them, and whatever blowback follows. That’s when the real antisemitism will start.

New York authorities should be combating these cynical attempts to use antisemitism to justify authoritarianism. Instead, they’re fueling the trend. Wilkinson’s case, in a blue state, legitimizes the Trump administration’s un-American actions, like its efforts to deport Mahmoud Khalil over his criticisms of Israel and Rümeysa Öztürk for co-writing an op-ed arguing for boycotts of Israeli products. The administration baselessly argues that their constitutionally protected speech constitutes support for Hamas and threatens national security. And several Republican attorneys general have floated the idea that reporting critical of Israel could be punished as support for terrorism. Wilkinson’s case only gives cover to those advancing these absurd arguments.

Israel showed us exactly where equating speech with violence leads. Last month, Israel killed 31 journalists in airstrikes on newspaper offices in Yemen — the deadliest single attack on the press in 16 years, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Israel has justified the strikes by characterizing the targeted outlets as publishing “terrorist” propaganda.

Should we debate whether those massacred in Yemen (or Gaza) followed the Associated Press Stylebook or strictly adhered to journalistic codes of ethics? Or should we just acknowledge that militaries shouldn’t blow people to bits over what they say and write, regardless of whether it’s bad journalism or even propaganda?

Should we debate whether those massacred in Yemen (or Gaza)...adhered to journalistic codes of ethics? Or should we just acknowledge that militaries shouldn’t blow people to bits over what they write?

Even setting aside the hate crime charge, Wilkinson’s case has broader implications for the press that don’t hinge on whether they’re a card-carrying journalist. The complaint against Wilkinson reportedly emphasizes not just the photographs they took but also social media posts criticizing Times staff and alleged foreknowledge of the vandalism. This suggests prosecutors view Wilkinson as complicit in alleged crimes because of proximity or sympathy to those who committed them and awareness of their plans.

But objectivity is not a precondition for constitutional protection. It’s a relatively recently developed journalistic norm — with its share of critics — that would have been seen as ridiculous when the First Amendment was written.

As for embedding and foreknowledge, journalists routinely embed with groups whose members commit illegal acts. For example, the Israeli army, which, according to the United Nations, is committing genocide. Domestically, police reporters ride along with officers who may use excessive force. Investigative journalists cultivate sources involved in criminal activity. If foreknowledge of illegal acts or presence when they occur makes one legally complicit, journalism as we know it becomes impossible.

And for those concerned about journalistic ethics and objectivity, what impact do you think it’ll have if reporters are allowed to embed with government-approved lawbreakers, like soldiers and police, but not dissidents? Will that result in “fair and balanced” coverage?

Your opinion about Wilkinson’s work won’t change the trajectory of our democracy. But prosecutors in America’s biggest city validating the Trump administration’s criminalization of dissent very well might. Every journalist — and everyone who depends on journalism to hold power to account — should be alarmed.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Atlanta-area journalist Mario Guevara’s family announced today that he will be deported to El Salvador tomorrow, after spending more than 100 days in detention.

Guevara was initially arrested on June 14 while reporting on a “No Kings” protest near Atlanta. Although the charges against him were dropped, the government argued during deportation proceedings that his filming of law enforcement activities — a constitutionally protected activity — created a threat to public safety.

The following statement can be attributed to Seth Stern, director of advocacy of Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF):

“Mario Guevara was ripped from his family and community because the Trump administration punishes journalists to protect its own power.

“The only thing that journalists like Guevara threaten is the government’s chokehold on information it doesn’t want the public to know. That’s why he’s being deported and why federal agents are assaulting and arresting journalists around the country.

“The full impact on our freedom of speech may never be known. But what is certain is that Guevara’s deportation sends a chilling message to other journalists: Tell the truth, and the state will come for you.

“This is unconstitutional, un-American, and wrong. It’s an assault on the First Amendment, and it won’t stop until we all fight back by speaking out.”

Before today’s news, more than 100 writers, journalists, and scholars signed a letter calling for his immediate release. For more about Guevara’s case, visit https://freedomformario.com/.

Please contact us if you would like further comment.

It’s not every day a student newspaper takes on the federal government. But that’s exactly what The Stanford Daily is doing.

Backed by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, the Daily sued Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem in August over the Trump administration’s push to deport foreign students for exercising free speech, like writing op-eds and attending protests. The suit argues the administration’s actions violate the First Amendment by retaliating against foreign students for protected speech and chill press freedom by discouraging them from speaking to and writing for the Daily.

We spoke at the start of Stanford University’s fall term with Greta Reich, editor-in-chief of the Daily and president of Stanford Daily Publishing Corp., which operates the paper, about why the Daily is fighting back, even as many corporate media outlets stay silent or capitulate.

Why did The Stanford Daily decide to take this issue to court?

We decided to take this issue to court because we believe legal action would be best for the Daily. Our mission as an independent student paper is to represent the voices of the Stanford community. We cannot fulfill this mission to the fullest extent when a significant portion of students on our campus and in our newsroom are afraid to speak up. The decision ultimately came down to whether or not we felt we could handle the potential negative ramifications of a public suit against the government in order to stay true to our mission. We decided that we could, and we’re hoping for the best outcome.

What happens to your reporting when international students are afraid to talk to your reporters, or when staff quit or avoid covering certain stories because they’re worried about government retaliation?

As we said in our letter from the editors on the lawsuit, fear of government retaliation directly impacts the quality of the Daily’s work.

With every resignation, declined assignment, and refusal to speak on the record, we actively miss out on covering an entire group of students’ voices — as well as the many events and stories on campus that benefit from an international student’s perspective. We are simply not able to conduct our business when speech is chilled like this.

Journalism, and especially student journalism, depends on members of a community not only being able to speak on the record but actively wanting to, at least at times. When an entire subsection of the student population doesn’t feel comfortable speaking with or writing for the Daily, we can’t know what stories are being lost.

When an entire subsection of the student population doesn’t feel comfortable speaking with or writing for the Daily, we can’t know what stories are being lost.

How have people on campus responded to the lawsuit so far?

We only returned to campus this week, so I don’t think I’ve seen every reaction yet, but so far the biggest response has been curiosity. Many of my peers, both in and outside of the Daily, have questions about how the lawsuit is going.

In speaking more in depth with some students throughout the summer and hearing feedback on various social platforms, I know there is a somewhat mixed reaction, though I think it skews positive. Some students, understandably, are concerned about the attention the suit will draw to Stanford as a university. Others have expressed excitement about action being taken to protect First Amendment rights.

I hope that as the suit progresses, students, alumni, faculty, and community members will feel comfortable sharing any opinion with us — we want to hear what people have to say!

How does it feel to stand up for the First Amendment as student journalists when some in corporate media are utterly failing to do so?

It feels great! As student journalists, we definitely face a different set of obstacles and constraints than those in corporate media do. I think that, in a way, these different constraints give us the freedom to take actions like these (though it would be exciting to see more publications taking action too). I am incredibly grateful for all of the support I’ve received from professional journalists and mentors in corporate media, who have reached out with kind words for the Daily. It is not taken for granted one bit.

What outcome are you hoping for, both in terms of the law, but also inspiring student journalists or impacting the national conversation about press freedom?

In terms of the law, we are obviously hoping for the lawsuit to create a real change in how noncitizens are treated with respect to the First Amendment. Whether working for or speaking to our newspaper, no one should fear deportation for what they have to say. In any scenario, I hope those who hear about this lawsuit consider what it means to have a free press and why fear tactics like those the government is currently using have such an impact on it. A central tenet of my education at Stanford has been to form and express my thoughts and opinions with agility. The ability to state these thoughts and opinions publicly is not only being threatened but actively taken away.

And to other student journalists: I am constantly inspired by you and your work, and I hope you are getting through this year with support and engagement from your staff and readers.

When ABC suspended “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” last week following a shakedown from the Trump administration, celebrities, free speech advocates, and ordinary Americans voiced their outrage. They were right to sound the alarm — and it (mostly) worked. Kimmel’s back on the air.

But where is that same outrage against the government’s effort to deport Mario Guevara, an Atlanta-area journalist with a work visa who has lawfully resided in the U.S. for 20-plus years? His only “offense” is informing the public of protests against the government.

This week, a final removal order was issued against Guevara, who was arrested (with the baseless criminal charges since dropped) while livestreaming a July “No Kings” protest in Georgia. He might not have a late-night comedy show, but his right to report news is every bit as important as Kimmel’s right to tell jokes.

The stakes in Guevara’s case — both for him and for the country — are even higher than in the Kimmel fiasco that has dominated headlines. Guevara could be deported at any moment, likely to his birthplace, El Salvador, which he fled decades ago to escape political persecution.

Despite the extremely serious constitutional implications of Kimmel’s case, his worst-case scenario was moving from prime time to a podcast. There is no telling what fate might await Guevara if he’s thrown out of the country.

And if that happens, the chilling effect on journalists — particularly noncitizen ones, even those like Guevara with legal status — will be impossible to measure. After all, we only know what news we hear. We don’t know what news we don’t hear because journalists didn’t report it out of fear for their safety or freedom.

Kimmel‘s worst-case scenario was moving from prime time to a podcast. There is no telling what fate might await Guevara.

Kimmel’s professional peers — famous comedians and other celebrities — might feel relieved that Kimmel ultimately got his show back. But most journalists (or comedians, for that matter) aren’t famous and don’t have a Rolodex of Hollywood A-listers ready to come to their defense. Kimmel’s win offers them little comfort.

Independent journalists like Guevara also don’t have money for lawyers, lobbyists, or PR firms to make their case to judges, politicians, or the public (although fortunately, organizations like the ACLU, Free Press, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and others have stepped up).

Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr tried to manufacture plausible deniability in Kimmel’s case, arguing that it wasn’t his public ultimatum but pressure from local audiences that led ABC and its affiliates to pull Kimmel. That’s nonsense, but in Guevara’s case — much like the case against Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts University student facing removal for co-writing an op-ed critical of Israel — the government is hardly attempting to hide its agenda.

The federal government seeks to deport Guevara — despite his work visa and despite local prosecutors dropping their case against him for livestreaming in public — because, to them, his reporting makes him an “undesirable.” How did journalism, the only career protected by the Constitution, become a disfavored profession in America?

Guevara’s reporting often focused on immigration enforcement abuses. That earns him no friends in a government that considers U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to be secret police. From seeking to punish social media users who identify ICE agents to investigating radio stations that report on ICE raids to threatening whistleblowers who undermine the official narrative, the administration has made every effort to intimidate those who speak the truth about its immigration policy.

The secrecy is by no means limited to ICE — while Kimmel’s show was in limbo and Guevara wrote letters from his cramped jail cell, the Pentagon announced it would force reporters to pledge to only report authorized information.

What this administration cannot seem to comprehend is that the First Amendment exists for the sole purpose of protecting the right to publish information the government does not want published. There would be no need for a constitutional right to publish what the government wants. Everyone loves free speech when the speaker is on their side.

Guevara is exactly who the constitution was intended to protect — and his retaliatory deportation is exactly the kind of authoritarian censorship it was intended to prevent.

Kimmel will be all right with or without ABC, and with or without you. That doesn’t mean not to protest efforts to censor him — the FCC’s antics are unconstitutional, un-American, and fully deserving of contempt. Carr should be fired and disbarred, and the corporations that caved to him should be ashamed.

But free speech is not only for celebrities. The real battles for our rights are not fought in television studios and theme parks but at protests and in citizen journalists’ home newsrooms. And these days, in detention centers and immigration courts.

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

It’s now been over 100 days since journalist Mario Guevara has been imprisoned for covering a protest, and Rümeysa Öztürk has faced deportation for nearly 200 days over an op-ed the government didn’t like. Read on for why cases like these deserve as much outrage as the Federal Communications Commission’s latest attempt at silencing free speech.

Journalist facing deportation deserves same energy as Kimmel

When ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live! last week following a shakedown from the Trump administration, celebrities, free speech advocates, and ordinary Americans voiced their outrage. They were right to sound the alarm — and it (mostly) worked. Kimmel’s back on the air.

But where is that same outrage against the government’s effort to deport Mario Guevara, an Atlanta-area journalist who has lawfully resided in the U.S. for 20-plus years? His only “offense” is informing the public of protests against the government, but he faces imminent deportation.

Speaking of Kimmel, our advocacy director, Seth Stern, went on the “Legal AF” podcast on the MeidasTouch network to talk about our supplement to our July attorney disciplinary complaint against FCC Chair Brendan Carr. Read more about Guevara’s case here.

How noncitizen journalists can prepare for ICE

The immediate priority is getting Guevara’s case dropped, but we also don’t want there to be any more baseless deportation cases against journalists. Many newsrooms — not to mention freelancers — have little experience dealing with immigration authorities, though. Luckily, we know people who do.

We hosted a panel discussion featuring immigration lawyers, civil rights advocates, and journalists to talk about what to do when a journalist is detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement — and what must happen before that day ever comes. Read about it and watch it here.

Pentagon seeks to control the press

The Pentagon faced bipartisan backlash for its ridiculous policy requiring journalists to agree not to obtain or report “unauthorized” information. We called them out in The New York Times, CNN, The Intercept, and elsewhere. Stern also discussed the disturbing move on NPR’s Los Angeles affiliate, KCRW, and FPF’s Lauren Harper discussed this and other threats to press freedom on NPR’s 1A.

First, President Donald Trump tried to downplay the policy. Now, in a letter responding to an inquiry from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, officials are trying to walk it back. Unfortunately, the response offers little reassurance that the Pentagon’s intentions are anything but censorial, and doubles down on restricting routine constitutionally protected newsgathering. Read more here.

Drop charges against Cincinnati journalists

Jury trials of journalists arrested while reporting news are exceedingly rare in the United States, but the next two are coming next week unless prosecutors come to their senses.

Journalists Madeline Fening and Lucas Griffith, both of whom were arrested while covering a protest on July 17 for Cincinnati-based CityBeat, are set to be tried Sept. 30 and Oct. 2, respectively. In an unfortunate irony, the protest was in opposition to the recently dropped immigration case against Ayman Soliman, who himself fled Egypt to escape persecution for his journalism. We led a letter to prosecutors from rights organizations and local journalism professors urging them to drop the baseless charges. Read more here.

Proposed ‘safety’ bill would undermine accountability for lawmakers

FPF’s Caitlin Vogus writes for The Minnesota Star Tribune that a bill sponsored by Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Ted Cruz to protect lawmakers won’t fully stop data brokers from trafficking their personal information but will stop journalists and watchdogs from holding them accountable.

Use our action center tool to tell Congress to reject this bill.

Police records must stay public in California

A searchable public database known as the Police Records Access Project has made public for the first time more than 1.5 million pages of previously secret records about the use of force and misconduct by California police officers.

The California legislature, however, is trying to put police misconduct back under wraps. This month, it passed AB 1178, a new bill that would make it harder for the public to access these records. The bill is awaiting Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature or veto. Read more here.

What we’re reading

Urgent ideas for defending press freedom in Gaza (Columbia Journalism School). Columbia followed up on last month’s important article in Columbia Journalism Review with a discussion about finding creative ways to help journalists in Gaza despite anti-press regimes both here and in Israel. FPF Executive Director Trevor Timm and board member and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Azmat Khan were both on the panel.

Israel killed 31 journalists in Yemen strike, press freedom group says (The Washington Post). It’s not just Gaza. The Committee to Protect Journalists says the strike in Yemen was “the deadliest strike on journalists in the Middle East” it has documented to date.

Letter from ICE detention facility (The Bitter Southerner). Guevara recounts the harrowing details of his detention in an Atlanta federal prison. You can also read his son’s plea for his release.

Investors rejoice over looming TikTok deal despite political concerns (Al Jazeera). Days after Trump said frequent criticism of his administration should be illegal, he is finalizing plans to steer control of TikTok to his billionaire friends. “It would be naive to think they won’t censor Trump’s critics while boosting content that pleases him,” Stern said.

It’s 2025. Do you know how secure your newsroom is? (Neiman Lab). “What’s really important is that sources know where to reach you in a way that helps them stay secure,” FPF’s Davis Erin Anderson said.

Trump signs order labeling antifa ‘domestic terrorist organization’ (The Hill). Trump’s executive orders on domestic terrorism and threats to use racketeering laws against protest movements can and will be used to threaten journalists and sources. Journalists who cover “antifa” or report on ICE must now risk being accused of terrorism.

Judge strikes down Trump’s $15 billion suit against The New York Times (The Washington Post). We’re glad a judge tossed this ridiculous lawsuit, but the attorneys behind it should have been sanctioned.

The Pentagon faced bipartisan backlash for its ridiculous policy requiring journalists to agree not to obtain or report “unauthorized” information. Now, in a response to an inquiry from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, officials are trying to walk it back.

They claim the rules were intended to restrict Pentagon staffers from giving unauthorized information to journalists, not to restrict journalists from printing “unsolicited” tips they’re given. We’re not buying it. We commend RCFP for getting the Pentagon to elaborate on the policy — but, despite lots of legalese and doublespeak, its clarifications are mostly meaningless.

As an initial matter, a policy solely aimed at government employees would not need to be distributed to or acknowledged by journalists. To the extent that the government is permitted to keep information secret, the Supreme Court says that’s the government’s responsibility — officials aren’t entitled to shift the burden to reporters to keep their secrets for them. Even crediting the Pentagon’s explanation, the memo was clearly intended to do exactly that. It sends a message to the press, and that message is “tread carefully.”

Nor can the government restrict the press to publishing unsolicited tips. News doesn’t fall from the sky into reporters’ laps. Reporters are entitled to ask questions, cultivate sources, and seek out news (otherwise known as reporting), as long as they don’t break the law in doing so. That’s the job description — they’re journalists, not stenographers.

Journalists should not agree to this ridiculous policy in exchange for … what, exactly? The honor of being lied to at news conferences?

The Pentagon’s position seems to draw from the Supreme Court case Bartnicki v. Vopper, which held that journalists can obtain information given to them by sources that obtained it illegally as long as the journalists didn’t themselves participate in the illegality. By soliciting information from sources, the Pentagon’s reasoning apparently goes, journalists participate in the sources’ violations of Pentagon policy.

But nothing in Bartnicki limits constitutional protection to unsolicited information — the only exception it acknowledges is when journalists participate in a source’s illegal acts (in that case, an unlawful wiretap). There is no analogous underlying illegality here.

The whole purpose of the First Amendment is so that the government can’t stop journalists from publishing what the government does not want published. We wouldn’t need a constitutional right to publish what the government authorizes to be released — the government would have no reason to try to prevent that.

That’s the fundamental point that seems entirely lost on this administration. The press exists to hold it accountable, not to keep its secrets or do its bidding.

The other point Pentagon officials are missing – as their response to RCFP makes clear — is that they’re not entitled to scream “national security” like magic words when they want the First Amendment to disappear. The response, disturbingly, reserves the right for the administration to unilaterally deem reporting a national security danger after the fact and punish reporters for it.

But as the Pentagon Papers case made extremely clear, that’s not how it works: “The word ‘security’ is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment.” And that was a case involving a specific set of documents alleged to pose a danger — not a vague reservation of rights to declare hypothetical documents a threat.

Of course, an administration headed by a president who just called upholstered furniture a national security threat cannot be trusted to invoke national security responsibly. It has claimed the right to deport journalists, activists, and op-ed writers who disagree with, or merely report or comment on its policies. The president has said that when officials want a journalist to give up sources, they can just “tell the reporter, ‘National security’.”

The Trump administration considers anything that threatens to harm its reputation or expose its lies (or, apparently, makes office chairs more comfortable) a threat to national security. It considers the First Amendment and free press themselves threats to national security.

The Pentagon is essentially shifting its position from, “You can’t report anything we didn’t authorize you to report” to “You can’t report anything we didn’t authorize you to report unless we decide after the fact in our sole discretion that it’s OK.” That should not provide much comfort to journalists. They certainly should not agree to this ridiculous policy in exchange for … what, exactly? The honor of being lied to at news conferences?

A searchable public database known as the Police Records Access Project has made public for the first time more than 1.5 million pages of previously secret records about the use of force and misconduct by California police officers.

The California Reporting Project, a collaboration between news outlets, universities, and civil society organizations, began collecting and organizing the documents after the passage of SB 1421, a landmark law that made them public records. The law was expanded in 2021 to give the public even greater access.

Now, however, the California legislature is beginning to reverse course. This month, it passed AB 1178, a new bill that would make it harder for the public to access police misconduct records. The bill is awaiting Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature or veto.

We spoke to journalist Lisa Pickoff-White, who is the director of research at the California Reporting Project, about what the CRP has accomplished so far and what AB 1178 could mean for transparency and accountability.

What are some of the most impactful stories journalists in the CRP have published using these records?

The project had impact from the beginning. A district attorney dropped charges against a woman who was wrongly arrested for allegedly misusing 911, after an investigation into one of the first cases released under SB 1421.

Reporters documented where departments failed to investigate police killings, found a homicide detective whose dishonesty upended criminal cases, and uncovered a pattern of excessive force at a state prison. We identified 22 people who died after officers held them face down, including two people who died after a state law banning the practice.

The governor is expected to sign a law barring agencies from using secret deals to conceal misconduct, prompted by an investigation exposing how 163 departments signed “clean-record agreements.”

What were some of the biggest challenges in collecting, reviewing, and standardizing these records and launching the database?

Obtaining records continues to be a major challenge. Just days before SB 1421 took effect, Inglewood destroyed records, for instance. In August, we sued San Joaquin County over the cost of autopsy reports related to deaths caused by law enforcement officers. We’ve made more than 3,500 record requests and maintain relationships with hundreds of agencies.

Once we have the records, assembling them is a challenge. There’s no standard police report, and we receive a great variety of files, from PDFs to surveillance video. We built tools to extract information, which researchers use to match files into a case. Then we reextract information from each case, some of which is published, and then also used to help us identify places where we need more records.

Now that the database is public, what should journalists know about using it? How has the public responded to the database since it launched?

So far, people have searched our archive more than 1 million times. We’ve heard from people who have lost loved ones to police violence that this database makes it easier to access records.

Expanding the search can help. Multiple agencies may have records about the same incident. If an officer shoots and kills someone, the police, the district attorney, and the medical examiner or coroner may hold records. A review board may have files. The state attorney general could investigate. Sometimes, agencies also investigate cases for each other; a local sheriff may investigate a shooting for a police department.

Officers can also appeal disciplinary charges. If you’re looking at a misconduct case, it might also be worth searching local administrative agencies or the state personnel board.

A new bill awaiting the signature or veto of Gov. Newsom, AB 1178, could lead to more redactions when officers claim their duties require anonymity. What would it mean for transparency and accountability if misconduct records become harder for the press and the public to obtain?

Without AB 1178, agencies can already redact the names of undercover officers. Our records show that agencies across the state continue to improperly redact the names of officers. Meanwhile, the bill’s authors have yet to cite any harm that’s come from releasing the names of officers involved in use-of-force and misconduct incidents.

Our reporting, and other investigations, revealed that agencies can and do hire officers who previously violated policies. These officers are more likely to receive complaints again. For instance, Derek Chauvin had 18 prior complaints in the Minneapolis Police Department, two of which led to discipline, before killing George Floyd.

What lessons can journalists and advocates in other states learn from CRP’s work?

There is a vast amount of work to do and collaboration is the key to doing it. More than 100 reporters have worked on the project for the last seven years, and we needed people with a wide range of expertise to make requests, build tools, and report.

That mix of skills allowed us to build tools to spot the gaps between what cases agencies disclose and incidents listed in other data sources about shootings and sustained complaints. We’ve gained thousands of cases through this kind of check. Having a group of people with request aptitude, coding ability, and domain knowledge allowed us to identify what we needed and the incremental steps to take to get it.

Atlanta-based journalist Mario Guevara has been detained for nearly 100 days and is facing imminent deportation from the United States. His crime? Doing his job.

Guevara was detained first by local police and then by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in what experts say was retaliation for his reporting on immigration raids and subsequent protests.

Guevara’s case is a disturbing example of how ICE can target non-American journalists, with or without legal status. Recently, Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) hosted a panel discussion featuring immigration lawyers, civil rights advocates, and journalists to talk about what to do when a journalist is detained by ICE — and what must happen before that day ever comes.

Here’s what we learned.

Why are journalists being detained?

Non-American journalists in the United States—especially those covering immigration or working in vulnerable roles like freelancers or independent journalists—are at serious risk as a result of the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant and anti-press policies.

President Donald Trump’s campaign to retaliate against journalists who contradict the government’s preferred narrative, plus his administration’s promise to ramp up deportations, has created a “perfect storm for those, like immigrant reporters, who are on the front lines,” said Nora Benavidez of Free Press.

“This administration has made it very clear that it considers the public and press documenting immigration enforcement to be a threat,” explained American Civil Liberties Union’s Scarlet Kim, who is part of Guevara’s legal team.

What can be done? Advanced preparation is key.

The experts we spoke to agreed: Newsrooms can’t wait until a journalist is detained to act. Here are key steps newsrooms and reporters can take before it happens.

1. Create an action plan before you need it.

Journalist and Investigative Reporters and Editors board member Alejandra Cancino has been working with fellow reporters to create a checklist to help newsrooms prepare for the potential detention of one of their reporters by ICE.

The checklist includes steps like gathering key information ahead of time, such as about medical needs, emergency contacts, and immigration attorney contacts (more on that below).

Cancino also encouraged newsrooms to talk with non-American reporters about their concerns and how to mitigate them. “We obviously don’t want any reporter to be taken away from their beat,” she explained, but creative risk-mitigation measures can work, such as having a journalist facing heightened risks report from the newsroom based on information being provided from others in the field.

2. Get local immigration counsel — now.

Journalists at risk need an experienced immigration lawyer in place before they’re detained, experts said.

Newsrooms should consider keeping local immigration counsel on retainer. “Getting a roster of vetted attorneys together is the first important step,” explained Marium Uddin, legal director of the Muslim Legal Fund of America and a former immigration judge.

News outlets should also consider having non-American journalists they work with sign a retainer agreement with an immigration attorney in advance, paid for by the newsroom, so that representation of the journalist could be immediate if they were detained, Uddin said.

To build their rosters of immigration attorneys, newsroom lawyers should seek referrals from those in their networks who may already have strong reputations and experience with the local immigration courts. They can also seek referrals by contacting organizations like the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the Immigration Advocates Network, and local legal aid offices.

Unfortunately, asylum cases can be expensive to litigate. In Texas, where Uddin is based, they can cost $10,000 to $20,000. While some immigration attorneys may offer free or low-cost services, newsrooms should budget for the cost of legal defense of non-American journalists detained by immigration authorities. Protecting journalists “is the cost of doing business,” said Cancino.

3. Act immediately to locate the detained journalist.

If a journalist is detained, one of the first steps will be to locate them, a process that can be made difficult by an opaque detention system and strategic shuffling of people around detention facilities.

Newsrooms should first determine if a detained journalist is in local custody, said Samantha Hamilton of the Atlanta Community Press Collective and Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta, since people who are arrested are often taken first to the county jail before being transferred to ICE.

If they have been transferred to ICE, Hamilton recommended searching for them with the online ICE detainee locator, using the person’s alien registration number and country of birth. If you don’t have that information, you can also search using their last name and country of origin. Hamilton recommended using all variations of the name, especially if the person has multiple names or uses a nickname.

Once a newsroom locates the journalist, it will want to figure out how to contact them. Each facility can have different communication rules, explained Uddin, which can often be found on the facility’s official website or ICE’s general detention center directory. Legal visits may require special steps, like completing a legal notice of representation.

4. Consider all the legal options.

In addition to challenging the journalist’s detention and deportation in immigration court, a legal petition known as habeas corpus may present another way to challenge the detention in court if a journalist is detained in retaliation for their reporting, said ACLU attorney Kim. A habeas petition asks a federal judge for an order that a person in custody be brought before the court to determine if their detention is valid.

A successful habeas petition can free someone from immigration detention. However, it cannot resolve their immigration status or stop deportation proceedings altogether. Those legal issues must be addressed separately in immigration court.

Habeas is especially important in cases where immigration detention is being used to punish people for their speech or journalism. The ACLU has brought habeas petitions in Guevara’s case and also to challenge the detention of students by immigration officials based on their political speech.

One of the biggest challenges in bringing a habeas petition is timing. Kim warned that strategic transfers of detainees between ICE facilities without warning can make legal action harder, because petitions must usually be filed in the jurisdiction where the detainee is being held. That’s why it’s so important to have legal counsel lined up and to file a habeas petition as soon as possible, ideally before any transfer occurs.

The bigger picture

A recent court ruling in California reminded the public that “a camera and a notepad are not threats to the public,” said Uddin. Unfortunately, however, government retaliation against non-American journalists remains a real threat.

So it’s not enough for newsrooms and journalists to prepare. People outside the media industry need to see how detentions of non-American journalists and other attacks on the press impact us all and speak up against them, explained Benavidez. “Because if it is one of those other people today,” she said, “it could be one of us tomorrow.”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

The Washington Post reported today that officials plan to require Pentagon reporters to pledge not to gather or report any information that the government has not authorized for release, whether classified or unclassified. Violators risk having their press credentials revoked.

Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Director of Advocacy Seth Stern issued the following statement:

“The Supreme Court has made clear for decades that journalists are entitled to lawfully obtain and publish government secrets. That is essentially the job description of an investigative journalist. The law is also clear that the government can’t require people to contract away a constitutional right, like the right to obtain and publish secrets, in exchange for a benefit, like access to government buildings or press credentials.

“This policy operates as a prior restraint on publication, which is considered the most serious of First Amendment violations. As we learned in the Pentagon Papers case, the government cannot prohibit journalists from public information merely by claiming it’s a secret or even a national security threat. This is worse in a way, because the government isn’t only seeking to restrain specific documents it contends pose a unique threat, it’s seeking to restrain everything it doesn’t want the public to know. That is fundamentally un-American.

“In the meantime, journalists will need to decide whether they’re so dependent on physical access to the Pentagon that they’re willing to trade away their independence to retain it.

“I hope they won’t, and will find other ways to gather news. Agreeing not to look where the government doesn’t want you to look and, by extension, not to print what it doesn’t want you to print, is propaganda, not journalism. Caving to these kinds of demands would in some ways be the most outrageous capitulation yet, and there are plenty to choose from.

“Virtually every time this administration (and past ones) has tried to justify secrecy by claiming it’s protecting national security, its real agenda turned out to be saving itself from embarrassment or from having its lies exposed. There is no reason to think this is any different. Perhaps there are so many embarrassing documents at this point that it’s too difficult to keep finding bogus reasons to keep each of them secret. Maybe that’s why the administration is taking more of a wholesale approach to concealing records that may show wrongdoing, corruption, and incompetence.”

Please contact us if you would like further comment on the dangers this policy poses to press freedom in the United States.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Jury trials of journalists arrested while reporting news are exceedingly rare in the United States. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, a project of Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) that maintains data on press freedom violations nationwide, has documented only nine in its history.

The next two are scheduled to take place in Kenton County, Kentucky, in just a couple weeks. Journalists Madeline Fening and Lucas Griffith, both of whom were arrested while covering a protest on July 17 for Cincinnati-based CityBeat (Griffith is a student journalist at the University of Cincinnati who interned at CityBeat), are set to be tried Sept. 30 and Oct. 2, respectively. In an unfortunate irony, the protest was in opposition to the immigration detention of Ayman Soliman, who himself fled Egypt to escape persecution for his journalism.

A coalition of press freedom organizations and Cincinnati journalism professors sent a letter to the prosecutor, County Attorney Stacy Tapke, urging her office to drop the case. As the letter explains, when journalists are mistakenly arrested while covering protests, prosecutors usually decline to bring charges because they recognize that protests and their aftermath are newsworthy and journalists reporting on them are just doing their constitutionally protected jobs.

When prosecutors nonetheless push forward with these kinds of censorial charges, the cases often end in a dismissal and a civil settlement paid to the reporter, and those responsible are forced to explain why they wasted taxpayer funds trying to criminalize journalism.

Below are comments from representatives of several press freedom organizations that signed the letter, as well as from journalism professors at the University of Cincinnati (speaking in their individual capacities).

Comment from press freedom advocates

Seth Stern, director of advocacy at FPF, said, “With no end to civil unrest on the horizon, it’s more important now than ever that journalists are allowed to cover how police respond to protests. Officers engaged in misconduct have every incentive to disperse the press, which is precisely why the Department of Justice and courts have said that they can’t be allowed to do so. Even temporary detainments have a chilling effect, but putting journalists on trial for routine newsgathering is simply un-American. We hope prosecutors do the right thing without further delay.

Mickey Osterreicher, general counsel for the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA), said, “Despite the National Press Photographers Association having spent over a decade providing training to police regarding the First Amendment rights of journalists, it is disturbing that some officers and agencies have not learned to respect those rights. We sincerely hope that the county attorney will remedy this wrong by heeding our request to dismiss the remaining charges and not add insult to injury.”

Anne Marie Tamburro, press freedom strategist at the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), said, “It is inexcusable that journalists in the United States are being put on trial for exercising their First Amendment rights. We urge Kenton County officials to drop all charges and ensure that journalists can do their jobs of keeping the public informed without unwarranted interference from law enforcement.”

Katherine Jacobsen, U.S., Canada, and Caribbean Program Coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), said, “It is concerning to see that two journalists are facing jury trials in relation to their reporting activity. Journalism is not a crime, and reporters should not be punished for covering matters of public interest.”

Comment from journalism professors

Alfred J. Cotton III, director of undergraduate studies, associate professor-educator, journalism at the University of Cincinnati, said, “Lucas Griffith is one of the best student journalists on this campus. He’s a former student of mine, and I believe wholeheartedly in his integrity and dedication to pursuing the truth. I stand with the call to drop the charges against him and Madeline Fening.”

Victoria LaPoe, department head of the Department of Journalism at the University of Cincinnati, said, “While I cannot speak on behalf of the university, I can speak for myself and my personal views. As a former journalist — specifically a television producer who would get out of the newsroom and on the ground to cover trials, protests, and breaking news — I witnessed firsthand how quickly situations can turn chaotic. I believe what is truly at risk here are core constitutional freedoms. The precedent this could set is deeply troubling. Journalists serve as the eyes and ears of an event, allowing citizens to be informed and make their own decisions. I hope it is beyond question that, in this situation, a journalist — and a student intern — should not face such severe charges for simply attempting to serve their community.”

Jenny Wohlfarth, a professor-educator in the Department of Journalism at the University of Cincinnati, added, “Newsgathering is a protected right under the First Amendment. What’s at stake here is not just these two reporters’ fates, but also the fundamental constitutional rights of a free press that are protected for all of us under the First Amendment. In helping prepare the journalists of tomorrow, we educators must teach our students the value of a free press, why it’s so critically important in a democracy, and how they must uphold the highest ethical standards in covering news events, both near and far. Without journalists to cover events like this, the public loses access to credible and accurate information that members of a free press routinely provide to help the public stay informed.”

The charges against the journalists originally included felony rioting, but that charge was dropped in July. The remaining misdemeanor charges against Fening include disorderly conduct, obstructing an emergency responder, failure to disperse, unlawful assembly, and obstructing a highway or public passage. Griffith is charged with those offenses plus resisting arrest.

You can read the letter here or below. If you have questions or would like further comment, please reach out to FPF at media@freedom.press, NPPA at lawyer@nppa.org, SPJ at chendrie@hq.spj.org, or CPJ at press@cpj.org.

Federal attacks on free speech are rightfully getting most of the headlines, but Georgia’s unprecedented attempt to prosecute dozens of “Stop Cop City” protesters as members of a racketeering enterprise was as frivolous as the worst of the Trump administration’s antics.

This week’s dismissal of conspiracy charges against these opponents of the Atlanta police training facility is welcome news. But it’s alarming that these charges lingered over 61 people’s heads for two years. And their ordeal likely isn’t over.

Ridiculous indictment

Rather than filing charges aimed at individual alleged acts of arson, vandalism, or other actual crimes, prosecutors tried to rope together dozens of activists into one sprawling case under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. The indictment didn’t even attempt to connect the dots between most defendants’ constitutionally protected speech and a handful of defendants’ alleged bad acts.

Why would prosecutors want to do that instead of just charging the lawbreakers? Primarily, because the prosecution wasn’t intended to punish illegality but to kill a movement. Charging only those who broke actual laws wouldn’t achieve that aim, so they got to work making up new ones.

Secondarily, because they’re vindictive dirtbags. To prove it, they chose the date of George Floyd’s murder as the start date of their fabricated “conspiracy,” even though plans for Cop City hadn’t even been announced yet when Floyd was killed.

Prosecutors pointed to the defendants’ alleged anarchist political philosophy, their publications, their social media posts, their constitutionally protected recording of police, their use of encryption and VPNs to communicate securely, and even their holding news conferences and talking to reporters — all as “proof” that they were each part of a criminal enterprise.

The theory goes that, if one anarchist writes an essay about the environmental impact of Cop City and another anarchist sets a police car on fire, then both anarchists effectively struck the match together. Or something like that. It’s too incoherent to make any sense of.

Chilling effect on both journalists and sources

By the prosecution’s logic, journalists who covered the protests could be portrayed as helping to “advance” a RICO conspiracy simply by giving activists a platform. Write about the movement, and you (and your sources) might become part of the case file. This time, they only went after writers who participated in the Stop Cop City movement, but what about next time?

The harm extends beyond direct impact on reporters. Newsmakers and whistleblowers will surely be wary of talking to journalists if they know prosecutors view doing so — and particularly doing so securely via encrypted messaging — as an act in furtherance of a conspiracy.

This week’s win doesn’t undo the harm, either to free speech or to the defendants’ lives (many say they’ve been unable to find housing or jobs due to the long-pending case). The court’s forthcoming dismissal order seems likely to be limited to procedural grounds — prosecutors neglected to get required authorization from the governor to bring the charges. Deputy Attorney General John Fowler, the lead prosecutor on the case, said he’ll appeal.

Prosecutors must know they’re unlikely to ultimately secure a conviction, much less one that higher courts will uphold. Even if the appellate courts give them a path to get past this week’s procedural dismissal, they’ll still have to reckon with the Constitution and the fact that their legal and factual theories are as flimsy as they come.

But the longer they can stretch the case out, the longer uncertainty will linger about whether a law intended to counter organized crime can be distorted to stifle protest movements. And the more reluctant critics of Cop City will be to speak to journalists whose reporting might clarify the goals of their movement and contradict law enforcement narratives.

Plenty of experts have explained how RICO laws are rife with abuse, even when used for their intended purpose. The Cop City case makes clear that the need for reform isn’t just a criminal justice issue; it’s a free speech one as well.

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

For 171 days, Rümeysa Öztürk has faced deportation by the United States government for writing an op-ed it didn’t like, and for 90 days, Mario Guevara has been imprisoned for covering a protest.

Our newsletters are taking a short break next week, but we’ll be back. Explore our archive for more press freedom stories.

Take action to stop attacks on journalists and transparency

People often ask how to support the causes we fight for other than donating. Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) has a new action center to allow you to do just that by writing or calling members of Congress to tell them that the public cares about press freedom.

This week we launched the first two actions — one to tell lawmakers to stop the decimation of the Freedom of Information Act and the other to encourage them to do something (besides the same old empty expressions of concern) about the massacre of journalists in Gaza. We plan to expand the action center, including by taking on locally targeted initiatives. Please use this easy, new tool to help us make a difference — and still donate if you can, of course.

CBS’s real bias monitor is Donald Trump

CBS announced this week that it’s hiring Kenneth Weinstein — a career partisan — as its “bias ombudsman.” FPF Director of Advocacy Seth Stern wrote for The Guardian that while CBS has a constitutional right to monitor bias as it sees fit, it’s a different story when the government gets involved.

The creation of the ombudsman role was one of many capitulations CBS’s owners made to the Trump administration to persuade the Federal Communications Commission to approve the Paramount-Skydance merger. And based on comments from the administration, it fully intends to use its foothold inside CBS’s newsroom to bend its reporting to its liking. Read more here.

‘Cop City’ case’s threat to press freedom persists despite win

Federal attacks on free speech are rightfully getting most of the headlines, but Georgia’s unprecedented attempt to prosecute dozens of “Stop Cop City” protesters as members of a racketeering enterprise was as frivolous as the worst of the Trump administration’s antics.

This week’s dismissal of conspiracy charges against these opponents of the Atlanta police training facility is welcome news. But it’s alarming that these charges lingered over 61 people’s heads for two years. Their ordeal likely isn’t over, and neither is the chilling effect on journalism and whistleblowing that the case has caused. Read more here.

Will 9/11 records be declassified?

Next year marks the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, and “a substantial body of records” about the event remains classified.

In theory, these records should automatically be declassified when they turn 25 in 2026. But this won’t happen with the 9/11 records, just as it hasn’t happened with other historically significant records, like the John F. Kennedy assassination records, which the public had to wait over 60 years to read.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Read more in The Classifieds.

Judge isn’t buying excuses for attacks on LA reporters

A group of journalists and others won a preliminary injunction in federal court on Sept. 11, 2025, placing new restrictions on the Los Angeles Police Department’s violent tactics while policing protests. The day before, they won a similar order against the Department of Homeland Security.

U.S. District Judge Hernán Vera outlined the decades-long history of press freedom abuses at protests in LA and said that “the First Amendment demands better.” We couldn’t agree more. Read more from FPF’s U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

What we’re reading

Investigative reporter told to stop contacting police in California city (U.S. Press Freedom Tracker). You’d think police would’ve learned to stop messing with journalist Ben Camacho after the City of Los Angeles had to cut him a check for wasting his time with a frivolous lawsuit for publishing public records that they gave him.

China didn’t want you to see this video of Xi and Putin. So Reuters deleted it (The Intercept). When news outlets don’t resist censorship, “journalism’s independence “sinks to the lowest common denominator whenever news of global importance breaks in a country governed by a repressive regime,” Stern told The Intercept.

A tipping point at CBS News (Columbia Journalism Review). An alarming account of corporate meddling in CBS News’ editorial decisions, under new and old ownership alike, to appease the Trump administration and avoid criticizing Israel. And with CBS’s ownership now looking to buy CNN’s parent company, it’s unlikely to stop.

Cindy Cohn is leaving EFF, but not the fight for digital rights (WIRED). A giant in the civil liberties field! We all owe a debt of gratitude to Cindy Cohn for her indelible leadership at the Electronic Frontier Foundation for so many years (and for being our legal counsel at FPF since our founding in 2012).

Kansas prisons reject newspaper subscriptions, blindsiding publishers and cutting off information (Kansas Reflector). We can’t wait to hear Kansas prison officials explain how newspaper subscriptions threaten incarcerated people’s safety.

Boos of Donald Trump heard on ABC’s broadcast of US Open. Good (USA Today). Shame on the U.S. Tennis Association for demanding broadcasters to censor crowd reactions to Trump’s attendance of the U.S. Open men’s tennis final in New York on Sunday.

We were pleasantly surprised when congressional Republicans introduced our farewell article to the former president, titled Biden’s press freedom legacy: Empty words and hypocrisy, into the record at a House Judiciary Committee hearing this week.

That’s great — it’s always nice to have our work recognized. But if Republican lawmakers agree with us that former President Joe Biden was bad on press freedom, someone should really tell them about this Donald Trump character who’s in office now. All the abuses we identified in the article Republicans cited have (as the article predicted) worsened under the new president, and he’s come up with plenty of new ones too.

We wrote a letter to let the committee know that if it’s serious about addressing the issues our article discussed, regardless of who is in the White House, we’re here to help. We’ll let you know if they reply (but don’t hold your breath). Read the letter here or below.