Freedom of the Press

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

Rümeysa Öztürk has been facing deportation for 262 days for co-writing an op-ed the government didn’t like, and journalist Ya’akub Vijandre remains locked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement over social media posts about issues he reported on. Read on for more on what we’re working on this week.

Stop the gatekeeping. The First Amendment’s for all of us

In the early days of the internet, online news confused analog-era judges, who pondered questions like, “If this is journalism then why are there no ink smudges on my fingers?” These days, First Amendment advocates tend to chuckle when thinking back on that era. But apparently it’s not quite over yet.

Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Senior Adviser Caitlin Vogus wrote for the Sun-Sentinel about a judge in Florida’s unfortunate ruling that YouTube-based outlet Popcorned Planet can’t avail itself of the state’s reporter’s privilege to oppose a subpoena from actor Blake Lively. The court’s decision would “effectively exclude any independent journalist who publishes using online platforms from relying on the privilege to protect their sources.” If it stands, “vital information will stay buried,” she explained.

And FPF Executive Director Trevor Timm spoke to Columbia Journalism Review about another subpoena from Lively that’s testing whether celebrity blogger Perez Hilton can claim the privilege. “Hilton is gathering information, talking to sources, and publishing things in order to have the public consume them. That fits the definition of a journalist,” Timm explained. As CJR noted, FPF’s U.S. Press Freedom Tracker “was one of the few to highlight the Hilton case.”

It’s not a question of whether Popcorned Planet and Hilton are great journalists or if they pass some editorial purity test. It’s a question of whether the courts will allow litigants to chip away at First Amendment rights that protect all journalists, no matter what platform they use to report or what subjects they cover.

• READ THE OP-ED

Administration is trolling America with its FOIA responses

As The New York Times reported this week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement claimed it has no body-worn camera footage from Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago, Illinois, despite a federal judge’s explicit order that agents wear and activate those cameras.

And as The Daily Beast reported, the Department of Homeland Security told FFP’s Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy Lauren Harper that Kristi Noem had no Truth Social Direct messages, despite her millions of followers. Harper requested cabinet officials’ messages in a Freedom of Information Act request after President Donald Trump accidentally publicly posted correspondence with Attorney General Pam Bondi.

As Harper told the Times, “They are trolling citizens and judges … ICE continues to feel increasing impunity and that it has the right to behave as a secret police that’s exempt from accountability.” FPF is, of course, appealing.

• READ THE NYT STORY

Don’t weaken Puerto Rico’s public records law

When the U.S. Navy quietly reactivated Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in Puerto Rico earlier this year, some residents saw the promise of new jobs, while others saw it as a painful reminder of past harms from the American military presence on the island.

Puerto Ricans — and Americans everywhere — deserve basic answers about what the military is up to as tensions escalate with Venezuela and whether Puerto Rico’s government is coordinating with the Pentagon and whether their concerns are being taken into account. And of course, there are countless local issues Puerto Ricans are entitled to be informed about.

But at the moment when transparency is most essential, lawmakers are trying to slam the door shut.

• READ MORE

Don’t just take our word for it…

Throughout 2025 we’ve been hosting online events platforming journalists impacted by anti-press policies at the national and local levels, so you can hear directly from the people we hope will benefit from our work.

Read about three of our recent events. This week’s panel features journalists whose reporting is complicated by sources unwilling to come forward due to fear of retaliation. Last week we spoke with journalists about the difficulties of covering the immigration beat during Trump 2.0, and last month we talked about the immigration cases against journalists Sami Hamdi and Ya’akub Vijandre over their support for Palestinian rights (shoutout to our friends at The Dissenter for writing up that event). And there are even more past events on our YouTube channel.

• BROWSE OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL

In a comprehensive new report, Free Press’s Nora Benavidez analyzes how Trump and his political enablers have sought to undermine and chill the most basic freedoms protected by the First Amendment.

We cannot just accept that “every so often the administration is going to abduct some lawful resident who said something it doesn’t like about Israel or Palestine,” FPF’s Seth Stern told WABE.

A powerful essay by Palestinian journalist Mohammed Mhawish about life in Gaza “under Israel’s all-encompassing surveillance regime.”

Threatening to punish app stores if they don’t remove apps the government dislikes is unconstitutional. This time it’s ICEBlock, but tomorrow it could be a news app.

Many heroes work behind the scenes on press freedom. Will Lewis was one of them. A radio executive who championed public media, he spent 15 days in prison to protect sources. RIP.

Congratulations to the indefatigable National Security Archive on 40 years of clawing back the self-serving veil of government secrecy.

From national outlets to college newspapers, reporters are running into the same troubling trend: sources who are afraid to speak to journalists because they worry about retaliation from the federal government.

This fear, and how journalists can respond to it, was the focus of a recent panel discussion hosted by Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), the Association of Health Care Journalists, and the Society of Environmental Journalists. Reporters from a range of beats described how the second Trump administration has changed the way people talk to the press, and what journalists do to reassure sources and keep them safe.

For journalist Grace Hussain, a solutions correspondent at Sentient Media, this shift became unmistakable when sources who relied on federal funding suddenly backed out of participating in her reporting. “Their concerns were very legitimate,” Hussain said, “It was possible that their funding could get retracted or withdrawn” for speaking to the press.

When Hussain reached out to other reporters, she found that sources’ reluctance to speak to the press for fear of federal retaliation is an increasingly widespread issue that’s already harming news coverage. “There are a lot of stories that are under-covered, and it’s just getting more difficult at this point to do that sort of coverage with the climate that we’re in,” she said.

Lizzy Lawrence, who covers the Food and Drug Administration for Stat, has seen a different but equally unsettling pattern. Lawrence has found that more government sources want to talk about what’s happening in their agencies, but often only if they’re not named. Since Trump returned to office, she said, many sources “would request only to speak on the condition of anonymity, because of fears of being fired.” As a result, her newsroom is relying more on confidential sources, with strict guardrails, like requiring multiple sources to corroborate information.

For ProPublica reporter Sharon Lerner, who’s covered health and the environment across multiple administrations, the heightened fear is impossible to miss. Some longtime sources have cut off communication with her, including one who told her they were falsely suspected of leaking.

And yet, she added, speaking to the press may be one of the last options left for employees trying to expose wrongdoing. “So many of the avenues for federal employees to seek justice or address retaliation have been shut down,” Lerner said.

This chilling effect extends beyond federal agencies. Emily Spatz, editor-in-chief of Northeastern’s independent student newspaper The Huntington News, described how fear spread among international students after federal agents detained Mahmoud Kahlil and Rümeysa Öztürk. Visa revocations of students at Northeastern only deepened the concern.

Students started asking the newspaper to take down previously published op-eds they worried could put them at risk, a step Spatz took after careful consideration. The newsroom ultimately removed six op-eds but posted a public website documenting each removal to preserve transparency.

Even as the paper worked hard to protect sources, many became reluctant to participate in their reporting. One student, for instance, insisted the newspaper remove a photo showing the back of their head, a method the paper had used specifically to avoid identifying sources.

Harlo Holmes, the chief information security officer and director of digital security at FPF, said these patterns mirror what journalists usually experience under authoritarian regimes, but — until now — have not been seen in the United States. Whistleblowing is a “humongously heroic act,” Holmes said, “and it is not always without its repercussions.”

She urged reporters to adopt rigorous threat-modeling practices and to be transparent with sources about the tools and techniques they use to keep them safe. Whether using SecureDrop, Signal, or other encrypted channels, she said journalists should make it easy for sources to find out how to contact them securely. “A little bit of education goes a long way,” she said.

For more on how journalists are working harder than ever to protect vulnerable sources, watch the full event recording here.

As the federal government ramps up immigration enforcement, sweeping through cities, detaining citizens and noncitizens, separating families, and carrying out deportations, journalists covering immigration have had to step up their work, too.

Journalists on the immigration beat today are tasked with everything from uncovering government falsehoods to figuring out what their communities need to know and protecting their sources. Recently, Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) hosted a conversation with journalists Maritza Félix, the founder and director of Conecta Arizona; Arelis Hernández, a reporter for The Washington Post; and Lam Thuy Vo, an investigative reporter with Documented. They discussed the challenges they face and shared how they report on immigration with humanity and accuracy, while keeping their sources and themselves safe.

Immigration reporting has grown a lot more difficult, explained Hernández, as sources increasingly fear retaliation from the government. “I spend a lot of time at the front end explaining, ‘Where will this go? What will it look like?’” Hernández said, describing her process of working with sources to ensure they participate in reporting knowingly and safely. She also outlined her own precautions, from using encrypted devices to carrying protective gear, highlighting just how unsafe conditions have become, even for U.S.-born reporters.

Like Hernández, Félix also emphasized the intense fear and uncertainty many immigrant sources experience. Other sources, however, may be unaware of the possible consequences of speaking to reporters and need to be protected as well. “I think when we’re talking about sources, particularly with immigration, we’re talking about people who are sharing their most vulnerable moments in their life, and I think the way that we treat it is going to be very decisive on their future,” she said.

Journalists who are themselves immigrants must also manage personal risk, Félix said, “but the risk is always going to be there just because of who we are and what we represent in this country.” She pointed to the arrest and deportation of journalist Mario Guevara in Georgia, saying it “made me think that could have been me” before she became a U.S. citizen. She recommended that newsrooms provide security training, mental health resources, and operational protocols for both staff and freelancers.

Both Félix and Vo, who work in newsrooms by and for immigrant communities, emphasized the need for journalists to actively listen to the people they cover. “If you’re trying to serve immigrants, build a listening mechanism, some kind of way of continuing to listen to both leaders in the community, service providers, but also community members,” Vo advised. She also recommended that journalists use risk assessments and threat modeling to plan how to protect themselves and their sources.

Watch the full discussion here.

When the U.S. Navy quietly reactivated Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in Puerto Rico earlier this year, the move stirred both anxiety and hope. While some residents saw the promise of new jobs, others saw it as a painful reminder of past harms from the American military presence on the island.

Whatever their views, Puerto Ricans — and Americans everywhere — deserve basic answers about what the military is up to as tensions escalate with Venezuela. They should know whether Puerto Rico’s government is coordinating with the Pentagon and whether their concerns are being taken into account. And of course, there are countless local issues having nothing to do with international conflicts that Puerto Ricans are entitled to be informed about.

But at the very moment when transparency is most essential, Puerto Rican lawmakers are trying to slam the door shut. Senate Bill 63, a major rewrite of the island’s transparency law, was recently rushed through the legislature with little public input. It weakens the public’s right to know at every turn.

SB 63 would undermine transparency

Puerto Rico’s existing transparency law, passed in 2019, already faces serious problems. Recently, for instance, the American Civil Liberties Union of Puerto Rico sued to uncover records about how the territory’s transportation agency shared confidential driver’s license information with federal immigration officials, which may have violated local laws.

SB 63 would make it even harder for the public to know what government officials are doing. The bill significantly extends the deadline for responding to records requests, more than doubling it in some cases. For time-sensitive investigations, especially by journalists, these delays could bury relevant information or make it irrelevant or obsolete, crippling efforts to expose the truth.

This bill will also make it harder for the public to understand the information they do receive. Today, requesters can ask for information in easy-to-analyze formats, like statistics or spreadsheets. SB 63 would eliminate that right, making it harder to find specific information that’s of the most use to the public.

In addition, SB 63 would require agency heads to be alerted to every single records request. This change injects politics into what should be a straightforward process. At the federal level, both Democrats and Republicans have used similar review systems to conceal politically inconvenient information.

What’s more, SB 63 would also require agencies to withhold records that any judge has previously deemed confidential, even if that ruling came from a single lower court and was never reviewed or affirmed. But judges get things wrong all the time — that’s why their rulings are not precedential and are subject to appellate review. Under SB 63, a single questionable decision from a single judge could lock in secrecy indefinitely.

SB 63 would leave Puerto Ricans and all Americans less informed

Puerto Rican lawmakers seem to know SB 63 would be unpopular. The Senate approved it without a public hearing, and the House allowed just one day of testimony, during which many entities were shut out. It’s not an accident that an anti-transparency bill was pushed through with as little transparency as possible.

The timing couldn’t be worse — and not only because Puerto Rico seems to be one of the main platforms for U.S.-projected interventions in Venezuela. As Puerto Rico faces deep challenges in housing, education, and climate, reducing access to information will only exacerbate existing problems.

The need for local transparency is heightened exponentially by Puerto Rico’s colonialism. Public records are essential for understanding issues such as failures in hurricane relief by federal and local authorities, collaboration between local agencies and federal immigration officials, and the impact of federal policies on the territory’s schools and colleges.

In addition, cuts to federal Freedom of Information Act offices are already making it harder for Puerto Ricans to obtain information from Washington. If local transparency is also weakened, oversight and accountability will become virtually nonexistent.

Fortunately, Puerto Ricans refuse to be silent. More than 50 civil society organizations, along with community and academic leaders, have urged Gov. Jenniffer González Colón to veto SB 63 because the legislation is bad for Puerto Rico’s citizens, businesses, and democracy itself.

Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) also joined other press freedom organizations in a letter led by the Committee to Protect Journalists, calling on her to reject the bill.

Puerto Rico can’t afford to be left in the dark. SB 63 dims the light of transparency precisely when we need it the most. Gov. González should reject SB 63 and stand unequivocally with the people’s right to know.

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

Rümeysa Öztürk has been facing deportation for 255 days for co-writing an op-ed the government didn’t like, and journalist Ya’akub Vijandre remains locked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement over social media posts about issues he reported on. Read on for more ongoing battles against government suppression of the free press.

And join us today at 2 p.m. EST for a conversation with leading immigration journalists about reporting truth and protecting communities. Register here.

New York Times fights back against Pentagon prior restraint

The newspaper President Donald Trump likes to call “the failing New York Times” somehow managed to scrounge up enough pocket change to take his administration to court. The Times and its Pentagon reporter, Julian Barnes, are suing the Pentagon over its censorial policy restricting journalists from publishing unauthorized information.

As Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Executive Director Trevor Timm said, “The Pentagon’s absurd access pledge has been an affront to the First Amendment since the first day they proposed it. And we look forward to a federal judge throwing it out with the trash, where it belongs.”

• READ THE FULL STATEMENT

FPF demands court lift secrecy in Catherine Herridge’s privilege case

A federal appellate court got it wrong by requiring journalist Catherine Herridge to disclose the sources for her reporting on scientist Yangping Chen’s alleged ties to the Chinese military while an online college Chen founded received federal funds. She’s rightly seeking a rehearing.

Worse yet, the misguided ruling was informed by documents about the FBI’s investigation of Chen that were improperly filed under seal, and which the appellate court considered in a closed hearing. FPF, represented by Schaerr | Jaffe LLP, filed a motion to intervene and unseal the documents and hearing transcript.

• READ OUR PRESS RELEASE AND MOTION

Reckless federal agents are the threat, not cameras

The right to record law enforcement operations is well established. But immigration officers have repeatedly chased, assaulted, and even arrested people for recording them. This isn’t just unconstitutional. It’s dangerous.

FPF Senior Adviser Caitlin Vogus wrote for NC Newsline that “Federal agents don’t want cameras pointed at them because it can force accountability. When they lash out at people who record them, it’s not just those targeted who are in danger; everyone around them is at risk too.”

• READ MORE

U.S. journalists abducted by Israel describe abuse and U.S. indifference

FPF Deputy Director of Audience Ahmed Zidan wrote for Jacobin about the online event we hosted with Defending Rights & Dissent last month featuring three U.S. journalists who were nabbed by Israel in international waters while on aid flotillas headed to Gaza.

It should’ve been an international scandal, but the administration hardly lifted a finger. As Jewish Currents reporter Emily Wilder said, “The abuses against us demonstrate how far [the Israeli] regime will go, how emboldened it’s been, and the absolute impunity they have to act this way.”

• READ MORE

White House media bias tracker: Another tired gimmick

The White House launched a media bias tracker to catalog instances of supposedly distorted coverage. Predictably, the site is long on hyperbole and short on substance.

FPF Advocacy Director Seth Stern said, “If Trump thinks the media is getting stories wrong or being unfair to him, he should release the public records, correspondence, and legal memoranda that prove it, instead of wasting time and taxpayer money on silly websites. … The gimmick is wearing thin.” Media columnist Margaret Sullivan agrees.

• READ OUR STATEMENT

Sen. Kelly: Read the boat strike memo into the Congressional Record

Sen. Mark Kelly told CNN that he has read the Justice Department’s classified legal rationale for destroying alleged drug boats and that it should be released.

Not only is the senator right, he has the power to make the document public himself, and he should do so without delay. FPF’s Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy, Lauren Harper, has more.

• READ MORE

Censorship by invoice

Michigan’s Grand Blanc Township thinks it has discovered a trick to weasel out of accountability: charging a reporter more for records about a tragic church shooting than most people earn in two years.

FPF’s Stern wrote about why these tactics can’t be allowed to continue and why, rather than being deterred, reporters should take governmental evasiveness as a sign that they’re onto something.

• READ MORE

Freelance photojournalist Dave Decker was unlawfully arrested by Miami-Dade Sheriff’s deputies while documenting anti-deportation protests. Read the objection letter we joined with Florida’s First Amendment Foundation and the National Press Photographers Association.

The filmmaker and FPF’s founding board member discussed her 20-year project, the “crisis” in investigative journalism, and how truth-telling can still change the world.

As Stern explained, propaganda doesn’t work when there’s a strong local media. “People know their local reporters. They see them on the street. They rely on them. That makes it harder for the administration to control the narrative.”

CJR features our friends at First Amendment Watch’s new “SLAPP Back Initiative” to track strategic lawsuits against public participation.

• DONATE TO FPF

This year, we’ve trained over 3,000 journalists in essential digital security skills, documented 240 press freedom violations, and filed over 250 Freedom of Information Act requests and 6 FOIA lawsuits. We can’t keep this up without your help. Donate online, via DAFpay, or our other ways to give. All donations are matched, up to $75,000.

RSVP: http://freedom.press/silenced-sources

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

The New York Times and its Pentagon reporter, Julian Barnes, are taking the Trump administration to court over the Department of Defense’s unconstitutional requirement that journalists pledge not to report unauthorized information as a condition of gaining access to the Pentagon.

The following statement can be attributed to Trevor Timm, executive director for Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF).

“In an era where news networks seem to be caving to Trump’s censorious tactics left and right, it’s refreshing to see The New York Times leading by example and sticking up for the First Amendment in court.

“An attack on any journalist’s rights is an attack on all. And the only way to put an end to the Trump administration’s multipronged assault on press freedom is for every news outlet to fight back at every opportunity. We urge other news outlets to follow the Times’ lead.

“These days, the government has countless platforms of its own to tell the public what it wants it to know. A free and independent press isn’t needed for that. The Constitution guarantees one anyway precisely because the public needs the information the government does not want it to know. The Pentagon’s absurd access pledge has been an affront to the First Amendment since the first day they proposed it. And we look forward to a federal judge throwing it out with the trash, where it belongs.”

Please contact us if you would like further comment.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

The federal appellate court for the D.C. Circuit recently affirmed a ruling requiring investigative journalist Catherine Herridge to disclose the sources for her reporting on scientist Yangping Chen’s alleged ties to the Chinese military while an online college Chen founded received federal funds.

The court got it wrong by holding Herridge in contempt for not burning her sources, and Herridge is rightly seeking a rehearing. Worse yet, the misguided ruling was informed by documents about the FBI’s investigation of Chen that were filed under seal, even though the investigation is over and the documents aren’t classified. The appellate court even held a portion of its hearing to decide whether to order Herridge to testify in closed court.

Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), represented by Schaerr | Jaffe LLP, filed a motion to intervene and unseal the documents and hearing transcript yesterday.

The following statement can be attributed to Seth Stern, director of advocacy for FPF.

“Journalist-source confidentiality is about safeguarding the public’s right to be informed. Its fate should not be decided in secret hearings about secret documents. Americans deserve to know whether the damages Chen claims to have suffered were because of alleged leaks to Herridge or because of the outcome of the government investigation she reported on. If the latter, it raises the question of whether the court is ordering Herridge to out her sources to aid Chen in pursuing a baseless lawsuit. Surely the bar for compelled disclosure of journalistic sources must be higher than that.

“Opponents of the reporter’s privilege often dream up convoluted hypothetical scenarios to call it a national security risk. But here we see someone suspected of ties to a foreign military able to use the courts to try to find out who in the government U.S. reporters are talking to and the content of those conversations. It goes to show that the real national security risk is the lack of a statutory privilege, which allows courts to issue misguided rulings. Congress should step up and reintroduce and pass the PRESS Act.”

H. Christopher Bartolomucci, a partner at Schaerr | Jaffe, added:

“Public access and government accountability are fundamental to the rule of law, and the notion of ‘secret law’ is anathema to our system of justice. By denying the public access to important judicial records in this case, the court is keeping members of the public from judging for themselves the strength or weakness of the court’s reasoning.”

You can read FPF’s motion here.

Please contact us if you would like further comment.

Michigan’s Grand Blanc Township thinks it has discovered a trick to weasel out of accountability: charging a reporter more for government records than most people earn in two years.

Independent journalist Anna Matson filed two requests for records about the township’s fire chief, Jamie Jent, being placed on administrative leave. That decision — later lifted after outcry from residents and firefighters — reportedly came after he raised concerns about staffing issues following the tragic September shooting at the township’s Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The government told her she’d have to pay a combined $164,000 in labor costs ($100,000 for her first request and $64,000 for a second) for finding and reviewing the records in order for them to respond to the request. That’s ridiculous. Michigan’s legislature should act to ensure that other local governments don’t get any ideas.

There’s nothing unusually burdensome about Matson’s requests. If the township’s recordkeeping is so shoddy and its search capabilities so lacking that it costs six figures’ worth of employee time to find some emails and documents, that’s the township’s problem, not Matson’s. If anything, it begs another Freedom of Information Act request to figure out how the township reached that level of incompetence, and what officials are spending money on instead of basic software.

The township doubled down on evasiveness when Matson showed up to a board meeting last week to contest the fees, and it made nonsensical excuses to enter into closed session so that it could discuss its secrecy in secret.

Maybe the township thinks the fees will discourage the press from trying to hold it accountable. More likely, it will do the opposite: inspire reporters to keep digging. Intrepid journalists see obvious obstruction tactics like these and think, “I must be on to something.” We’re confident Matson will eventually uncover whatever the township doesn’t want her and her readers to see.

Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act, like the federal FOIA and state public records laws across the country, was intended to let everyone — not just rich people — find out what their government is up to and how their money is being spent.

The law allows agencies to charge reasonable fees — copying costs, mailing expenses, and limited labor charges calculated at the hourly wage of the lowest-paid employee capable of doing the work. Agencies aren’t permitted to charge for the first two hours of labor, and they can only charge for search and review time if not doing so would result in “unreasonably high costs.”

Officials are taking advantage of the media’s weak financial position to hold accountability for ransom.

We’re not fans of charging any labor costs for FOIAs. Tax dollars already pay for agencies to maintain public records. Allowing the public to access them is a basic government function. But putting that aside, how does finding records about one employee during a limited time frame — which was all her first request sought — cost six figures? The $64,000 price tag for the second request for departmental records is equally absurd and also shows the arbitrariness of the whole thing — how does the broader request cost less than the narrower one?

This obstruction tactic is hardly a local innovation. Last year, Nebraska’s legislature had to step in after the state’s Department of Environment and Energy tried charging the Flatwater Free Press more than $44,000 to review environmental records. It claimed figuring out what exemptions to the public’s records law applied would be time-consuming — essentially making the press pay for their time figuring out legal arguments to not give it the records it wanted.

The Trump administration — which has attempted to close FOIA offices and fired officials who released embarrassing information pursuant to FOIAs — recently demanded journalist Brian Karem pay a $50,000 bond just to expedite a lawsuit for documents about the classified records Trump took to Mar-a-Lago. It’s far from the first instance of fee bullying by the federal government, regardless of who is president.

Trump, of course, claims he did nothing wrong by taking those documents, but doesn’t want to let the public be the judge. The situation in Grand Blanc Township is similar — the same government that may have punished a fire chief for speaking up about public safety wants to punish a journalist for asking questions about it. It’s secrecy stacked on secrecy.

It’s no coincidence that so many of these overcharging cases involve requests by independent journalists or small local outlets. The government knows the news industry is struggling economically. That’s no secret. Officials are taking advantage of the media’s weak financial position to hold accountability for ransom. If they get their way, transparency will become a luxury only affordable to major media outlets that are unlikely to have much interest in public records from Grand Blanc Township in the first place.

The township needs to rescind its invoice, apologize to Matson, and get her the records she’s entitled to right away. Beyond that, state legislators need to put politics aside and follow Nebraska’s example by narrowing what the government can charge the public for its own records and making those limits unambiguous (and of course, they should also remove absurd provisions exempting the governor and legislature from transparency).

And if agencies have the nerve to defend these shakedowns in court, judges should hold government lawyers accountable for whatever frivolous legal arguments they concoct to justify charging well over the cost of a house in Detroit for basic transparency.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

The White House has launched a media bias tracker to catalog instances of supposedly distorted coverage by the press. Predictably, the site is long on hyperbole and short on substance.

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

“If Trump thinks the media is getting stories wrong or being unfair to him, he should release the public records, correspondence, and legal memoranda that prove it, instead of wasting time and taxpayer money on silly websites.

“He’s got more power than anyone to correct the record with documented facts and has countless platforms on which to do so. Instead, he calls reporters ‘piggy’ and posts empty rants that don’t refute anything, while doing everything in his power to hinder Americans’ access to public records containing verifiable facts.

“Trump’s anti-speech antics are highly unpopular, and I doubt many people take his ramblings about ‘fake news’ seriously at this point. He has made it extremely clear that his beef is not with media bias but with journalists not flattering him and regurgitating his lies. It’s a safe bet that his bias tracker will not have anything to say about the influencers and propagandists he favors over serious journalists.

“People understand the obvious conflict inherent in an image-obsessed presidential administration appointing itself the arbiter of media bias. I expect that after the initial wave of publicity, few Americans will be paying attention to this latest stunt, let alone consulting it when deciding what news to consume. The gimmick is wearing thin.”

Please contact us if you would like further comment.

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

Rümeysa Öztürk has been facing deportation for 241 days for co-writing an op-ed the government didn’t like. Read on for more about the federal government targeting noncitizen journalists for what they write, say and think.

Journalist-hating president kisses up to journalist-killing crown prince

President Donald Trump shamefully welcomed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the White House this week. He brushed aside questions about Crown Prince Mohammed’s role in the gruesome 2018 murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, commenting that “things happen” and “You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that.”

Freedom of the Press foundation (FPF) Director of Advocacy Seth Stern remarked:

“Somehow calling a female reporter ‘piggy’ was only the second-most offensive anti-press utterance to come out of the president’s mouth in recent days. And somehow Biden’s infamous fist bump is now only the second-most disgusting public display of flattery by a U.S. president to journalist-murderer Mohammed bin Salman.”

Read his full statement.

DHS targets journalists for speaking out about Gaza

Texas journalist Ya’akub Ira Vijandre and British journalist and commentator Sami Hamdi are the two latest examples of the Department of Homeland Security targeting journalists.

Hamdi self-deported to England after 18 days enduring inhumane conditions in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody. Vijandre, a Filipino American Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipient who has lived in the U.S. since 2021, remains in custody as he awaits deportation proceedings.

Hamdi and his wife, Soumaya, joined us for an online event this week alongside attorneys and friends of both Hamdi and Vijandre. As Hamdi said, “If the American public finds out the realities of what’s happening, ICE will be dismantled in an instant.”

Watch the discussion here.

A $50 lesson in press freedom

Prosecutors in Kentucky have finally dropped charges against journalist Madeline Fening, who was arrested while covering a July protest on the Roebling Bridge for CityBeat.

But, as Stern wrote in an op-ed for CityBeat, the damage is already done. Kenton County drew condemnation from civil liberties advocates across the country and sacrificed any credibility it had when it came to respecting First Amendment rights — and all to recover a combined grand total of $50 from Fening and her colleague, Lucas Griffith.

Read the op-ed.

Journalists targeted at Oregon protests

You’ve probably seen the inflatable frogs, the dance parties, the naked bike ride. Maybe you’ve also seen the darker images: a federal officer aiming a weapon at protesters, or federal agents hurling tear gas and flash bangs into peaceful demonstrations at a Portland, Oregon, immigration facility.

FPF Senior Adviser Caitlin Vogus writes about how journalists in Portland have been attacked for bringing images like these to the world.

Read more here.

Court suspends journalist injunction in Chicago

A judicial order won by Chicago area journalists that limited protest policing tactics by federal law enforcement was put on hold this week, with a federal appellate court calling the order overbroad.

As Stern told FPF’s U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, “It is difficult to understand how it is overbroad to ‘enjoin all law enforcement officers within the Executive Branch’ when the president, who last I checked runs the executive branch, expressly demands that those under him brutalize, censor and arrest activists and journalists who interfere with their narrative — the exact conduct restricted by the injunction.”

Read more here.

Immigration agents claim routine reporting violates federal law

Independent news outlet Status Coup reported Wednesday that federal immigration agents threatened its reporter, Jon Farina, with arrest for following and filming them, despite well-established First Amendment protections.

Stern said in a statement, “It looks like these officers believe transparency itself is obstructive to their operations, which is a pretty good indicator that their operations are in need of obstruction. The First Amendment is intended to obstruct government abuses. … If they’re too thin-skinned for the public scrutiny that comes with being a part of that, they can go find a job that doesn’t involve abducting people for an authoritarian regime.”

Read the full statement.

What we’re reading

The secrecy surrounding the Trump’s immigration agenda (NPR). FPF’s Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy joined NPR’s “1A” to talk about the shroud of secrecy at virtually every level of the immigration system.

Vindman demands release of Trump-Mohammed bin Salman call after Khashoggi murder: ‘You will be shocked’ (The Hill). This is exhibit “A” for why the National Security Council should be subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

Larry Ellison discussed axing CNN hosts with White House in takeover bid talks (The Guardian). So the president went from feigning outrage about allegedly biased public media to making deals with centibillionaire friends to make corporate media more biased. Got it.

After Donald Trump’s attack on correspondent Mary Bruce, White House goes after ABC again with ‘fake news’ press release (Deadline). It looks like $16 million – the amount ABC paid to settle Trump’s frivolous lawsuit last year – only buys you so much protection these days.

Will Trump destroy the BBC? (Unherd). “So I presume by the name of your organization that you’re not very keen on sitting presidents suing news organizations.” That’s correct! Listen to our interview with Unherd about Trump’s lawsuit threat against BBC.

The SLAPP Back Initiative (First Amendment Watch). Congratulations to First Amendment Watch at New York University for launching the first database in the U.S. documenting alleged strategic lawsuits against public participation.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Independent news outlet Status Coup reported yesterday that federal immigration agents threatened its reporter, Jon Farina, with arrest for following and filming them, despite well-established First Amendment protections for newsgathering and, specifically, for recording law enforcement.

Border Patrol officers cited a federal statute barring impeding or interference with law enforcement operations, which is entirely inapplicable to Farina filming from a distance. It’s the latest in a series of worrying incidents where politicians and federal agents claim that routine reporting on immigration enforcement is somehow illegal.

Freedom of the Press Foundation’s Director of Advocacy Seth Stern said:

“Americans have a constitutional right to record law enforcement doing their jobs in public and are fully entitled to follow police in order to exercise that right. That right is by no means exclusive to reporters, but it’s especially egregious for law enforcement officers not to recognize that journalists are allowed to document what they’re up to.

“Video of the incident makes clear that the reporters were not in any way obstructing or impeding officers in violation of federal law. They were recording from a distance. It looks like these officers believe transparency itself is obstructive to their operations, which is a pretty good indicator that their operations are in need of obstruction. We’ve repeatedly seen video footage expose misconduct and lies by federal agents. The First Amendment is intended to obstruct government abuses.

“Immigration officers are placing themselves at the center of a major national controversy. Their colleagues have killed and injured people, and held them in inhumane dungeons. If they’re too thin-skinned for the public scrutiny that comes with being a part of that, they can go find a job that doesn’t involve abducting people for an authoritarian regime.”

Please contact us if you would like further comment.

You’ve probably seen the inflatable frogs, the dance parties, the naked bike ride. Maybe you’ve also seen the darker images: a federal officer aiming a weapon at protesters, or federal agents hurling tear gas and flash bangs into peaceful demonstrations at a Portland, Oregon, immigration facility.

Local journalists have been attacked for bringing images like these to the world. They’re being tear-gassed and shot with crowd-control munitions by federal agents simply for doing their jobs.

Photojournalist John Rudoff is among them. He’s been covering these protests since June, photographing both peaceful marches and violent responses from federal officers that often follow.

On Oct. 11, while documenting a protest, Rudoff was struck by a stinger grenade, even though he was clearly identifiable as press. He was bruised, but not deterred.

“If you cover protests, you’re going to have discomfort and hazard. Period. That’s just the way it is,” Rudoff told us. “They shoot 20-year-old girls, and they shoot 70-year-old men, and they shoot people in wheelchairs, and they shoot blind people,” he added, referring to federal agents using crowd-control munitions. “The word impunity seems to be coined for them.”

Despite the danger, Rudoff refuses to stop documenting. “The entire media ecosystem has been covered with the administration’s rantings about the war-ravaged hellscape of Portland, and the city is burning down, and ICE officers are being attacked, and on and on and on,” he said. “I feel some obligation to try and counter this frankly preposterous narrative that the city’s burning down. It isn’t.”

Independent journalist Kevin Foster, who has also been covering the Portland protests, shares that sense of duty and outrage. “It’s clear the Trump administration wants to paint Portland as a war zone to seize more control, but it’s a lot harder to do that when I’m showing you all the dancing inflatable frogs,” he told us. “At the end of the day, someone needs to be there to document abuses of power.”

Foster has felt the danger up close while reporting from protests. “I’ve seen other press members shot with pepper balls, I’ve had flash bangs go off at my feet, and tear gas canisters explode above my head,” he said. But he continues to work to keep the public informed, reporting on federal agents’ heavy use of force and escalatory tactics at the protests.

For Foster, the concerns go beyond federal agents at protests. “Right-wing influencers and agitators have reportedly doxxed people,” Foster said. “With the state of the presidency and the history of authoritarianism, I do sometimes worry about persecution as well, especially given that a lot of my coverage subverts the narrative produced by right-wing media.”

The incident in Portland that got the most attention involved Katie Daviscourt, a reporter for the conservative news site The Post Millennial. She reported being hit in the face by someone swinging a flagpole at a protest, blackening her eye. Police let the suspect go, prompting feigned outrage from the White House.

Holding federal agents accountable

Violence against the press, from any direction, is an attack on the First Amendment itself, especially when enabled by law enforcement. Unfortunately, those purportedly appalled by the Daviscourt incident have not shown similar concern over federal law enforcement attacks on journalists who don’t further their preferred political narratives.

Since the Portland protests began in June, for instance, photojournalist Mason Lake has been struck by crowd-control munitions twice, pepper-sprayed, and had a rifle aimed at him. Yet federal officials haven’t condemned these attacks, or the attack on Rudoff.

“It’s very disconcerting to see how free press has been trampled,” Lake told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, a project of Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF). “The best we can do is push back and make sure the truth isn’t run over.”

In other cities, like Chicago, Illinois, and Los Angeles, California, federal court orders protect journalists from such assaults. But Portland currently has no such order. Legal precedent from 2020 protests in Portland recognized reporters’ First Amendment right to cover protests and shielded them from dispersal orders. But it has done little to rein in federal agents today.

“They have to be sued, and they have to be enjoined, and they have to be criminally prosecuted until they stop doing it,” suggested Rudoff.

Until that happens, however, journalists must keep speaking up, not just about what they see, but also for being attacked for witnessing it. “Most attacks on journalists aren’t reported,” explained Rudoff. But, he added, “I don’t know a single journalist out there who hasn’t been shot or hit or knocked over or tear-gassed or pepper-sprayed. It’s everybody.”

Foster put it even more bluntly: “Many Americans seem to have this impression that brutalizing protesters and targeting the press only happens in other countries. If that notion hasn’t shattered for you yet, wait until your ears are ringing from flash bangs and you’re enveloped in a cloud of tear gas so thick you can’t see 15 feet.”

This isn’t some distant dictatorship. It’s the city of Portland. And the First Amendment is under siege.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

President Donald Trump shamefully welcomed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the White House today. He brushed aside questions about Prince Mohammed’s role in the gruesome murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, commenting that “things happen” and “You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that.”

Freedom of the Press Foundation Director of Advocacy Seth Stern said:

“Somehow calling a female reporter ‘piggy’ was only the second-most offensive anti-press utterance to come out of the president’s mouth in recent days. And somehow Biden’s infamous fist bump is now only the second-most disgusting public display of flattery by a U.S. president to journalist-murderer Mohammed bin Salman.

“Scolding a U.S. reporter for asking questions about MBS ordering a fellow journalist to be bonesawed signals to dictators everywhere that they can murder journalists with impunity — as if Trump hadn’t already sent that message clearly enough by bankrolling and arming Israel while it does just that in Gaza.

“Today’s fiasco felt like the nail in the coffin for whatever was left of the U.S.’s global standing as a leader on press freedom. The next president is going to have their work cut out for them in rebuilding that credibility. In the meantime, judges, lawmakers, and everyone else in a position to slow the backslide need to step up and rise to the moment before more journalists get killed.”

Please contact us if you would like further comment.

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

Rümeysa Öztürk has been facing deportation for 234 days for co-writing an op-ed the government didn’t like. As we’ll discuss during an online panel Tuesday, the government hasn’t stopped targeting journalists for removal. Read on for news from Kansas, Ohio, and more.

Kansas county pays $3M for forgetting the First Amendment

Press freedom just scored a $3 million win in Kansas. The county that participated in an illegal raid on the Marion County Record in 2023 is cutting big checks to journalists and a city councilor to settle their lawsuits.

As part of the settlement, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office also made a statement of “regret” for the raid, saying, “This likely would not have happened if established law had been reviewed and applied prior to the execution of the warrants.”

Ya think? FPF Senior Advocacy Adviser Caitlin Vogus broke down the flashing red lights any judge or cop should heed before storming a newsroom. Read her article here. And check out our March interview with Record publisher Eric Meyer.

No, journalists don’t need permission to cover immigration courts

Last month, we wrote to the Hyattsville immigration court in Maryland to express our alarm over a report that two journalists from Capital News Service had been expelled for not seeking express permission from the federal government to cover immigration proceedings.

That expulsion was contrary not only to the Constitution but also to the Executive Office of Immigration Review’s own guidance. But we noticed another problem with their fact sheet. It said reporters “must” check in upon arriving at immigration court. We’d been hearing anecdotes for some time about journalists being asked to “check in” at lobbies of immigration courts in other parts of the country. The fact sheet confirmed it.

In response, EOIR clarified that journalists are not required to either coordinate visits with the government in advance or check in upon arrival. And it issued an amended fact sheet to remove any doubt. We posted the fact sheet and email exchange on our site so any reporters given wrong information can have them handy. Read more here.

Secrecy and the midterms

The midterm elections are a year away, and it is essential to ensure that they are free and fair. Transparency is key, specifically surrounding the Department of Homeland Security’s election integrity unit and the Justice Department’s attempts to access voter data and equipment.

DHS’s election integrity unit is particularly secretive. For example, President Donald Trump appointed prominent election denier Heather Honey to lead the effort, but very little is known about what she’s doing with her newfound power. FPF’s Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy Lauren Harper has more about our efforts to hold the unit accountable. Subscribe to The Classifieds for more secrecy news.

Charges dropped against Cincinnati journalist

Charges have finally been dropped against CityBeat reporter Madeline Fening, who was arrested while covering a protest at the Roebling Bridge in northern Kentucky in July. Congratulations to the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky and their legal partners on the important win.

We led two letters in support of Fening and CityBeat intern Lucas Griffith. After the first, felony charges against the two were dropped. The second led prosecutors to admit to a reporter that they’d offered to drop charges in exchange for the journalists waiving their right to sue — a likely violation of both the Constitution and attorney ethics rules.

Now, both cases are over, but Griffith was found guilty of failure to disperse and fined $50. That may not sound like much, but the constitutional violation is still significant – journalists are not required to disperse along with protesters because they need to be free to cover the aftermath of protests. Read CityBeat’s coverage here.

What we’re reading

Trump vs. the BBC: What hurdles might the president’s legal argument face? (BBC). Trump “doesn’t care” if he wins the lawsuits he’s filed against newsrooms he doesn’t like, FPF’’s Advocacy Director Seth Stern told BBC. “The point is to intimidate and punish those he views as critical (of) him.”

When reporting is a crime (Inquest). “Prison journalism should not be illegal. It should not be starved, stifled, or silenced. ... laws need to change.” Read Inquest’s article featuring FPF columnist Jeremy Busby’s account of how his own journalism, and that of outside reporters wanting to tell his story, is stifled by prison authorities. And watch our video featuring journalist Daniel Moritz-Rabson discussing the guide to reporting on prisons that he wrote for FPF.

The FCC’s news distortion policy should be rescinded (Protect Democracy). Thanks to our friends at Protect Democracy for furthering the fight against Brendan Carr’s censorial FCC. Carr’s selective enforcement of the policy to characterize any coverage Trump doesn’t like as “distortion” shows why the policy shouldn’t exist in the first place.

Larry Wilson: Stop shooting at the press while we do our jobs (Los Angeles Daily News). “Cops are banned from shooting non-violent people with deadly projectiles — whether they’re protesters or journalists. Because it’s illegal,” said First Amendment lawyer Susan Seager.

I tried to deliver aid to Gaza. Israel kidnapped and tortured me (The Nation). Journalist and human rights lawyer Thomas Becker writes about his treatment while detained by Israel. Watch our online discussion last week, in partnership with Defending Rights & Dissent, with three U.S. journalists who reported similar experiences after being abducted from aid flotillas.

Press freedom just scored a $3 million win in Kansas. The county that participated in an illegal raid on the Marion County Record in 2023 is cutting big checks to journalists and a city councilor to settle their lawsuits.

As part of the settlement, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office also made a statement of “regret” for the raid, saying, “This likely would not have happened if established law had been reviewed and applied prior to the execution of the warrants.”

You think? Any police officer or judge with half an understanding of the First Amendment should’ve known better than to ask for or sign off on the raid on the Record and the home of owners Eric and Joan Meyer.

But apparently, police don’t always read the law, and judges may need a refresher, too. Let’s break down the flashing red lights any judge or cop should heed before storming a newsroom.

The First and Fourth amendments strongly protect against searches of journalists and newsrooms.

Under the Fourth Amendment, a search warrant must be supported by probable cause, which means a likelihood that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found at a particular place. The government must also specify the place to be searched and the thing to be seized.

When a search warrant targets materials protected by the First Amendment — like notes, recordings, drafts, and materials used or created by journalists — the Fourth Amendment’s requirements must be scrupulously followed, the Supreme Court has said.

This means that judges must be extra strict in applying the Fourth Amendment’s requirements when a search impacts First Amendment rights, which it will any time it involves a journalist or newsroom. What judges should never do is allow overly broad searches where police rifle through journalists’ desks and computer files willy-nilly in the hopes of turning up something “incriminating.”

The Privacy Protection Act of 1980 forbids the use of search warrants to seize materials from journalists, with only a few narrow exceptions.

The PPA is a federal law that requires law enforcement to get a subpoena, not just a search warrant, in most cases when dealing with reporters and newsrooms. Subpoenas give journalists the chance to challenge a demand for documents or equipment in court before police can seize them. If police had sought a subpoena for the Record’s newsgathering materials, for instance, the newspaper could have successfully challenged the demand in court, meaning that the newsroom would never have been raided and the Record’s confidential sources would have been protected.

There are narrow exceptions to the PPA’s subpoena requirement, including when there is probable cause to believe a journalist has committed a criminal offense related to the material sought. But, in general, the offense cannot relate to the receipt, possession, communication, or withholding of newsgathering materials or information.

Journalists can read a guide on our website for more information about the PPA.

State shield laws are another barrier to newsroom searches.

Almost every state has a reporter’s shield law on the books that protects journalists from the compelled disclosure of their confidential sources and unpublished information, and sometimes protects against the forced disclosure of nonconfidential information, too. Courts around the country have also recognized a First Amendment and common law reporter’s privilege that can provide similar protections.

Kansas’ shield law, for instance, applies to “any information gathered, received or processed by a journalist, whether or not such information is actually published, and whether or not related information has been disseminated.” It forbids compelling a journalist from disclosing unpublished information or confidential sources until after a court hearing.

Other states’ shield laws have similar protections. Barging into a newsroom and searching it violates those laws and the established processes for law enforcement to obtain information from the press.

Accessing publicly available information or information provided by a source is not a crime, and is protected by the First Amendment.

Seems obvious, but judging by how often this comes up, maybe not.

Everyone has a First Amendment right to read, watch, or view publicly available information. It’s not a crime to access a record made publicly available by a government agency (as reporters at the Record did), to read something that someone published on a public website, even if it was published by accident, or to photograph police officers in public.

Journalists also have a right to publish information given to them by a source, even if the source obtained it illegally, as long as the journalist didn’t participate in the illegality. That means that if a source gives a journalist a document or recording that the source stole, the journalist can’t be punished for publishing it.

Because these things are not crimes, it also means that accessing publicly available information or publishing information that a source illegally obtained can’t be the basis for a raid on a newsroom or search of a journalist’s materials.

Next time, think before you raid.

The $3 million settlement is a step toward accountability, but it can’t undo the damage to the Record’s journalists or sources, and especially not to Joan Meyer, who died the day after police invaded her home.

If local communities don’t want to keep learning First Amendment law the expensive way, they must insist that law enforcement actually read the Constitution and the law before targeting the press.

Last month, we wrote to the Hyattsville Immigration Court in Maryland to express our alarm over a report that two journalists from Capital News Service had been expelled for not seeking express permission from the federal government to cover immigration proceedings.

Not only was that a blatant First Amendment violation, it was contrary to the Executive Office for Immigration Review’s own fact sheet, in which the arm of the Justice Department said that coordinating media visits with the government in advance was “encouraged,” not mandatory. It’s hard to blame journalists for not wanting to go out of their way to put themselves on the radar by “coordinating” with an administration that abhors the free press.

But we noticed another problem with the fact sheet. It said reporters “must” check in upon arriving at immigration court. We’d been hearing anecdotes for some time about journalists being asked to “check in” at lobbies of immigration courts in other parts of the country. The fact sheet confirmed it.

We expressed our concerns to the EOIR, which was (surprisingly) responsive to our initial letter, despite the shutdown. It confirmed that, as CNS reported, the journalists’ access had been restored and they were free to report on immigration court proceedings.

It also stated that journalists are not required to either coordinate visits with the government in advance or check in with courthouse personnel upon arrival. It explained that it prefers journalists check in so that they can arrange for priority seating, but that they do not have to do so. And it issued a new fact sheet to make that clear. Yes, the fact sheet reflects that EOIR, like far too many local and federal agencies, still unconstitutionally demands that all media inquiries be routed through a public information office. But that‘s a battle for another day.

We’re posting the email exchange and new fact sheet below so that any journalist who is told something to the contrary can show it to whoever is giving them incorrect information.

And kudos to the unnamed EOIR official who took care of this promptly. Let’s hope the Trump administration doesn’t fire them for gross competence.

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

Rümeysa Öztürk has been facing deportation for 227 days for co-writing an op-ed the government didn’t like, and the government hasn’t stopped targeting journalists for deportation. Read on for news from Illinois, our latest public records lawsuit, and how you can take action to protect journalism.

Enforce ICE restraining orders now

A federal judge in Chicago yesterday entered an order to stop federal immigration officers from targeting journalists and peaceful protesters, affirming journalists’ right to cover protests and their aftermath without being assaulted or arrested.

Judge Sara Ellis entered her ruling — which extended a similar prior order against Immigration and Customs Enforcement — in dramatic fashion, quoting everyone from Chicago journalist and poet Carl Sandburg to the Founding Fathers. But the real question is whether she’ll enforce the order when the feds violate it, as they surely will. After all, they violated the prior order repeatedly and egregiously.

Federal judges can fine and jail people who violate their orders. But they rarely use those powers, especially against the government. That needs to change when state thugs are tearing up the First Amendment on Chicago’s streets. We suspect Sandburg would agree.

Journalist Raven Geary of Unraveled Press summed it up at a press conference after the hearing: “If people think a reporter can’t be this opinionated, let them think that. I know what’s right and what’s wrong. I don’t feel an ounce of shame saying that this is wrong.”

Congratulations to Geary and the rest of the journalists and press organizations in Chicago and Los Angeles that are standing against those wrongs by taking the government to court and winning. Listen to Geary’s remarks here.

Journalists speak out about abductions from Gaza aid flotillas

We partnered with Defending Rights & Dissent to platform three U.S. journalists who were abducted from humanitarian flotillas bound for Gaza and detained by Israel.

They discussed the inaction from their own government in the aftermath of their abduction, shared their experiences while detained, and reflected on what drove them to take this risk while so many reporters are self-censoring.

We’ll have a write-up of the event soon, but it deserves to be seen in full. Watch it here.

FPF takes ICE to court over dangerous secrecy

We filed yet another Freedom of Information Act lawsuit this week — this time to uncover records on ICE’s efforts to curtail congressional access to immigration facilities.

“ICE loves to demand our papers but it seems they don’t like it as much when we demand theirs,” attorney Ginger Quintero-McCall of Free Information Group said.

If you are a FOIA lawyer who is interested in working with us pro bono or for a reduced fee on FOIA litigation, please email lauren@freedom.press.

Read more about our latest lawsuit here.

If Big Tech can’t withstand jawboning, how can individual journalists?

Last week, Sen. Ted Cruz convened yet another congressional hearing on Biden-era “jawboning” of Big Tech companies. The message: Government officials leaning on these multibillion-dollar conglomerates to influence the views they platform was akin to censorship.

Sure, the Biden administration’s conduct is worth scrutinizing and learning from. But if you accept the premise that gigantic tech companies are susceptible to soft pressure from a censorial government, doesn’t it go without saying that so are individual journalists who lack anything close to those resources?

We wrote about the numerous instances of “jawboning” of individual reporters during the current administration that Senate Republicans failed to address at their hearing. Read more here.

Tell lawmakers from both parties to oppose Tim Burke prosecution

Conservatives are outraged at Tucker Carlson for throwing softballs to neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes. But the Trump administration is continuing its predecessor’s prosecution of journalist Tim Burke for exposing Tucker Carlson whitewashing another antisemite — Ye, formerly known as Kanye West.

Lawmakers shouldn’t stand for this hypocrisy, regardless of political party. Tell them to speak up with our action center.

Apparently obstructing transparency at the federal level is no longer enough and the government now wants to meddle with municipal police departments’ responses to public records requests.

The new policy “drastically increases the likelihood the agency isn’t complying with the Federal Records Act,” FPF’s Lauren Harper told the Times.

Foreign war correspondents get “hostile environment training, security consultants, trauma counselors and legal teams. … Local newsrooms covering militarized federal operations in their own communities? Sometimes all we have is Google, group chats and each other.”

“It is outrageous that YouTube is furthering the Trump administration’s agenda to remove evidence of human rights violations and war crimes from public view,” said Katherine Gallagher of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

It’s past time for cameras in courtrooms nationwide. None of the studies have ever substantiated whatever harms critics have claimed transparency would cause. Hopefully, the Kirk trial will make this a bipartisan issue.

“The government is attempting to lay a foundation for dissenting political beliefs as grounds for terrorism. And people like Ya’akub — non-white [or] non-Christian — have been made its primary examples. Both journalists; like Mario Guevara … and civilians.”

Last week, Sen. Ted Cruz convened yet another congressional hearing on Biden-era “jawboning” of Big Tech companies. The message: Government officials leaning on these multibillion-dollar conglomerates to influence the views they platform was akin to censorship. Officials may not have formally ordered the companies to self-censor, but they didn’t have to – businesspeople know it’s in their economic interests to stay on the administration’s good side.

They’re not entirely wrong. Public officials are entitled to express their opinions about private speech, but it’s a different story when they lead speakers to believe they have no choice but to appease the government. At the same time the Biden administration was making asks of social platforms, the former president and other Democrats (and Republicans) pushed for repealing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the law that allows social media to exist.

It’s unlikely that the Biden administration intended its rhetoric around Section 230 to intimidate social media platforms into censorship. That said, it’s certainly possible companies made content decisions they otherwise wouldn’t have when requested by a government looking to legislate them out of existence. It’s something worth exploring and learning from.

But if you accept the premise — as I do — that gigantic tech companies with billions in the bank and armies of lawyers are susceptible to soft pressure from a censorial government, doesn’t it go without saying that so are individual journalists who lack anything close to those resources?

If it’s jawboning when Biden officials suggest Facebook take down anti-vaccine posts, isn’t it “jawboning” when a North Carolina GOP official tells ProPublica to kill a story, touting connections to the Trump administration? When the president calls for reporters to be fired for doing basic journalism, like reporting on leaks? When the White House and Pentagon condition access on helping them further official narratives? A good-faith conversation about jawboning can’t just ignore all of that.

Here are some more incidents Cruz and his colleagues have not held hearings about:

• A Department of Homeland Security official publicly accused a Chicago Tribune reporter of “interference” for the act of reporting where immigration enforcement was occurring. Journalism, in the government’s telling, constituted obstruction of justice. That certainly could lead others to tread cautiously when exercising their constitutional right to document law enforcement actions.
• Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard attacked Washington Post reporter Ellen Nakashima by name, suggesting her reporting methods — which is to say, calling government officials — were improper and reflected a media establishment “desperate to sabotage POTUS’s successful agenda.” Might that dissuade reporters from seeking comment from sources, or sources from providing such comment to reporters?
• When a journalist suggested people contact her on the encrypted messaging app Signal, an adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said she should be banned from Pentagon coverage. The Pentagon then attempted to exclude her from Hegseth’s trip to Singapore. Putting aside the irony of Hegseth’s team taking issue with Signal usage, it’s fair to assume journalists are less likely to suggest sources lawfully contact them via secure technologies if doing so leads to government threats and retaliation.
• Bill Essayli, a U.S. attorney in California, publicly called a reporter “a joke, not a journalist” for commenting on law enforcement policies for shooting at moving vehicles. Obviously, remarks from prosecutors carry unique weight and have significant potential to chill speech, particularly when prosecutors make clear that they don’t view a journalist as worthy of the First Amendment’s protections for their profession.

Sources wanting to expose wrongdoing ... will think twice about talking to journalists who are known targets of an out-of-control administration.

There are plenty more examples — and that doesn’t even get into all the targeting of news outlets, from major broadcast networks to community radio stations. They may have more resources than individual reporters, but they’re nowhere near as well positioned to withstand a major spike in legal bills and insurance premiums as big social media firms (who this administration also jawbones to censor constitutionally protected content).

And hovering over all of this is President Donald Trump himself, whose social media feed doubles as an intimidation campaign against reporters. Our Trump Anti-Press Social Media Tracker documents hundreds of posts targeting not only news outlets but individual journalists. It’s documented over 3,500 posts. Unlike Biden-era “jawboning,” threats like these come from the very top — people in a position to actually carry them out. And unlike Biden’s administration, Trump’s track record makes the threat of government retribution real, not hypothetical.

Trump views excessive criticism of him as “probably illegal.” He has made very clear his desire for journalists to be imprisoned, sued for billions, and assaulted for reasons completely untethered to the Constitution, and has surrounded himself with bootlicking stooges eager to carry out his whims. “Chilling” is an understatement for the effect when a sitting president — particularly an authoritarian one — threatens journalists for doing their job.

It’s not only that these journalists don’t have the resources of Meta, Alphabet, and the like. They also have much more to lose. Tech companies might get some bad PR based on how they handle government takedown requests, but it’s unlikely to significantly impact their bottom line, particularly when news content comprises a small fraction of their business.

But journalists don’t just host news content, they create it. Their whole careers depend on their reputations and the willingness of sources to trust them. Sources wanting to expose wrongdoing, who often talk to journalists at great personal risk and try to keep a low profile, will think twice about talking to journalists who are known targets of an out-of-control administration.

Other news outlets might be reluctant to hire someone who has been singled out by the world’s most powerful person and his lackeys. Editors and publishers — already spooked about publishing articles that might draw a SLAPP suit or worse from Trump — will be doubly hesitant when the article is written by someone already on the administration’s public blacklist.

Unlike Biden’s antics, the Trump administration has cut out the middleman by directly targeting the speech and speakers it doesn’t like. And it wields this power against people with a fraction of the resources to fight back. If that’s not jawboning, what is?

Award-winning journalist Cerise Castle has some history with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. In 2021, she chronicled how deputies formed violent gangs within the department. She then turned “A Tradition of Violence,” her 15-part series for Knock LA, into a podcast by the same name.

Perhaps that’s why the department was spooked when Castle submitted a Public Records Act request for names and official ID photographs of all sworn personnel, “excluding those in undercover assignments.” Or maybe the department was merely committed to following its routine practice of delaying and denying records requests.

In any case, the department produced the names of about 8,500 deputies but refused to produce any photographs except of the sheriff and his undersheriffs. They claimed that producing photographs of the deputies would violate their right to privacy and might endanger them in the future, if they ever go undercover.

But the department’s rationale seemed suspect because it also refused to comply with separate requests for headshots of three deputies who have been convicted of serious felonies, fired, and obviously won’t be sent on any future undercover operations for the department.

Castle won her Los Angeles County Superior Court Public Records Act lawsuit in July, and the court ordered the department to release the deputy ID photographs. But now the county is appealing. Its objection to allowing the public to identify law enforcement officers is especially striking when Angelenos and others across the country are outraged by unidentified, masked federal immigration officers abducting their neighbors.

The timing is also particularly odd after the California Legislature just enacted Sen. Scott Wiener’s new law, the No Secret Police Act, barring law enforcement officers operating in the state from masking their faces when working in public, beginning on Jan. 1, 2026.

We spoke to Castle’s lawyer, Susan Seager, to learn more about the case and her client’s opposition to the county’s appeal.

What is the county’s basis for its opposition to producing pictures of law enforcement officers who operate in public and serve the public at the public’s expense?

They claim that no deputy will ever work undercover again because if a deputy’s photo is posted online, and if that deputy works undercover in the future, and if a “criminal” uses facial recognition technology, then that future undercover deputy will be recognized by criminals. But the court rejected this argument because it’s all speculation. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James Chalfant followed decisions by the California Supreme Court, such as Commission on Peace Officer Certification Standards and Training v. Superior Court, which held that ordinary police officers don’t have a right to privacy in their identities and mere “speculation” about safety risks to the general police force is not enough to block disclosure of public records containing individual police officers’ identities.

The top brass at the LA Sheriff’s Department don’t want their deputies to be accountable to the public they serve. The Sheriff’s Department fights all Public Records Act cases. It’s a knee-jerk reaction.

Have similar arguments been rejected by the courts before?

No. As far as I know, this is the first case where a court decided that official police department officer ID photos are disclosable under the Public Records Act. The city of LA and city of Santa Ana both voluntarily gave journalist Ben Camacho official police officer ID photos in response to his Public Records Act legal actions, but they did so before a court ruled on his request. The LAPD photos are now online for public use at Watch the Watchers.

It seems notable that LA County is pursuing this appeal so soon after the city of Los Angeles wasted its time and the taxpayers’ money, and embarrassed itself in the Camacho case. Why is the county repeating the city’s mistakes?

The problem is that both the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and the Los Angeles City Council appear to be very hands-off on the litigation against them, including cases involving their sheriff’s department and police department, respectively. The elected officials seem to let their lawyers make all the decisions on litigation strategies, appeals, etc., without asking for any updates or to be involved in any decisions to appeal in cases against the government agencies. LA’s elected officials need to take more control over litigation involving their police officers. They need to stop wasting taxpayer money fighting Public Records Act cases like this, especially after a superior court orders the police agency to release the records.

Many people in Los Angeles and around the country have been outraged in recent months by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents wearing masks, and other efforts by the Trump administration to discourage and even criminalize identifying law enforcement officers. What do you make of LA County litigating the right to keep deputies’ identities secret against that backdrop?

LA deputies probably wish they could wear masks as well. And the top brass at the LA Sheriff’s Department don’t want their deputies to be accountable to the public they serve. The Sheriff’s Department fights all Public Records Act cases. It’s a knee-jerk reaction. And the lawyers hired by the county don’t care about public accountability — they are hired to fight and win.

What’s your theory about why the county is pursuing this? Where is the pressure coming from? Do they seriously believe that this is a meritorious appeal that they have a real chance of winning? Or do they just not care because taxpayers are funding it?

This is typical for the county of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. They fight all Public Records Act cases. In this case, there is extra pressure coming from the labor unions representing the deputies. The deputies’ labor unions actually joined in the case as intervenors, so we are fighting against the county and the labor unions.

If journalists are not able to obtain photos of law enforcement officers through public records requests, what kind of reporting will the public lose out on?

In the age of everyone carrying a smartphone and filming police, and posting images of police on social media or news sites, the public and the press can use those images to identify officers and investigate their past history. There may be instances where deputies use excessive force or threaten members of the public, but the victim doesn’t know the name of the deputy. Photographs help identify officers.

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

It’s been 220 days since Rümeysa Öztürk was arrested for co-writing an op-ed the government didn’t like. Read on for news from California, Washington D.C. and Maryland as the government shutdown drags on.

Public records are for the public

When Wired made public records-based stories free, subscriptions went up.

When 404 Media published reporting that relied on the Freedom of Information Act without a paywall, new sources came forward.

Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) spoke to Wired Global Editorial Director and FPF board member Katie Drummond and 404 Media co-founder Joseph Cox about why giving the public access to public records reporting is good for journalism — and for business. Read more here.

Shutting down the government doesn’t shut down the First Amendment

It’s absurd and unconstitutional to exclude reporters from immigration hearings unless they get government permission to attend, especially when it’s impossible to obtain permission due to the government shutdown, and particularly when the current government despises First Amendment freedoms and will use any opportunity to evade transparency.

And yet that’s exactly what an immigration court in Maryland did this week. We wrote a detailed letter to the top judge at the courthouse explaining why they need to reverse course, both to comply with the law and for the sake of democracy. The next day, Capital News Service reported that the court had backed down and lifted the ban. Read the letter here.

No secret police in LA

Award-winning journalist Cerise Castle sued Los Angeles County in July and obtained a court order for the department to release the sheriff’s deputy ID photographs.

But now the county is appealing. Its objection to allowing the public to identify law enforcement officers is especially striking when Angelenos and others across the country are outraged by unidentified, masked federal immigration officers abducting their neighbors. It also comes on the heels of the city of Los Angeles embarrassing itself with its failed effort to sue a journalist for publishing officer photographs.

We connected with Castle’s lawyer, Susan Seager, to try to figure out what the department is thinking. Read more here.

Top three questions about the White House ballroom

FPF’s Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy Lauren Harper has lots of questions about the demolition of a section of the White House to construct a ballroom.

She wrote about three of them for our government secrecy site, The Classifieds: (1) Is there a budget? (2) Who are the donors, and what do they get in return? and (3) Where should we look for answers about what’s going on at the East Wing? Read more here.

A retired U.S. colonel has gone public with his concern that the Biden administration’s findings about the 2022 killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh by the Israeli military were “soft-pedaled to appease Israel.” There has been “a miscarriage of justice,” he says.

The detention of Sami Hamdi by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement solely for his views while on a speaking tour in the U.S. is a blatant assault on free speech. These are the tactics of the thought police.

“As the press becomes more subservient and less independent, the firsthand knowledge needed to even stage a fight to get our mojo back is a whisper in the ether,” writes Brian Karem. That’s why veteran journalists who know how abnormal this all is need to be extra vocal these days.

It’s no time for gatekeeping. There aren’t enough traditional J-School trained journalists to adequately document every ICE abduction – let alone everything else going on. We appreciate everyone who is exercising their press freedom rights, no matter how they’re categorized.