Freedom of the Press

This article originally appeared in The Dissenter. The article’s author, Dissenter editor Kevin Gosztola, kindly allowed us to republish it. It captures our reaction to the attack on Chicago’s Nabala Cafe days after we appeared there alongside Gosztola and others to discuss press freedom at an event organized by Defending Rights & Dissent. You can subscribe to The Dissenter here.

On October 21, I participated in an event on the state of press freedom at the Palestinian-owned Nabala Cafe in Uptown Chicago. We spent a significant amount of time highlighting the record number of Palestinian journalists that the Israeli military has killed in Gaza with U.S. weapons.  

The event was organized by Defending Rights and Dissent and hosted by Chip Gibbons, the policy director for DRAD, who has previously contributed articles for The Dissenter. Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Advocacy Director Seth Stern and Palestine In America Editor-in-Chief Nader Ihmoud also were part of the panel discussion. 

We gathered at 7:30 p.m. and sat at the front of the cafe with a Palestinian flag and Irish flag hanging in the storefront windows behind us. The cafe was packed with people who came to listen to our discussion, which does not always happen. 

For an hour and a half, Chip led the panel in a conversation about the most clear and present dangers to freedom of the press, as well as more specific topics, like the leaked U.S. documents on Israel’s preparations for an attack on Iran. I met the owner Eyad Zeid after the event and thanked him for graciously allowing us to use his space for the evening.

The cafe was attacked three days later by a man who took a sledgehammer to the glass door and all of the storefront windows. It was the second time in two months that the cafe was targeted. In September, one window was destroyed — the window with the Palestinian and Irish flags. 

I could have spoken about the September attack, but unfortunately, I neglected to mention it. We did not spend any time on the threat to freedom of expression from acts that are intended to promote fear and fuel hatred. 

When I first learned of this second attack, I immediately shared a fundraiser by Chicago Irish for Palestine to restore the windows. I was angry and upset that this happened, but several hours later, the fundraiser reached its goal of $10,000. And a day later, the Nabala Cafe has raised more than $15,000 (as of Oct. 28, it’s over $18,000). 

Eyad penned an eloquent and inspiring response for In These Times magazine following the first attack. As he noted, “Palestinians and Palestinian businesses have been frequent targets since the genocide in Gaza began. When we opened ([in July), we thought that it would only be a matter of time before someone attacked us.

“As soon as word got out about the attack, our community came through to support us. We raised more than 10 times the money we needed to replace the broken window in less than 24 hours. Our business flourished in a way that we could not have ever imagined, and people got to work immediately beautifying our space, including painting a mural on our boarded-up window and covering the sidewalk with chalk artwork.”

Though, as Eyad acknowledged, “So many businesses and individuals who experience a violating attack like this are not met with even a fraction of the support that we received. Often, they are completely alone.”

Eyad barely involved police (aside from filing a report for his insurance claim). Instead, it was the community that surrounds the Nabala Cafe that helped him press onward.

“I’m incredibly grateful for our community, and more proud of Nabala Cafe than ever. I’m more optimistic than ever that it can be a space of connection and bonding, of love and nourishment,” Eyad concluded.

Art hanging on the wall at the Nabala Cafe

I felt that connection and bonding, that love and nourishment while I was in the cafe. It is more than just some coffee shop. It is the kind of space that every community should have as they resist the military assaults carried out by the U.S. and Israel on not just Palestinians but also Lebanese, Syrians, Iraqis, and Iranians. 

So many Arabs or Middle Easterners that find themselves under relentless bombardment believe their lives do not matter, and community spaces like the Nabala Cafe represent resistance to the atrocities that occur daily, whether they be the destruction of hospitals, the obstruction of food aid, or the assassination of journalists. 

“I named the shop Nabala Cafe as a tribute to my ancestral home in Palestine, Bayt Nabala, a village that was destroyed during the Nakba in 1948,” Eyad previously wrote. “Three thousand villagers (called  ‘Nabalis’) mostly fled east towards Ramallah. As Israel occupied more and more Palestinian land over time, Nabalis continued to be displaced. Some stayed in Palestine or across the eastern border in Jordan, but we’ve all been forced to find homes in different parts of the world.

“Chicago is home to the largest population of Palestinians in the United States, and we have a strong community of hundreds of Nabalis living in the area.,” Eyad added. “The concept of Nabala Cafe started here, building on the deep community roots of Nabalis that have remained strong over decades, all centering our home of Bayt Nabala.”

No matter how many times some hateful individual hides their face and takes a sledgehammer to the cafe, there will always be a community response that restores and defends the Nabala Cafe. That to me is incredible and why I am more convinced than ever that it was a privilege to participate in an Oct. 21 event at the cafe.

Watch/listen to the event at the Nabala Cafe here or below.

“I am sorry, I have to leave (the conversation). Several of my colleagues are injured in Jabalia, and I have to cover the events.” That’s the direct message I received via X from Palestinian journalist Mohammed Mhawish during a live discussion hosted Oct. 9 by Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) about Israel’s multipronged war on press freedom.

For Palestinian journalists like Mhawish, it’s often impossible to sit down and contemplate the toll that the war has taken on them and their colleagues before even more devastating news hits, like the most recent Israeli attack on the Jabalia refugee camp and the journalists covering it.

The Israel-Gaza war is the deadliest for journalists in the past four decades or more. At least 123 journalists and media workers have been killed by Israel since the start of the conflict in October 2023. That makes up 70 percent of all journalists and media workers killed worldwide over the past year, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Beyond the numbers, there are stories of unimaginable human suffering for the remaining journalists covering the war: devastation, displacement, permanent disability, and loss of loved ones, friends, and colleagues. And for those who were lucky enough to survive or flee, the psychological trauma lingers.

For Mhawish, a former Al Jazeera English correspondent in Gaza who covered the war from its start until late April and now lives in exile, it has meant “documenting the destruction of homes, the death of children all around me, bearing witness also to the loss of (an) entire generation of people,” he said during the X Space discussion.

Mhawish and his co-panelists discussed several prongs of Israel’s war on the press — and what the U.S. government should be doing in response.

Death threats and killings

Al Jazeera is the only major broadcaster that has been consistently reporting from Gaza since the start of the war. This, Mhawish explained, could be the reason why its reporters are targeted by Israel in an attempt to cut off the flow of information and control the war’s narrative.

“If a journalist in Gaza drops their camera or their pen, there would be nobody else to pick up the work that's left to be done,” Mhawish said.

At least eight Al Jazeera reporters or freelancers who work with the broadcaster have been killed since the start of the war and several have been injured, including two after being hit by Israeli fire while reporting earlier in October (one was left paralyzed and the other severely injured).

Mhawish said he himself had received multiple threats via calls and text messages from people who identified themselves as Israeli army officers. In one call, on Dec. 6, Mhawish was told his house would be bombed. The following day, the house, located in Gaza City, was indeed bombed.

That call was the last straw. Mhawish fled for his life.

The “press vest on the chests of Gaza journalists doesn’t provide any protection. To the contrary, it is a target,” Mhawish said.

There have been multiple reports of death threats being received by journalists and their families from Israeli officials because of their reporting. One of them targeted the 19-year-old Hassan Hamad, who was subsequently killed while reporting for Al Jazeera on recent Israeli attacks on the Jabalia refugee camp. Hamad’s remains had to be carried away in several boxes and bags. Human rights activists have posted screenshots of the threatening texts that preceded his killing.

‘Impunity acts like a virus’

When contacted about the Hamad and Mhawish threats, the Israeli army’s North American media desk responded to FPF’s request for comment by denying that it was responsible.

It also alleged that as many as six Palestinian journalists who work for Al Jazeera are “terrorists,” along with another unidentified number of members of the media it said without further evidence are “disguising themselves as journalists.” It made no such claims about either Mhawish or Hamad.

Israel has a history of fabricating claims of reporters’ ties to alleged terrorism, including claiming last year that it had found a list with Hamas members’ names, but it turned out to be only a calendar.

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, meanwhile, said that there have been at least 32 cases where there is enough information to confirm the journalists were murdered by Israel while working.

The International Federation of Journalists estimates the mortality rate for media workers in Gaza to be over 10 percent, “dramatically higher than any other occupational group.”

"Indifference to journalists' killing because of their nationality or background is not just immoral, but irresponsible and dangerous,” Sherif Mansour, a Washington D.C.-based human rights and press freedom advocate, said during the FPF discussion. “Impunity acts like a virus; it knows no borders and, like violence, it knows no boundaries.”

Mansour is a co-author of a report from the CPJ, released a few months before the current war, which describes a 20-year pattern of Israel targeting Palestinian journalists with impunity, including the 2022 murder of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.

Several news outlets and research groups concluded Abu Akleh, a veteran Al Jazeera TV correspondent who was shot and killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank city of Jenin in May 2022, was targeted with the “intention to kill.”

Al Jazeera journalist Wael Dahdouh mourns his son Hamza, who also worked for Al Jazeera and who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Rafah, Gaza Strip, on Jan. 7, 2024. Dahdouh lost his wife, two other children and a grandson earlier in the war and was nearly killed himself.

Barring international press

Israel’s targeting of journalists in Gaza is only one aspect of a multifaceted war on press freedom. Another is that virtually no international media is allowed to report from Gaza unless embedded with the Israeli army. An Israeli censor then decides what can be published.

The ban — enabled by the blockade of the Gaza Strip by both Israel and Egypt, two of the U.S.’s closest allies — is something “we've never seen in any war accepted by international media,” said Mansour. “It's a de facto ban that was enforced and accepted by international media, and it's a part of censorship that we saw echo all over the world.”

“Without journalists, the Israeli government … becomes the source of information, and that might well be the goal,” FPF’s Advocacy Director Seth Stern said during the discussion.

Israel's effective ban on foreign reporting has placed an impossible burden on Palestinian reporters in Gaza to document an ongoing war through which they are living. Even Israeli journalists can’t enter Gaza unaccompanied by their army, according to Israeli journalist Gideon Levy.

This week, FPF joined 18 press freedom and human rights organizations in supporting a call from members of the U.S. Congress asking the Biden-Harris administration to urge Israel to allow independent access to Gaza for international journalists.

Detentions of journalists

A third aspect of Israel’s aggression on the press is the detention of journalists in Israel and the West Bank.

According to a recent report from CPJ, Israeli authorities now hold the global record for arresting the most journalists per capita in a one-year period. Forty-three journalists remain detained by Israel, and many are held indefinitely without charge in violation of international law.

There are also numerous accounts of journalists held in Israel being subjected to torture, humiliation, and mistreatment.

Earlier in the month, U.S. journalist Jeremy Loffredo was detained by the Israeli army for four days following his arrest in the West Bank. He was reportedly charged with aiding and sharing information with the enemy, apparently because of his reporting on Iranian strikes. He was ordered to remain in the country until Oct. 20. Loffredo was finally able to leave Israel the next day, after the police dropped their investigation.

Bans, raids, and destruction of media landscape

A fourth aspect is the destruction of media institutions and bans on media. According to the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, Israeli forces have destroyed at least 73 media facilities in the Gaza Strip and shut down 15 in the West Bank since the beginning of the war.

And in September, Al Jazeera televised live as heavily armed Israeli soldiers descended on its Ramallah bureau in an early morning raid and shut it down. The soldiers ordered everyone at the bureau to leave with “only their personal belongings.” Israel has no legal jurisdiction in the West Bank.

The raid came just a few months after the Israeli parliament passed a law to ban the broadcaster in Israel because it deemed Al Jazeera “a threat to security.”

Even the Israeli media wasn’t spared. Last year, less than two months into the war, Israel's communications minister threatened to take action against Haaretz by ending the publication of government notices in the Israeli newspaper for "sabotaging Israel in wartime" and being an "inflammatory mouthpiece for Israel’s enemies."

The U.S.’s (non)response

All of this comes in the context of a war that is being financed and fully supported by the United States. The U.S. has provided Israel with close to $18 billion in military assistance since the beginning of the war, although U.S. law prohibits it from arming countries that don't comply with international law. Deliberately targeting journalists is a war crime under international law.

In August, 140 press freedom organizations, journalists, and news outlets sent a letter to the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urging the U.S. to immediately cease sending weapons to Israel due to its continued killings of journalists.

In mid-October, the U.S. issued a rare warning to Israel threatening to withhold arms transfers unless the flow of humanitarian assistance to Gaza was not increased within a month — but there have been no similar warnings, let alone action, when it comes to targeting the press.

“The United States can't claim to not know anymore, and it can't claim to trust the Israeli authorities to investigate and change course,” Stern said.

Despite the U.S. administration’s alleged commitment to support free and independent media worldwide, “It has done exactly the opposite,” Stern said. “It supported the slaughter and censorship of free and independent media in Gaza and other affected areas.”

Stern concluded: “Governments that claim to operate the most moral army in the world are expected to take some reasonable measures to protect journalists, and particularly not target them.”

Mhawish, commenting on the attack on the Jabalia refugee camp in real time, said it’s “very enraging to me to see these targeted attacks against journalists and the world keeps just watching us die every day.”

Targeting journalists is “a way to silence the story and to silence those who seek to tell that story,” Mhawish added. Journalists in Gaza “carry cameras, (not) guns, but in the eyes of the Israeli military who seeks to hide the truth, we are a threat.”

“I see it as a genocide. (Journalists) are seen as a threat, we are seen as a danger,” Mhawish concluded. “I think silence is complicity.”

You can listen to the whole X Space conversation or read a transcript (imperfect, AI-generated), even if you don’t use X.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

New York, Oct. 24, 2024 — Isaac White, a journalist for Indian Time in northern New York, was arrested in May while covering a demonstration opposing a proposed settlement of a land claim by the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe involving New York’s Barnhart Island.

He’s not accused of doing anything illegal besides failing to disperse when police broke up the protest. Here’s the problem: The U.S. Department of Justice has repeatedly said — most recently this month — that under the First Amendment, police dispersing protesters can’t also disperse journalists covering the protests, because how police respond to protests is news. 

Over 20 national and local press freedom and civil liberties organizations signed a letter led by Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) calling on St. Lawrence County District Attorney Gary Pasqua to drop all charges against White. 

The following statement can be attributed to Seth Stern, director of advocacy at FPF: 

“Arresting journalists for reporting on protests has always been a constitutional nonstarter. But with the DOJ, courts, and legislatures all recognizing the rights of journalists (and others) to document how police respond to protests, there’s no excuse to continue prosecuting White for doing his job. Authorities in St. Lawrence County need to drop the case against White, and police and prosecutors nationwide need to better educate themselves about the First Amendment so this doesn’t keep happening.”

You can read the letter here or below.

Please contact us if you would like further comment.

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

Here are some of the most important stories we’re following from the U.S. and around the world. If you enjoy reading this newsletter, please forward it to friends and family. If someone has forwarded you this newsletter, please subscribe here.

Redesigned for action: Meet our new website

This week, Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) unveiled a new website that reflects our commitment to action-based advocacy for press freedom. FPF’s website was last relaunched in December 2016, just after the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president. Needless to say, a lot has happened since then.

Our new design puts front and center our key advocacy issues, like the PRESS Act, government secrecy, and arrests of journalists. On this foundation, we will soon build new tools for you to reach out to decision-makers who can help us protect the press, whether those decision-makers are in Congress, a state legislature, or a corporate boardroom.

The new design also gives more visibility to our other flagship programs: our technology work (including SecureDrop, an open source whistleblower submission platform), the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, and our work to provide digital security education to journalists. Read more about the redesign here and please let us know if you spot any bugs or have any feedback. We’re excited for you to explore the new site.

Protect end-to-end encryption

Monday was Global Encryption Day, and we took the opportunity to urge policymakers to preserve and strengthen end-to-end communications so journalists and everyone else can communicate securely.

FPF Senior Advisor Caitlin Vogus wrote for Tech Policy Press about why lawmakers who claim to be concerned about Chinese cyberattacks need to cut out the sideshows — like banning TikTok — and focus on real digital security issues like encryption.

We also hosted a conversation, via X Space, with Julia Angwin, founder of The Markup and Proof, and New York Times contributing opinion writer; Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, a senior writer at TechCrunch; and Harlo Holmes, FPF’s chief information security officer and director of digital security. You can listen here, or here if you don’t use X (note that the transcript is AI-generated and imperfect).

Not publishing newsworthy leaks isn’t integrity. It’s timidity

Major media publishers are refusing to publish leaked U.S. intelligence documents about Israel’s plans to strike Iran. They’ll report on them as they see fit, but they won’t let us see the source material. Some outlets are framing it as if they’re taking some kind of courageous stand by withholding newsworthy records from the public.

But why? How did mainstream news outlets go from publishing the Pentagon Papers to helping the national security state clean up its messes during a brutal war?

We wrote about how these decisions likely have more to do with fear of legal repercussions than journalistic ethics. The media was forced into risk aversion by the prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for publishing government secrets, which ended in a guilty plea earlier this year. Now it’s repackaging timidity as integrity. Read more here.

Chicago police obstruct journalism

The U.S. Department of Justice issued new guidance on Oct. 4, cautioning against dispersing or arresting journalists covering protests. It took the Chicago Police Department less than a week to violate it. On Oct. 10, officers reportedly threatened to arrest journalists covering an anti-war protest because they deemed it a “police activity” area.

We wrote a letter to the editor of the Chicago Sun-Times about these and other abuses by the department at the Democratic National Convention in August and since. We explained that officers in Chicago appear to feel empowered to harass journalists after facing no repercussions for their conduct at the DNC, which included threatening to revoke journalists’ press passes for not complying with illegal dispersal orders and even reportedly ripping credentials off reporters’ necks.

Speaking of, putting police in charge of press credentials is like letting the fox guard the proverbial hen house. Read the letter here (it’s the second one down).

Ending abusive equipment seizures

Earlier this month, we wrote about Justin Pulliam, a Texas citizen journalist whom law enforcement is trying to extort into signing a liability waiver in exchange for returning his own equipment. The Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office seized the gear when officers arrested him for filming a mental health check.

Unfortunately, Pulliam isn’t the only journalist who’s had his equipment seized and held for an unjustifiably long time by law enforcement. (Though his is the only case we’re aware of in which they have been so explicit that they’re holding equipment hostage.)

With the help of the Institute for Justice, Pulliam filed a lawsuit over his arrest and a separate incident in which the sheriff’s department excluded him from a news conference. We spoke with Christie Hebert, an attorney at the Institute for Justice and expert on property rights and freedom of speech. Read the interview here.

Momentum for PRESS Act continues

Last week, we told you about The New York Times editorial board’s endorsement of the PRESS Act — the federal “shield” bill to protect journalist-source confidentiality from government surveillance.

The bill has continued to pick up momentum since then. Catherine Herridge, the veteran investigative journalist who has reported for everyone from CBS News to Fox News, went on Dan Abrams’ show on NewsNation to explain that “smaller newsrooms, independent journalists cannot withstand the kind of financial and legal pressure that I have been facing for over two years.” Herridge is appealing a ruling that she is in contempt of court for not burning a source.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal, too, declared on its editorial page that "Congress has fiddled for long enough on this important legislation. The time to act is now." And our executive director, Trevor Timm, recorded a video in support of the act for a new advocacy campaign from the Society of Professional Journalists. Read more here and use this form to tell your senators to support the act.

What we’re reading

Press freedom groups urge Biden to demand Israel allow media access in Gaza (HuffPost). We joined 18 partner organizations supporting a call from members of the U.S. Congress, led by Rep. Jim McGovern, for the Biden-Harris administration to urge Israel to allow independent access to Gaza for U.S. and international journalists.

A new normal (Columbia Journalism Review). “If Donald Trump returns to the White House, the Espionage Act offers a clear path for him to stifle press freedom.” And the current administration was fully aware of that and nonetheless forced Julian Assange to plead guilty under the act.

Journalists under fire: U.S. media report daily threats, harassment and attacks at home (International Women’s Media Foundation). One in four journalists faced sexual harassment on the job, and one in three experienced digital harassment, according to IWMF's latest report. A shocking 36% of journalists also reported threats of physical violence.

DeSantis' attorney said he quit after Florida threatened TV stations for airing pro-choice political ad (WFTS-TV). It’s truly bizarre that Gov. Ron DeSantis would risk senior staff resignations to send out blatantly unconstitutional threats to news outlets. As a judge told DeSantis in slapping down his silly stunt, “it’s the First Amendment, stupid.”

Come see us in Washington, D.C., or London

The Double Exposure Festival & Symposium, Nov. 7-10 in Washington, D.C., will have panels, workshops, and master classes focused on investigative storytelling. Don’t miss our Director of Advocacy Seth Stern, who will discuss dangerous government efforts to limit who is a journalist — such as by excluding documentary filmmakers. Purchase your tickets or passes here.

Or come see us in London, where we’re co-hosting Source! the London Logan Symposium with The Centre for Investigative Journalism Nov. 14-15. Hear from journalists from all over the world about press freedom issues and the challenges they face in protecting themselves and their sources. Register to attend here.

Earlier this month, we wrote about Justin Pulliam, a Texas citizen journalist who law enforcement is trying to extort into signing a liability waiver in exchange for returning his own equipment. The Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office seized the gear when officers arrested him for filming them as they conducted a mental health check.

Unfortunately, Pulliam isn’t the only journalist who’s had his equipment seized and held for unjustifiably long periods of time by law enforcement. (Though his is the only case we’re aware of in which they have been so explicit that they’re holding equipment hostage to try to force a journalist to release them from liability.)

Some journalists, like Pulliam, have begun to push back on these and other abuses. With the help of the Institute for Justice, he filed a lawsuit over his arrest and a separate incident in which the sheriff’s department excluded him from a news conference.

To help all journalists understand their rights when it comes to getting back their seized equipment, we spoke with Christie Hebert, an attorney at the Institute for Justice and expert on property rights and freedom of speech.

Law enforcement seizures and searches of journalists’ equipment raise serious concerns about the protection of confidential sources and information, and may violate state shield laws or the federal Privacy Protection Act of 1980, which prohibits searches and seizures of newsgathering materials except when investigating a crime unrelated to newsgathering.  

When law enforcement keeps journalists’ equipment for long periods of time, it also raises practical concerns. Journalists may lose access to information stored on devices that they need for their reporting, like pictures, recordings of interviews, or notes. They may not be able to replace expensive equipment, making it harder to continue their work. 

When police arrest a journalist, they often also seize their equipment, like a cellphone or camera. Can police seize items from people they arrest, and are there any legal limits on that authority?

Like anyone else the police arrest, the police must have probable cause to believe that the individual committed a crime. That’s a standard that gives a lot of deference to police. 

Once a person is under arrest, police can seize items with the person for safekeeping. If a person is released following arrest, the police must return their possessions unless there is probable cause to believe that the possessions are evidence related to the suspected crime. 

Journalists, like everyone else, have Fourth Amendment rights, which protect them against unreasonable searches and seizures. The police may not normally search electronic data on equipment seized from an arrestee without a warrant.

Say a journalist is arrested while covering a protest, and the police say, “Give me your phone” or “Give me your camera.” What should the journalist do?

If the journalist has formally been placed under arrest, the journalist should comply. A journalist who has not been arrested has no duty to give the police property of any kind, including devices related to news coverage such as phones or cameras, simply because the police demand it. 

Likewise, a journalist has no duty to show police the contents of a device, such as photos or writing, even if the journalist has been arrested. Nor does a journalist have to delete photos or writing because the police demand it. 

Journalists should avoid escalating encounters with the police, especially if they believe that they are being retaliated against. One thing that journalists can do, however, is take steps to protect their information on their devices. Devices should have passwords. If the police ask for devices as part of an arrest, the journalist should lock the device. Journalists do not have to tell police their passwords. If police need to search the electronic contents of a device, they can get a search warrant, unless some other law prohibits them from doing so.

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has documented several instances of police retaining journalists’ equipment for weeks or months, including after all of the charges against a journalist have been dropped. What are the impacts on freedom of speech and of the press when police hold onto journalists’ equipment for long periods of time?

One of the biggest consequences of the seizure of journalist’s equipment is that the journalists can’t use that equipment to gather and publish the news. That means their speech is stifled. That’s particularly important when it comes to reporting on the government’s activities. Without reporting on what the government is doing, it’s much harder to hold the government accountable.

In general, what have courts said about law enforcement’s right to hold onto items indefinitely that they seize from arrestees?

If law enforcement believes that the items were used in a crime or might have evidence of a crime stored on them, then the police can keep that property. But police should return that property once there is no reason to believe that the items were used in a crime or have evidence of a crime. 

A journalist should get legal counsel. Usually, police aren’t interested in the device itself, just what’s on it. It may be that the journalist won’t object to providing the data (such as pictures of crimes being committed) and can arrange to do that in order to get the device back.

Is it legal for the police to hold a journalist’s equipment hostage until the journalist agrees not to sue them, like in Pulliam’s case?

No, the government cannot prevent a person — member of the press or not — from suing the government for violating constitutional rights by forcing someone to sign a liability release to get their property back.

On a practical level, what steps should a journalist whose equipment has been seized take to try to get it released by the police? What can they do themselves, and at what point might they need to get a lawyer involved?

The person should make a formal demand in writing for the return of their equipment, especially if they have reason to believe that the equipment is being held even without any connection to an alleged crime. If the government still refuses to give the equipment back or the person has reason to believe that their equipment has been searched without a warrant, the press member should speak with a lawyer.

The Tracker has also documented cases where police have damaged or lost journalists’ equipment while in police custody. Is there anything reporters can do to get reimbursed for their damaged or lost equipment?

Documenting the damage and making a written request that the police pay for the damage or lost equipment is the first step. Following up on the failure to pay is also important. If the police still don’t give back the equipment, a journalist should explore legal action.

What changes are needed to discourage police from confiscating journalists’ equipment and refusing to return it?

I’d like to see the police held accountable for failing to return equipment promptly, rather than being able to hold on to the equipment until they feel like returning it or a court forces them to.

For more about searches, seizures and surveillance of journalists and their equipment, check out our digital security blog and the numerous additional guides and resources published by our digital security team.

Major media publishers are refusing to publish leaked U.S. intelligence documents about Israel’s plans to strike Iran. They’ll report on them as they see fit, but they won’t let us see the source material. Some outlets are framing it as if they’re taking some kind of courageous stand by withholding newsworthy records from the public. 

But why? How did mainstream news outlets go from publishing the Pentagon Papers to helping the national security state clean up its messes during a brutal war?

Here’s my theory: The decision to self-censor has more to do with fear of legal repercussions than journalistic ethics. The media was forced into risk aversion by the prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for publishing government secrets, which ended in a guilty plea earlier this year. Now it’s repackaging timidity as integrity.  

It’s not the first time media publishers’ business decisions have somehow morphed into canons of journalistic ethics. It wasn’t until an appellate court opened the door to liability for undercover investigations that the media turned its back on that long-standing practice. Now, the journalistic establishment wags its collective finger at filmmakers who expose Supreme Court justices as right-wing ideologues.

Even the concept of objectivity — the core tenet to which journalism students are taught to aspire — started as a marketing idea: news wire services needed to put out a product that clients from Alabama to New York would find palatable. Mass media outlets that wanted to appeal to a similarly broad audience followed suit. 

But this newest journalistic norm might be the most troubling yet. News outlets don’t work for the government and should not put its interests over those of their readers. 

The media actually called its own bluff in advance. Just weeks ago, opposition research documents on Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance leaked. Iranian hackers were allegedly behind it. 

Mainstream outlets refused to publish those documents too — but they claimed it was primarily because the documents weren’t newsworthy, not because of some hard and fast rule against publishing leaks from foreign adversaries. (One journalist who did publish the leaks, Ken Klippenstein, received a visit from the FBI). 

The Iran-Israel  leak, on the other hand, was indisputably newsworthy, and to date, no one has any idea whether the documents came from an adversary, a U.S. insider, or one of the other “Five Eyes” nations. And there’s no indication that the documents put U.S. troops in danger (if they thwarted or stalled a large-scale Israeli attack they may well have kept them out of danger). 

Yet, the same outlets came to the same conclusion: don’t publish. The only explanation left is that media outlets are jumping at the chance to show the government that theirs are among the well-behaved journalists, not the troublemakers like Assange and WikiLeaks. 

Earlier this year, the U.S. government, seeking to extradite Assange, argued in a U.K. court that traditional journalists need not worry about the precedent a prosecution would set: They don’t just dump documents on the internet like WikiLeaks; they edit, redact, and make careful decisions about what to publish and not to publish. 

Implicit in that argument is that if news outlets were to print leaks in their entirety (i.e., if they pulled that Pentagon Papers stunt again), they’d be in the same boat as Assange. Maybe it’s a coincidence that the media is doing exactly what government lawyers just argued responsible journalists should do in these situations. But I doubt it. 

After all, the government believes it’s entirely up to its whims when national security reporters can be jailed. The Espionage Act, under which Assange was prosecuted, makes no distinction between “good” journalists who publish selectively and “bad” ones who do the opposite. 

The archaic law makes it a crime to obtain or publish national defense information under any circumstances. (Convicting a journalist for reporting the news would violate the First Amendment, assuming the current judiciary would uphold precedents set decades ago, but that’s no sure thing, and it’d be rather expensive to find out). In the Assange case, the government told journalists, who may technically violate the Espionage Act regularly, what they need to do if they want prosecutors to look the other way. It’s hard to imagine a more effective way, short of authoritarian tactics, to coerce journalists to tread cautiously. 

There may be times when editors have other reasons to hold back details, like names and troop positions. But that’s motivated by keeping individuals safe, not avoiding undermining foreign war efforts. There may also be times where outlets withhold documents to protect sources, but the Iran-Israel records had already been posted on a popular Telegram channel. 

In the aftermath of the Assange case, there seems to be a reflexive impulse against publishing leaked documents involving foreign adversaries, regardless of their newsworthiness and sensitivity. The government shouldn’t be able to dictate how reporters and editors do their jobs. But, due to the Espionage Act’s ambiguity, it can, and the media’s trepidation about publishing the Iran-Israel leaks shows that it’s working. 

It’s past time to reform the Espionage Act. But it’s also time for the media to be transparent about what really motivates these decisions. Maybe the latter would lead to the former by showing Americans the extent to which the Espionage Act constrains all journalists, not just Julian Assange.

U.S. lawmakers have spent months focused on speculative risks that China will use TikTok to surveil and propagandize Americans. They’re so concerned that they passed legislation to ban the platform, ignoring the Pentagon Papers case’s clear instruction that vague national security fearmongering is not sufficient to justify censorship.

But while our government was distracted by panic over young people reading about wars it finances on TikTok, The Wall Street Journal reported on a “catastrophic” actual security breach known as Salt Typhoon. The hack, which seems to have taken the lawmakers supposedly protecting us from China by surprise, may have given the Chinese government monthslong access to U.S. wiretapping systems used by internet service providers.

On Global Encryption Day, Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Senior Advisor Caitlin Vogus wrote for Tech Policy Press that Salt Typhoon should refocus Congress’s energy on serious measures to combat cyberattacks — like strengthening end-to-end encryption, as opposed to unconstitutional stunts like the TikTok ban.

Salt Typhoon should be a wake up call for Congress: Rather than pushing to expand the openings that adversaries can exploit — for example by requiring backdoors be added into end-to-end encrypted messaging services — lawmakers should start looking for ways to close or narrow them.

…

Perhaps if senators and representatives were less worried about grandstanding and more worried about confronting the actual national security threats that China poses to our country, they would have taken a serious look at the backdoors that are threatening Americans’ private data, rather than wasting time on a TikTok ban.

Read Vogus’s article here.

The Senate should have passed the PRESS Act months ago, after it sailed through the House in January. But despite the delay, the bill to protect journalist-source confidentiality is picking up real momentum heading into the lame-duck session.

The New York Times ran an editorial this month endorsing the PRESS Act and explaining why protecting journalists from government surveillance isn’t just about the press: “This law would effectively protect those who serve the public interest by blowing the whistle on government wrongdoing. And it would help protect all Americans, who deserve nothing less than the full truth about the officials they elect and the government they fund.”

Whistleblowers, the Times explained, are just as likely to expose corruption by Democrats as Republicans. That’s why administrations from both parties have retaliated against them and the journalists they work with. Regardless of politics, “By protecting reporters from having to reveal their sources, the bill would ideally encourage more whistle-blowers to help shine a light on government abuses.”

Now that his hometown paper (along with other New York outlets) has endorsed the bill, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who has said he wants it on the president’s desk this year, hopefully will make it a high priority for his year-end agenda.

It’s not just the Times. The Las Vegas Review-Journal ran its own editorial, explaining: “The legislation is ideological neutral, protecting reporters and editors regardless of their politics.” It called unsubstantiated claims that the legislation compromises national security “absurd” (and the bill has exceptions for national security emergencies anyway). “A greater danger would be to erode the very freedoms that protect American citizens from the perils of government overreach while shielding the state from scrutiny,” the Review-Journal’s editorial board wrote.

Catherine Herridge, the veteran investigative journalist who has reported for everyone from CBS News to Fox News, went on Dan Abrams’ show on NewsNation to explain that “smaller newsrooms, independent journalists cannot withstand the kind of financial and legal pressure that I have been facing for over two years.”

Herridge has been held in contempt of court for refusing to burn a source, and the judge has cited the absence of a federal “shield” law for reporters like the PRESS Act. Her case is pending on appeal.

Abrams’ father, the legendary First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams, has also endorsed the act, joining over 130 signers in a coalition letter Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) organized this summer. And this month, he authored an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal highlighting the need for a federal shield law so that sources can bring important news to journalists without fear of reprisal.

In addition, the Society of Professional Journalists, which represents thousands of journalists nationwide through its dozens of chapters, launched an ambitious online advocacy campaign that includes this video from FPF Executive Director Trevor Timm, who explains that the prospect of surveillance has “chilled investigative reporting and terrified sources.”

The PRESS Act, Timm added, “takes into account the modern media landscape and would protect independent journalists,” regardless of their political leanings, including by barring the government from surveilling them indirectly via their phone and email providers.

You can help too. The ACLU, one of many major national rights organizations that support the PRESS Act, has an easy-to-use form to tell your senators to advance the bill. Or you can email the Times’ editorial directly to your senators’ offices.

And if you happen to be a journalist or editorial board member, please, write about the most important press freedom legislation in modern history.

Learn more about the PRESS Act in our video below:

WATCH: The PRESS Act is the strongest shield bill we've ever seen and is imperative for journalist-source confidentiality.

Here's why the Senate needs to pass it now. pic.twitter.com/jysrKKFofF

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

Here are some of the most important stories we’re following from the U.S. and around the world. If you enjoy reading this newsletter, please forward it to friends and family. If someone has forwarded you this newsletter, please subscribe here.

New York Times pushes for PRESS Act

This week, The New York Times published an important editorial calling on the Senate to pass the PRESS Act, the strongest press freedom bill in modern history.

The PRESS Act has already passed the House unanimously, but it’s been stalled in the Senate, where opponents like Sen. Tom Cotton have held it up based on absurd claims.

We need the PRESS Act now more than ever. As the Times explained in its editorial, this is not simply a matter of “press versus government”:

"This law would effectively protect those who serve the public interest by blowing the whistle on government wrongdoing. And it would help protect all Americans, who deserve nothing less than the full truth about the officials they elect and the government they fund."

Read the editorial here, and consider sending it to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York (who has said he supports the PRESS Act) or your senator. You can also use this easy contact form from the ACLU to tell the Senate to pass the PRESS Act.

Intelligence community must give estimate of ‘incidental’ collections

Declassified reports and other hints have long shown that Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has been used and abused to spy on Americans.

But despite its promises to Congress, the intelligence community has never given a public estimate of the number of U.S. persons’ communications that are “incidentally” collected as part of the National Security Agency’s Section 702 surveillance.

This week, Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) and more than 20 other organizations joined a letter led by Restore the Fourth calling on the intelligence community to determine and release this estimate. Read it here.

U.S. must intervene on behalf of journalist charged by Israel

FPF also joined a letter led by Defending Rights & Dissent urging the U.S. embassy in Israel to advocate for American journalist Jeremy Loffredo, who was arrested on Oct. 9 and charged with “aiding the enemy during wartime and providing information to the enemy.” We wrote an op-ed about the case for The Guardian last week.

The charges against Loffredo are apparently based on his journalism regarding the impact of Iranian missile strikes in Israel. There must always be consequences when American journalists are punished for reporting news, even if the government responsible is an American ally or the journalist reports for a controversial outlet.

What we’re reading

As US presidential vote looms, newsrooms focus on how to stay safe (Voice of America). As FPF Executive Director Trevor Timm explains, “Police departments feel that they have the power to violate the rights of journalists. Then what ends up happening is it turns into a snowball effect. More police agencies crack down even harder.”

Courage is contagious: Daniel Hale to receive the inaugural Ellsberg Whistleblower Award (Ellsberg Whistleblower Award). Congratulations to Hale! Whistleblowers like Hale — who informed the public about high civilian casualties and governmental misconduct regarding U.S. drone warfare — deserve to be celebrated for their courage.

This reporter was arrested for asking questions. The Supreme Court just revived her lawsuit (Reason). Police and prosecutors who retaliate against journalists for their reporting should take note: The Supreme Court wants people whose First Amendment rights are violated by government retaliation to have their day in court.

The FBI knocked on my door (Ken Klippenstein). What’s the point of the FBI paying a journalist a home visit to tell him something he already knows, other than to say “you’re on our radar”? Ken Klippenstein may not be intimidated, but what if it had been a less experienced journalist?

Beef up the freedom of the press (The Wall Street Journal). “Journalists need to be able to maintain the confidentiality of sources who provide information about government misconduct or other sensitive information.” We need both the PRESS Act and stronger First Amendment protections for the press.

Come see us in Chicago, Washington, or London

On Monday, FPF Advocacy Director Seth Stern and other experts will discuss the threats to press freedom, including Israel's murder of journalists in Gaza, Project 2025, and the prosecution of Julian Assange. Join us at this event, organized by Defending Rights & Dissent, on Oct. 21 at 7:30 p.m. CT at Nabala Cafe, 4660 N. Broadway in Chicago.

The Double Exposure Festival & Symposium, Nov. 7-10 in Washington, D.C., will have panels, workshops, and master classes focused on investigative storytelling. Don’t miss our Director of Advocacy Seth Stern, who will discuss dangerous government efforts to limit who is a journalist — such as by excluding documentary filmmakers. Purchase your tickets or passes here.

Or come see us in London, where we’re co-hosting Source! the London Logan Symposium with The Centre for Investigative Journalism Nov. 14-15. Hear from journalists from all over the world about press freedom issues and the challenges they face in protecting themselves and their sources. Register to attend here.

Follow us on TikTok and Instagram

FPF is now live on Instagram and TikTok. Click the links to follow us and see our latest posts about press freedom.

Earlier this month, Israel detained American journalist Jeremy Loffredo, alleging that he had aided its enemy by reporting on Iranian strikes. He was released a few days later, but dozens of Palestinian journalists are still being held without trial and reportedly subjected to torture and abuse. 

We wrote for The Guardian that “If Israel’s theory is that reporters illegally share information with the enemy whenever the enemy reads the news, that could criminalize a whole lot of journalism.” 

We argued that the U.S. should not only demand its ally explain Loffredo’s arrest, but pressure it to release the 43 Palestinian journalists who remain in custody if it can’t prove a crime. Many are held under Israel’s “administrative detention” law, which allows for indefinite detention without charge or trial. 

“Israel shouldn’t be jailing any journalist who hasn’t committed a real crime, and the US shouldn’t turn a blind eye to its ally’s assaults on the press, let alone finance them,” we wrote.

We also joined Defending Rights & Dissent and Courage Foundation in a letter to the U.S. embassy in Israel calling for action on Loffredo’s case. 

Read the Guardian op-ed here.

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

Here are some of the most important stories we’re following from the U.S. and around the world. If you enjoy reading this newsletter, please forward it to friends and family. If someone has forwarded you this newsletter, please subscribe here.

Israel must stop arresting journalists — whether American or Palestinian

Israel, one of the world’s leading jailers of journalists, on Oct. 9 detained Jeremy Loffredo, an American journalist who writes for the controversial outlet, The Grayzone. He’s out now, but is barred from leaving the country as Israeli authorities attempt to build their case.

Israel reportedly charged Loffredo with aiding and providing information to the enemy, apparently for his reporting on Iranian strikes. If journalists commit a crime every time an enemy reads their reporting, that criminalizes a whole lot of journalism, and puts every outlet reporting on Israel’s wars at risk, not just The Grayzone.

We wrote for The Guardian that the U.S. should not only demand its ally explain Loffredo’s arrest, but pressure it to release the 43 Palestinian journalists who remain in custody if it can’t prove they committed a crime.

For more, listen to our X Space (recorded before Loffredo’s arrest) discussing Israel’s targeting of journalists and how the U.S. should be pressuring its ally to respect press freedom.

Time to drop journalist prosecutions

New guidance from the Department of Justice is making even clearer what every police officer should already know: Even when police can disperse protesters who break the law, they can’t disperse journalists.

This new guidance is the perfect opportunity for prosecutors to do the right thing with open cases against journalists for failing to disperse: drop them. Read our article calling out six prosecutors who should dismiss cases against journalists right away — and contact their offices to tell them to do so.

Heritage Foundation sends lots of FOIAs. That shouldn’t be a problem

The Heritage Foundation sends a lot of Freedom of Information Act requests about progressive issues, and it’s causing a stir.

Reporting how a right-wing foundation may use FOIA responses to gut the federal workforce is a worthy endeavor. But implying that FOIAs are illegitimate when the goal is partisan could give other agencies an excuse to deny requests they don’t like, including from journalists. Read more on our website.

DeSantis weaponizes trash disposal laws against free press

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration has threatened television stations that air ads supporting abortion rights with criminal liability under the state’s “sanitary nuisance” law.

Seth Stern, director of advocacy of Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) said in our statement: “A governor who is confident in his policies and secure in his leadership would welcome debate and correct statements he believes are misleading rather than trying to weaponize trash disposal laws against the free press. But DeSantis is not that governor.”

Anti-speech lawmakers continue targeting nonprofits

For months now, pandering U.S. lawmakers have set their sights on silencing nonprofit organizations — potentially including media outlets and press freedom groups.

They haven’t gotten their way yet, but the fight’s not over. Read more on our website about the ongoing efforts by FPF and others to push back against these cynical attempts to weaponize the IRS against free speech.

What we’re reading

San Jose City Hall abuses its power by asking for confidential sources (San José Spotlight). “It’s stunning that officials in the highest positions of power at San Jose City Hall are more concerned about finding 'leaks' than whether their elected official allegedly sexually abused minors."

ACLU SoCal demands LAPD officers stop obstructing L.A. Taco reporter from filming homeless ‘sweeps’ (L.A. Taco). Threatening a reporter with arrest for documenting police in public violates the First Amendment, plain and simple. Is the Los Angeles Police Department this ignorant of the law, or does it just not care?

Freedom of the press is waning. The next president can fix that (Poynter). Reporters Without Borders lists 10 ideas to improve the state of press freedom in the United States — including passing the PRESS Act to protect journalist-source confidentiality.

The visual-journalist crackdown (Columbia Journalism Review). Photos and videos by journalists are powerful, and the police know it. When police arrest and assault journalists covering protests, they keep the world from watching and holding them accountable.

Secrecy over officers’ names, pay keeps Virginians in the dark (Virginia Mercury). If a state’s public records law is so weak that police can keep secret the names and salaries of every officer who “might” go undercover someday, it’s time to rewrite the law.

Prison confiscates incarcerated journalist’s typewriter after she writes for New York Focus (New York Focus). "A week after incarcerated journalist Sara Kielly published an article criticizing the prison system for its solitary confinement practices, officers ransacked her cell." Retaliation against incarcerated journalists is unconstitutional.

Come see us in Washington or London

The Double Exposure Festival & Symposium, Nov. 7-10 in Washington, D.C., will have panels, workshops, and master classes focused on investigative storytelling. Don’t miss our Director of Advocacy Seth Stern, who will discuss dangerous government efforts to limit who is a journalist — such as by excluding documentary filmmakers. Purchase your tickets or passes here.

Or come see us in London, where we’re co-hosting Source! the London Logan Symposium with The Centre for Investigative Journalism Nov. 14-15. Hear from journalists from all over the world about press freedom issues and the challenges they face in protecting themselves and their sources. Register to attend here.

Follow us on TikTok and Instagram

FPF is now live on Instagram and TikTok. Click the links to follow us and see our latest posts about press freedom.

Independent photojournalist Josh Pacheco, seen here being arrested in Chicago during a protest of the Democratic National Convention in August, is one of several journalists facing charges for failing to comply with dispersal orders that should have never been issued.

Even when police can disperse protesters who break the law, they can’t disperse journalists along with them. And it follows that they can’t arrest journalists for not complying with orders to disperse that were illegal in the first place.

That shouldn’t be news. Appellate courts have said it. The Department of Justice said it in its reprimand of the Minneapolis Police Department for its crackdowns following George Floyd’s murder. But, as we saw at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, police departments haven’t gotten the message.

That’s why it’s so important that the DOJ is now saying it louder, in a new guidance containing recommendations from the department and the Police Executive Research Forum for police-press interactions at mass demonstrations. We should note that our friends at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press were instrumental in making this happen.

Here’s some key language:

“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, and under those circumstances, they will need to determine who they consider to be members of the media. Because this can be challenging in chaotic moments, it is recommended that police err on the side of inclusiveness, defining as “media” both credentialed press from established media outlets and noncredentialed individuals who are acting as reporters in their function and behavior.”

That seems clear enough. And it’s the perfect opportunity for prosecutors with open cases against journalists for failing to disperse to drop them.

Here are a few prosecutors who should jump at the opportunity to do the right thing. We’ll send them a copy of this article to make sure they’re on notice. Readers, feel free to do the same.

Cook County, Illinois, State’s Attorney Kim Foxx: According to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, a project of Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), cases remain pending against at least three journalists arrested during the DNC in August — Sinna Nasseri, Olga Fedorova, and Josh Pacheco.

None of these journalists are accused of doing anything illegal except not obeying police orders to disperse. The Chicago Police Department knew that was not a reason to arrest journalists — we warned them in the newspaper and on the radio. They were so confident they knew what they were doing that they declined offers from the National Press Photographers Association to train them on exactly these kinds of issues.

But they didn’t know what they were doing. In fact, CPD Deputy Director of News Affairs and Communications Tom Ahern went as far as to threaten to revoke journalists’ press credentials if they didn’t comply with his illegal orders. He even ripped credentials off reporters’ necks.

Foxx shouldn’t wait a minute longer to end this embarrassing ordeal and drop charges against any journalist arrested for doing their jobs at the DNC. And Ahern should resign. His conduct was inexcusable (check out the conversation we hosted last month with independent journalists who saw it firsthand, including Fedorova).

Multnomah County, Oregon, District Attorney Mike Schmidt: Journalist Alissa Azar was arrested while covering a pro-Palestinian protest at Portland State University on May 2, 2024. She’s accused of nothing other than not dispersing, and video of the arrest appears to confirm she wasn’t breaking any laws (note that this arrest has nothing to do with Azar’s recent conviction over an entirely separate incident in 2021).

We wrote a letter to Schmidt, joined by other leading press freedom organizations, but heard nothing. Schmidt should not need the DOJ to tell him the case should be dropped — the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over Oregon, has made clear that police can’t include law-abiding journalists in dispersal orders. Schmidt has also seen other Oregon officials get embarrassed and sued after pursuing unconstitutional cases against journalists. It might be too late to avoid a similar outcome but the DOJ guidance gives him a chance to at least mitigate the damage by dismissing the charges.

Ulster County, New York, District Attorney Emmanuel Nneji: Journalist John Camera was arrested on May 2 while covering a protest at the State University of New York at New Paltz. The protest escalated, and he was arrested by state troopers, along with 132 others, when he allegedly did not disperse on command.

One of the troopers told the Tracker he expected the charge to be dropped — so why bring it in the first place? These kinds of catch and release arrests serve no purpose except to censor journalists by removing them from the scene of the news they were covering.

That calls to mind another important recommendation included in the DOJ report: “Once the journalist has established they were acting as a journalist and were inadvertently or improperly detained, officers should be directed to quickly release the individual without charge.”

St. Lawrence County, New York, District Attorney Gary Pasqua: Isaac White, a reporter for Indian Time, was arrested while covering a demonstration on New York’s Barnhart Island this May. Even though he’s accused of nothing but failing to follow an illegal dispersal order, he’s facing charges of both trespassing and conspiracy, along with numerous protesters who were arrested along with him. To the best of our knowledge, his alleged “conspiring” doesn’t involve anything more than being present at the protest.

White told the Tracker that when police ordered him to disperse they didn’t tell him where he could go to keep doing his job. That’s a common problem. The DOJ report explains that, in the exceedingly rare event that police can constitutionally disperse a journalist because there’s no other way to mitigate some kind of public safety threat (and we’re aware of none in White’s case), they’re obligated to provide an alternate location from which the journalist can report.

And that doesn’t mean they can send journalists to the cheap seats — it has to be somewhere they can see and hear what’s going on.

Buncombe County, North Carolina, District Attorney Todd Williams: Asheville journalists Matilda Bliss and Veronica Coit are appealing their conviction for violating a park curfew to document police evicting a homeless encampment at a public park.

We’ve repeatedly noted the absurdity of Wiliams’ position that journalists can be barred from covering obviously newsworthy events, in plain sight and on public land, just because it’s dark out. And now the DOJ has agreed — law-abiding journalists cannot be subjected to curfews when attempting to do their jobs.

Williams’ office stubbornly pursued the misdemeanor case through a jury trial, costing local taxpayers significant money to punish the press. And there is evidence of retaliation against Bliss and Coit specifically that, under recent Supreme Court precedent, could subject the city and its officials to legal liability. That’s the last thing Asheville needs after Hurricane Helene.

Alameda County, California, District Attorney Pamela Price: Journalist Yesica Prado was arrested while reporting on a homeless encampment cleanup operation in Oakland, California, in September.

She questioned officers who had ordered her to report from behind a fence where she couldn’t see, and then was threatened with arrest — and use of force — for being in a “safe work zone.” Officers then followed through on the threat.

As a coalition of press freedom organizations, including FPF, explained in a joint statement, the First Amendment (not to mention California law) does not permit declaring a large area where news is happening a “work zone” or “crime scene” in order to expel the press.

It’s no different from dispersal orders or curfews — even when these designations can properly be invoked for public safety reasons, journalists should be exempted or, if absolutely necessary, given a viable alternative place to report from.

Prosecutors: Now’s the perfect time to drop these charges. You can even save face by claiming you changed course in response to the DOJ’s new guidance (although, just between us, you should have known they were unconstitutional from the outset).

Note: While the new DOJ guidance includes a disclaimer that some of its content may not represent the official position of the DOJ, it’s safe to assume that the discussion of not dispersing journalists does, given that the DOJ has taken identical positions in official reports.

Independent photojournalist Josh Pacheco, seen here being arrested in Chicago during a protest of the Democratic National Convention in August, is one of several journalists facing charges for failing to comply with dispersal orders that should have never been issued.

Even when police can disperse protesters who break the law, they can’t disperse journalists along with them. And it follows that they can’t arrest journalists for not complying with orders to disperse that were illegal in the first place.

That shouldn’t be news. Appellate courts have said it. The Department of Justice said it in its reprimand of the Minneapolis Police Department for its crackdowns following George Floyd’s murder. But, as we saw at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, police departments haven’t gotten the message.

That’s why it’s so important that the DOJ is now saying it louder, in a new guidance containing recommendations from the department and the Police Executive Research Forum for police-press interactions at mass demonstrations. We should note that our friends at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press were instrumental in making this happen.

Here’s some key language:

“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, and under those circumstances, they will need to determine who they consider to be members of the media. Because this can be challenging in chaotic moments, it is recommended that police err on the side of inclusiveness, defining as “media” both credentialed press from established media outlets and noncredentialed individuals who are acting as reporters in their function and behavior.”

That seems clear enough. And it’s the perfect opportunity for prosecutors with open cases against journalists for failing to disperse to drop them.

Here are a few prosecutors who should jump at the opportunity to do the right thing. We’ll send them a copy of this article to make sure they’re on notice. Readers, feel free to do the same.

Cook County, Illinois, State’s Attorney Kim Foxx: According to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, a project of Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), cases remain pending against at least three journalists arrested during the DNC in August — Sinna Nasseri, Olga Fedorova, and Josh Pacheco.

None of these journalists are accused of doing anything illegal except not obeying police orders to disperse. The Chicago Police Department knew that was not a reason to arrest journalists — we warned them in the newspaper and on the radio. They were so confident they knew what they were doing that they declined offers from the National Press Photographers Association to train them on exactly these kinds of issues.

But they didn’t know what they were doing. In fact, CPD Deputy Director of News Affairs and Communications Tom Ahern went as far as to threaten to revoke journalists’ press credentials if they didn’t comply with his illegal orders. He even ripped credentials off reporters’ necks.

Foxx shouldn’t wait a minute longer to end this embarrassing ordeal and drop charges against any journalist arrested for doing their jobs at the DNC. And Ahern should resign. His conduct was inexcusable (check out the conversation we hosted last month with independent journalists who saw it firsthand, including Fedorova).

Multnomah County, Oregon, District Attorney Mike Schmidt: Journalist Alissa Azar was arrested while covering a pro-Palestinian protest at Portland State University on May 2, 2024. She’s accused of nothing other than not dispersing, and video of the arrest appears to confirm she wasn’t breaking any laws (note that this arrest has nothing to do with Azar’s recent conviction over an entirely separate incident in 2021).

We wrote a letter to Schmidt, joined by other leading press freedom organizations, but heard nothing. Schmidt should not need the DOJ to tell him the case should be dropped — the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over Oregon, has made clear that police can’t include law-abiding journalists in dispersal orders. Schmidt has also seen other Oregon officials get embarrassed and sued after pursuing unconstitutional cases against journalists. It might be too late to avoid a similar outcome but the DOJ guidance gives him a chance to at least mitigate the damage by dismissing the charges.

Ulster County, New York, District Attorney Emmanuel Nneji: Journalist John Camera was arrested on May 2 while covering a protest at the State University of New York at New Paltz. The protest escalated, and he was arrested by state troopers, along with 132 others, when he allegedly did not disperse on command.

One of the troopers told the Tracker he expected the charge to be dropped — so why bring it in the first place? These kinds of catch and release arrests serve no purpose except to censor journalists by removing them from the scene of the news they were covering.

That calls to mind another important recommendation included in the DOJ report: “Once the journalist has established they were acting as a journalist and were inadvertently or improperly detained, officers should be directed to quickly release the individual without charge.”

St. Lawrence County, New York, District Attorney Gary Pasqua: Isaac White, a reporter for Indian Time, was arrested while covering a demonstration on New York’s Barnhart Island this May. Even though he’s accused of nothing but failing to follow an illegal dispersal order, he’s facing charges of both trespassing and conspiracy, along with numerous protesters who were arrested along with him. To the best of our knowledge, his alleged “conspiring” doesn’t involve anything more than being present at the protest.

White told the Tracker that when police ordered him to disperse they didn’t tell him where he could go to keep doing his job. That’s a common problem. The DOJ report explains that, in the exceedingly rare event that police can constitutionally disperse a journalist because there’s no other way to mitigate some kind of public safety threat (and we’re aware of none in White’s case), they’re obligated to provide an alternate location from which the journalist can report.

And that doesn’t mean they can send journalists to the cheap seats — it has to be somewhere they can see and hear what’s going on.

Buncombe County, North Carolina, District Attorney Todd Williams: Asheville journalists Matilda Bliss and Veronica Coit are appealing their conviction for violating a park curfew to document police evicting a homeless encampment at a public park.

We’ve repeatedly noted the absurdity of Wiliams’ position that journalists can be barred from covering obviously newsworthy events, in plain sight and on public land, just because it’s dark out. And now the DOJ has agreed — law-abiding journalists cannot be subjected to curfews when attempting to do their jobs.

Williams’ office stubbornly pursued the misdemeanor case through a jury trial, costing local taxpayers significant money to punish the press. And there is evidence of retaliation against Bliss and Coit specifically that, under recent Supreme Court precedent, could subject the city and its officials to legal liability. That’s the last thing Asheville needs after Hurricane Helene.

Alameda County, California, District Attorney Pamela Price: Journalist Yesica Prado was arrested while reporting on a homeless encampment cleanup operation in Oakland, California, in September.

She questioned officers who had ordered her to report from behind a fence where she couldn’t see, and then was threatened with arrest — and use of force — for being in a “safe work zone.” Officers then followed through on the threat.

As a coalition of press freedom organizations, including FPF, explained in a joint statement, the First Amendment (not to mention California law) does not permit declaring a large area where news is happening a “work zone” or “crime scene” in order to expel the press.

It’s no different from dispersal orders or curfews — even when these designations can properly be invoked for public safety reasons, journalists should be exempted or, if absolutely necessary, given a viable alternative place to report from.

Prosecutors: Now’s the perfect time to drop these charges. You can even save face by claiming you changed course in response to the DOJ’s new guidance (although, just between us, you should have known they were unconstitutional from the outset).

Note: While the new DOJ guidance includes a disclaimer that some of its content may not represent the official position of the DOJ, it’s safe to assume that the discussion of not dispersing journalists does, given that the DOJ has taken identical positions in official reports.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Oct. 9, 2024 — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration sent a letter threatening television stations that air ads supporting abortion rights with criminal liability under the state’s “sanitary nuisance” law, which could include up to 60 days in jail.

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

“This is the latest proof that there is no limit to how low DeSantis will stoop to censor free speech and punish dissent. It comes on the heels of his efforts to rewrite defamation law to make it easier for the rich and powerful to bankrupt their critics, his Stop WOKE Act stunt, and other similarly unconstitutional nonsense.

“A governor who is confident in his policies and secure in his leadership would welcome debate and correct statements he believes are misleading rather than trying to weaponize trash disposal laws against the free press. But DeSantis is not that governor. His administration’s conduct would be silly if it weren’t such a transparent bully tactic.

“Floridians care about the First Amendment, which is why DeSantis’ outrageous censorship campaigns keep failing. We hope the news outlets he targets will not only ignore him but loudly shame him.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at a September press conference.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Oct. 9, 2024 — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration sent a letter threatening television stations that air ads supporting abortion rights with criminal liability under the state’s “sanitary nuisance” law, which could include up to 60 days in jail.

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

“This is the latest proof that there is no limit to how low DeSantis will stoop to censor free speech and punish dissent. It comes on the heels of his efforts to rewrite defamation law to make it easier for the rich and powerful to bankrupt their critics, his Stop WOKE Act stunt, and other similarly unconstitutional nonsense.

“A governor who is confident in his policies and secure in his leadership would welcome debate and correct statements he believes are misleading rather than trying to weaponize trash disposal laws against the free press. But DeSantis is not that governor. His administration’s conduct would be silly if it weren’t such a transparent bully tactic.

“Floridians care about the First Amendment, which is why DeSantis’ outrageous censorship campaigns keep failing. We hope the news outlets he targets will not only ignore him but loudly shame him.”

The Heritage Foundation sends a lot of Freedom of Information Act requests about progressive issues, from climate change to policies on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and it’s causing a stir.

A recent ProPublica article detailed the FOIA campaign, which is allegedly part of Project 2025’s effort to identify agency officials for potential firing.

ProPublica, which obtained the information for its article through its own FOIA requests, suggests that the hundreds of Heritage Foundation requests may intimidate public officials and prevent FOIA offices from effectively responding to “legitimate” requests by clogging the FOIA queues.

Reporting how the Heritage Foundation may use FOIA responses to gut the federal workforce is a worthy endeavor. Implying that FOIAs are illegitimate when the goal is partisan is a slippery slope that could give other agencies an excuse to deny requests they don’t like.

Most importantly, it is not the requesters' fault, even if they are frequent requesters, that the government can’t effectively search and review large amounts of records.

A few key points:

• Federal employees’ records that detail their work should be fair game for FOIA requests.
• Many of the requests would have been unnecessary if agencies proactively posted information like they are supposed to.
• Even a large FOIA project like the Heritage Foundation’s is not the reason the entire federal government’s FOIA backlog increases every year.

Implying that FOIAs are illegitimate when the goal is partisan is a slippery slope that could give other agencies an excuse to deny requests they don’t like.

Maligning the records seeker

Blaming FOIA requesters for the worsening of the FOIA processing landscape is not new.

Jason Leopold, a national security reporter and prolific FOIA requester, was once called a “FOIA terrorist” for the number of FOIA requests he filed. He’s been repeatedly cited by agencies as an example of why they can’t process other requests and there need to be more limits around requesters.

MuckRock, a nonprofit that makes it easier for citizens and freelance journalists to file requests, has been similarly maligned by agency FOIA officials.

And while “bad faith requesters” do exist, my colleague Caitlin Vogus recently wrote that the best way to counter them “is to correct the record with more information.”

Most agencies don’t respond by releasing more information, and instead continue to ignore requirements for proactive posting.

FOIA clearly states that agencies: 1) must publish items of public interest before anyone files a FOIA for the information, and 2) must publicly post records that are frequently requested. Most agencies struggle to consistently meet these requirements, if they meet them at all.

The monthly calendars of high-level officials requested by the Heritage Foundation are an example of records that should already have been public. Top officials’ calendars are often requested — by all sorts of organizations and individuals. If agencies had proactively posted the calendars, this would have saved them from processing hundreds of Heritage Foundation FOIAs.

Flooding the FOIA office?

One of the criticisms hurled at the Heritage Foundation — and journalists like Leopold — is that their requests are so voluminous that agencies can’t respond to other requesters.

It’s true that agencies struggle to respond to FOIA requests. Every year, the Justice Department reports that the government-wide FOIA backlog has increased.

It’s also true that large, complex requests take longer to process than simple requests. But large requests are allowed as long as it’s clear what the requester is asking for.

The more important question to ask is why can’t agencies effectively process requests for large amounts of information.

There are several reasons:

• Records are still reviewed manually even though it is impossible for human reviewers to keep up with exponentially increasing digital records.
• Many FOIA offices don’t conduct records searches because they don’t have access to the records, instead asking the person whose records are being sought or an IT department to do it. This causes delays if non-FOIA officials don’t prioritize the search, and means a FOIA officer doesn’t always know how other officials are conducting a search.
• Most FOIA funding is tight and comes from other parts of an agency’s budget. This impacts software purchases and decisions integral to the FOIA process. For example, agencies usually pay for third-party software to redact documents. Software vendors charge agencies based on the amount of documents they store during the review process. This means that agencies pay more money to process larger requests. If a FOIA office doesn’t have enough funding, this expense could be an incentive to deny large requests outright.
• These factors help contribute to a culture of secrecy over disclosure, with FOIA offices spending time and resources needlessly denying FOIAs and/or applying unnecessary exemptions.

Now what?

FOIA offices are underwater, that’s clear. The solution is equally clear. Agencies should post more information proactively and be allocated the funding necessary to invest in commonsense search and review tools.

FOIA requesters and journalists who write about FOIA problems play an important role, too — keeping the pressure on agencies to improve rather than blaming other requesters.

Even frequent requesters like the Heritage Foundation are not at fault if the government can’t effectively search and review large amounts of records.

The Heritage Foundation sends a lot of Freedom of Information Act requests about progressive issues, from climate change to policies on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and it’s causing a stir.

A recent ProPublica article detailed the FOIA campaign, which is allegedly part of Project 2025’s effort to identify agency officials for potential firing.

ProPublica, which obtained the information for its article through its own FOIA requests, suggests that the hundreds of Heritage Foundation requests may intimidate public officials and prevent FOIA offices from effectively responding to “legitimate” requests by clogging the FOIA queues.

Reporting how the Heritage Foundation may use FOIA responses to gut the federal workforce is a worthy endeavor. Implying that FOIAs are illegitimate when the goal is partisan is a slippery slope that could give other agencies an excuse to deny requests they don’t like.

Most importantly, it is not the requesters' fault, even if they are frequent requesters, that the government can’t effectively search and review large amounts of records.

A few key points:

• Federal employees’ records that detail their work should be fair game for FOIA requests.
• Many of the requests would have been unnecessary if agencies proactively posted information like they are supposed to.
• Even a large FOIA project like the Heritage Foundation’s is not the reason the entire federal government’s FOIA backlog increases every year.

Implying that FOIAs are illegitimate when the goal is partisan is a slippery slope that could give other agencies an excuse to deny requests they don’t like.

Maligning the records seeker

Blaming FOIA requesters for the worsening of the FOIA processing landscape is not new.

Jason Leopold, a national security reporter and prolific FOIA requester, was once called a “FOIA terrorist” for the number of FOIA requests he filed. He’s been repeatedly cited by agencies as an example of why they can’t process other requests and there need to be more limits around requesters.

MuckRock, a nonprofit that makes it easier for citizens and freelance journalists to file requests, has been similarly maligned by agency FOIA officials.

And while “bad faith requesters” do exist, my colleague Caitlin Vogus recently wrote that the best way to counter them “is to correct the record with more information.”

Most agencies don’t respond by releasing more information, and instead continue to ignore requirements for proactive posting.

FOIA clearly states that agencies: 1) must publish items of public interest before anyone files a FOIA for the information, and 2) must publicly post records that are frequently requested. Most agencies struggle to consistently meet these requirements, if they meet them at all.

The monthly calendars of high-level officials requested by the Heritage Foundation are an example of records that should already have been public. Top officials’ calendars are often requested — by all sorts of organizations and individuals. If agencies had proactively posted the calendars, this would have saved them from processing hundreds of Heritage Foundation FOIAs.

Flooding the FOIA office?

One of the criticisms hurled at the Heritage Foundation — and journalists like Leopold — is that their requests are so voluminous that agencies can’t respond to other requesters.

It’s true that agencies struggle to respond to FOIA requests. Every year, the Justice Department reports that the government-wide FOIA backlog has increased.

It’s also true that large, complex requests take longer to process than simple requests. But large requests are allowed as long as it’s clear what the requester is asking for.

The more important question to ask is why can’t agencies effectively process requests for large amounts of information.

There are several reasons:

• Records are still reviewed manually even though it is impossible for human reviewers to keep up with exponentially increasing digital records.
• Many FOIA offices don’t conduct records searches because they don’t have access to the records, instead asking the person whose records are being sought or an IT department to do it. This causes delays if non-FOIA officials don’t prioritize the search, and means a FOIA officer doesn’t always know how other officials are conducting a search.
• Most FOIA funding is tight and comes from other parts of an agency’s budget. This impacts software purchases and decisions integral to the FOIA process. For example, agencies usually pay for third-party software to redact documents. Software vendors charge agencies based on the amount of documents they store during the review process. This means that agencies pay more money to process larger requests. If a FOIA office doesn’t have enough funding, this expense could be an incentive to deny large requests outright.
• These factors help contribute to a culture of secrecy over disclosure, with FOIA offices spending time and resources needlessly denying FOIAs and/or applying unnecessary exemptions.

Now what?

FOIA offices are underwater, that’s clear. The solution is equally clear. Agencies should post more information proactively and be allocated the funding necessary to invest in commonsense search and review tools.

FOIA requesters and journalists who write about FOIA problems play an important role, too — keeping the pressure on agencies to improve rather than blaming other requesters.

For months now, pandering U.S. lawmakers have their sights set on silencing nonprofit organizations — potentially including media outlets and press freedom groups.

They haven’t gotten their way yet but the fight’s not over. Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) has repeatedly joined plenty of other organizations to publicly shame these anti-speech officials for their cynical attempts to weaponize the IRS against opinions they don’t like.

And the resistance seems to be working — at least so far.

Bill to censor nonprofits stalls twice

Earlier this year, the House passed a bill that would allow the secretary of the Treasury to revoke nonprofits’ tax-exempt status, without due process and using secret evidence, by deeming them supporters of terrorists.

We wrote for The Intercept last spring about the implications for nonprofit media, especially in light of recent letters from lawmakers baselessly accusing outlets that are critical of Israel of supporting terror. Others wrote about the potential for the powers contemplated by the bill to be abused against environmental organizations, student groups, and others.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations led a letter signed by 135 organizations (including FPF) objecting to the bill in May. The ACLU also sent its own letter. And the bill died in the Senate soon after, when efforts to attach it to the Federal Aviation Administration’s reauthorization legislation failed (no, we don’t know what the bill had to do with aviation).

It returned in September. This time, lawmakers tried attaching it to legislation granting tax benefits to American hostages and held a hearing on Sept. 11, effectively daring anyone to question a purported anti-terrorism bill on that day.

That backfired when The Washington Post called out their willingness to undermine the chances of the hostage bill for the sake of censoring nonprofits. It also further galvanized the opposition among nonprofits, with the ACLU sending another letter to House leadership, signed by over 120 organizations, again including FPF. The bill again stalled.

Censorial lawmakers resort to Plan B

Unable to legislate new power to silence nonprofits, lawmakers are claiming they already can under existing authority, citing decades-old IRS guidance on nonprofits that support criminality.

Republican House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith sent a letter on Sept. 24, baselessly demanding the IRS revoke the nonprofit tax-exempt status of 15 organizations that advocate for Palestinian human rights. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson tweeted the letter the next day, tagging many of the organizations and further threatening them on behalf of House Republicans.

The organizations named in the letter weren’t news outlets, but given that Smith didn’t cite any supposedly illegal activities besides encouraging dissent (the theory, presumably, is that the organizations are on the hook for any lawlessness that takes place at a protest they promote), it’s not hard to imagine similar arguments against news outlets that platform similar views.

We once again joined the Council on American-Islamic Relations and 100 other groups to admonish Smith and Johnson for their disregard of the First Amendment. Calling their tactics “reminiscent of the McCarthy era,” the letter notes that their “bad-faith referral to the IRS is not based on any legitimate concerns of criminal conduct by these organizations. Instead, it stems from your personal discomfort with their constitutionally protected activities.”

It goes on to note the hypocrisy behind the call for censorship, as Republicans in Congress have been quick to accuse the IRS and other federal agencies of unfairly investigating First Amendment activity — but only when they like the message of those speaking.

The groups’ letter also warns against further attempts to advance this flawed legislation or similar bills, which would “undermine fundamental due process protections and would empower the government to target civil rights, humanitarian, journalistic, and advocacy organizations based on their political positions.”

Although efforts to push back against these outrageous assaults on nonprofits seem to have been successful so far, it’s clear they have staying power. And while the Smith letter was Republican-led, Democrats joined in pushing the legislation through the House — meaning this nonsense will likely persist no matter how the November election goes.

Any nonprofits, media outlets, or free speech advocates that haven’t spoken up yet should not let the next opportunity pass them by.

House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks to reporters on Sept. 25, the same day he posted on social media threatening nonprofits with revocation of their tax-exempt status.

For months now, pandering U.S. lawmakers have their sights set on silencing nonprofit organizations — potentially including media outlets and press freedom groups.

They haven’t gotten their way yet but the fight’s not over. Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) has repeatedly joined plenty of other organizations to publicly shame these anti-speech officials for their cynical attempts to weaponize the IRS against opinions they don’t like.

And the resistance seems to be working — at least so far.

Bill to censor nonprofits stalls twice

Earlier this year, the House passed a bill that would allow the secretary of the Treasury to revoke nonprofits’ tax-exempt status, without due process and using secret evidence, by deeming them supporters of terrorists.

We wrote for The Intercept last spring about the implications for nonprofit media, especially in light of recent letters from lawmakers baselessly accusing outlets that are critical of Israel of supporting terror. Others wrote about the potential for the powers contemplated by the bill to be abused against environmental organizations, student groups, and others.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations led a letter signed by 135 organizations (including FPF) objecting to the bill in May. The ACLU also sent its own letter. And the bill died in the Senate soon after, when efforts to attach it to the Federal Aviation Administration’s reauthorization legislation failed (no, we don’t know what the bill had to do with aviation).

It returned in September. This time, lawmakers tried attaching it to legislation granting tax benefits to American hostages and held a hearing on Sept. 11, effectively daring anyone to question a purported anti-terrorism bill on that day.

That backfired when The Washington Post called out their willingness to undermine the chances of the hostage bill for the sake of censoring nonprofits. It also further galvanized the opposition among nonprofits, with the ACLU sending another letter to House leadership, signed by over 120 organizations, again including FPF. The bill again stalled.

Censorial lawmakers resort to Plan B

Unable to legislate new power to silence nonprofits, lawmakers are claiming they already can under existing authority, citing decades-old IRS guidance on nonprofits that support criminality.

Republican House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith sent a letter on Sept. 24, baselessly demanding the IRS revoke the nonprofit tax-exempt status of 15 organizations that advocate for Palestinian human rights. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson tweeted the letter the next day, tagging many of the organizations and further threatening them on behalf of House Republicans.

The organizations named in the letter weren’t news outlets, but given that Smith didn’t cite any supposedly illegal activities besides encouraging dissent (the theory, presumably, is that the organizations are on the hook for any lawlessness that takes place at a protest they promote), it’s not hard to imagine similar arguments against news outlets that platform similar views.

We once again joined the Council on American-Islamic Relations and 100 other groups to admonish Smith and Johnson for their disregard of the First Amendment. Calling their tactics “reminiscent of the McCarthy era,” the letter notes that their “bad-faith referral to the IRS is not based on any legitimate concerns of criminal conduct by these organizations. Instead, it stems from your personal discomfort with their constitutionally protected activities.”

It goes on to note the hypocrisy behind the call for censorship, as Republicans in Congress have been quick to accuse the IRS and other federal agencies of unfairly investigating First Amendment activity — but only when they like the message of those speaking.

The groups’ letter also warns against further attempts to advance this flawed legislation or similar bills, which would “undermine fundamental due process protections and would empower the government to target civil rights, humanitarian, journalistic, and advocacy organizations based on their political positions.”

Although efforts to push back against these outrageous assaults on nonprofits seem to have been successful so far, it’s clear they have staying power. And while the Smith letter was Republican-led, Democrats joined in pushing the legislation through the House — meaning this nonsense will likely persist no matter how the November election goes.

Any nonprofits, media outlets, or free speech advocates that haven’t spoken up yet should not let the next opportunity pass them by.

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

Here are some of the most important stories we’re following from the U.S. and around the world. If you enjoy reading this newsletter, please forward it to friends and family. If someone has forwarded you this newsletter, please subscribe here.

Time for Biden to declassify Khashoggi intelligence

This week marked six years since Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi was brutally murdered by the Saudi Arabian government. The U.S. government has declassified some information on the murder, including its belief that Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammad bin Salman approved the order to “capture or kill” Khashoggi.

But too much remains hidden, and this secrecy prevents accountability and serves to endanger other journalists. In an op-ed for The Daily Beast, Lauren Harper, Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy for Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), urged the Biden administration to declassify more intelligence on Khashoggi’s murder.

Declassification would prioritize the public’s right to know over America’s relationship with an autocratic ruler. You can read the full op-ed here.

Sheriff in Texas extorts journalist with his own equipment

Back in 2021, sheriff’s deputies in Fort Bend County, Texas, illegally arrested citizen journalist Justin Pulliam for filming them conducting a mental health check. They also seized his phone and equipment, in clear violation of the Privacy Protection Act of 1980.

The charges against Pulliam were dropped in May, but he recently told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker — a project of FPF — that the phone and equipment illegally seized from him when he was arrested has yet to be returned. The reason? He declined to sign a waiver releasing the sheriff’s office from liability in order to get back his property.

Read more about this, and the sheriff’s other unconstitutional acts, on our website. The officers involved shouldn’t be released from liability -– they should be released from their jobs.

Frivolous SLAPPs stalk journalists

A small nonprofit newspaper in Wisconsin recently won a legal victory against a frivolous defamation lawsuit. But the case shows that sometimes winning isn’t enough.

The lawsuit against the Wausau Pilot & Review is a prime example of how resentful subjects of reporting can weaponize the legal system to attack the First Amendment. The costs of SLAPPs, or strategic lawsuits against public participation, can be staggering.

We explain on our website that without strong laws that protect against SLAPPs at both the state and federal level, even journalists who win can lose.

Release Camp David documents for President Carter’s 100th birthday

Former President Jimmy Carter turned 100 this week. A fitting birthday present would be for the CIA to fully declassify its records on the 1978 Camp David Accords.

Releasing the full record of the peace talks between Israel and Egypt, one of the highlights of his administration, would not only commemorate Carter’s foreign policy legacy, it would add important context for policymakers as escalation continues between Israel and its neighbors.

Lauren Harper has more on our website about why it’s time for this unnecessary secrecy to end.

Lawsuit seeks transparency on Assange prosecution

The U.S. government’s prosecution of Julian Assange ended earlier this year, but plenty of questions about its decade-plus pursuit of the WikiLeaks founder remain unanswered.

A new Freedom of Information Act lawsuit — filed against the FBI and Department of Justice by our friends at Defending Rights and Dissent — seeks to change that.

We held an X Space discussion with DRAD Policy Director Chip Gibbons and Kevin Gosztola, editor of The Dissenter and author of “Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case Against Julian Assange,” to discuss the secrecy surrounding Assange’s case. Read about it or listen here.

What we’re reading

Heritage Foundation staffers flood federal agencies with thousands of information requests (ProPublica). The problem isn’t how many FOIA requests the Heritage Foundation filed, or their subject. It’s that government agencies are incapable of effectively searching and reviewing large amounts of records. Agencies like the CIA and FBI don’t need more help denying requests they don’t like and requesters they deem “vexatious.”

I'm a journalist from Gaza. Israel's recent Ramallah closure is bigger than Al Jazeera (MSNBC). “By attacking journalists, whether through the bombing of their homes, as in my case, or shutting down newsrooms, as we saw in Ramallah, Israel is sending a chilling message: Telling the truth is dangerous work with a steep price.”

On Edge: What the US election could mean for journalists and global press freedom (Committee to Protect Journalists). As part of its special election report, CPJ calls on both U.S. presidential candidates to endorse the PRESS Act to protect journalists from secret surveillance and the threat of jail.

California governor vetoes bill expanding media access to prisons (The Desk). There may have been good reasons to veto this bill, but the risk of making inmates famous isn’t one of them. Journalists covering prison face countless obstacles. The dangers of the status quo far outweigh the risk of a bad guy getting 15 minutes.

Federal judge blocks police buffer zone law in media lawsuit (Indiana Capital Chronicle). Courts recognize a constitutional right to record police. But anti-transparency lawmakers have a workaround: barring people from getting close to them. These buffer laws are blatantly unconstitutional. Good for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press for fighting back.

Texans’ right to free speech is under attack … again (Hill Country News). The Texas legislature held a hearing this week on the “use and misuse” of the Texas anti-SLAPP law. The law protects journalists and all Texans who want to speak freely. We must protect it.

Trump rages at Google, says he will ‘request their prosecution’ at the ‘maximum levels’ as president (Mediaite). Turns out the “maximum level” at which Google can be prosecuted for displaying news stories that Trump dislikes is exactly zero, because of the First Amendment. No politician should get to decide what news we can and can’t read.

Come see us in Washington or London

The Double Exposure Festival & Symposium, Nov. 7-10 in Washington, D.C., will have panels, workshops, and master classes focused on investigative storytelling. Don’t miss our Director of Advocacy Seth Stern, who will discuss dangerous government efforts to limit who is a journalist — such as by excluding documentary filmmakers. Purchase your tickets or passes here.

Or come see us in London, where we’re co-hosting Source! the London Logan Symposium with The Centre for Investigative Journalism Nov. 14-15. Hear from journalists from all over the world about press freedom issues and the challenges they face in protecting themselves and their sources. Register to attend here.

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