Freedom of the Press

From Daniel Ellsberg’s Pentagon Papers to Edward Snowden’s National Security Agency surveillance disclosures, whistleblowers have been behind some of the most impactful revelations in American history.

Both Ellsberg and Snowden risked their safety and personal freedom to leak documents to the press. While whistleblowers face similar risks today, they can protect their identities using modern whistleblowing platforms like SecureDrop — a project of Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) — and anonymity systems like the Tor Network.

To answer questions about how the public can safely share information with the press and use available tools to do so, FPF’s Chief Information Security Officer and Director of Digital Security Harlo Holmes and SecureDrop Staff Engineer Kevin O’Gorman engaged with Reddit’s r/IAmA community members on June 10 in a Q&A session.

The following select questions from various Reddit users, and Holmes and O’Gorman’s answers, have been edited for brevity and clarity. You can view the full thread here.

If I were a whistleblower with top-secret information, how would I get it to the newspapers without getting caught? What’s the high-level process like?

Harlo: There are a lot of variables that you’d have to consider and would only know of once you’re in that position! But, please know that whistleblowing is a hugely heroic act and there are always risks. Not only is there the possibility of “getting caught,” as you say, there is the prospect of retaliation down the line, loss of livelihood, and a lot of trauma that comes with making such a huge decision.

Other higher-level processes have to do with the aftermath. In a newsroom, journalists and their editorial team deliberate a lot about how best to write the story with what the whistleblower has supplied them. This may mean weighing matters of security, reputation, and the protection of everyone involved.

About a year ago, Signal introduced phone number privacy and usernames, effectively enabling Signal users to be (almost) anonymous if they want to. And major news outlets like The New York Times and The Guardian accept tips through Signal. Can you tell me how SecureDrop is more secure and better at protecting the privacy of the whistleblower?

Harlo: They’re both good. It’s all about “right-sizing” your tipline support. SecureDrop can be beyond the budget or bandwidth for some small newsmakers, and that’s why we at FPF can help in building a solution that fits. Fundamentally, a newsroom should ensure confidentiality and encryption. Both tools will get you there.

Kevin: Further to Harlo’s point, Signal’s approach is definitely better at scale and in general, while SecureDrop is designed to solve a more specific problem. That said, SecureDrop has some advantages for leaking to the press.

Signal requires a dedicated app, which leaves traces of its use. A source facing potential seizure and examination of their devices will leave fewer traces using Tor Browser. SecureDrop relies on an airgap to protect its decryption key, which protects journalists and sources by quarantining file submissions and makes it harder to target journalists with malware.

There are always trade-offs in play between security and ease of use, Signal is a solid choice and, from a purely cryptographic perspective, there’s no faulting it.

The Democrats released their own “whistleblowing” form a few months back for federal workers. That seems like a supremely bad idea, yes? It just looks like a Google form. Are there any big failures that you are aware of?

Harlo: Not my show, not my monkeys. We work with the press and are restricted from working with political parties. That said, we can share some tips regarding safer whistleblowing practices that anyone can adopt if they’re building a platform for intake!

First off, “be available everywhere.” In the past, whistleblowers have been burned because their web histories pointed directly to when and where they reached out to their journalist. So, use the commons of the internet to give people the information they need to securely establish first contact. If you’re running a tipline advertisement on your own website, use an encrypted and safe URL that will not indicate that the public has visited your explicit whistleblowing instructions.

Third-party services like Google are not your friend for the most sensitive of data. Google can definitely be subpoenaed for all the juicy whistleblower details. Find an alternative. Make your submission portals available over Tor, too! Visiting an onion address can make a huge difference.

Lastly, encrypt all the things. This means data in transit as well as at rest. If you are going to plop the next Panama Papers on your hard drive, encrypt that computer like your life depends on it.

As we have recently seen in some dramatic examples, all of the world’s encryption can’t help if the users misuse it. When you help news orgs set up SecureDrop, doesn’t this basically mean that you have to be giving them constant support to them and to whistleblowers on how to use it?

Kevin: This is the gig :)

By design, we have no contact with whistleblowers using SecureDrop. A key property of the system is that it is self-hosted with no subpoenable third parties in the loop, including us.

But we do journalist digital security training, publish guides for whistleblowers, and work with newsrooms to ensure they’re providing prospective sources with good operational security guidelines via their sites.

On the administration side, once set up, SecureDrop instances are actually pretty low-maintenance in terms of support — most updates are automated, for example. We run a support portal available to all administrators, but probably only about half of instances ever need to reach out. The system’s applications do need frequent security updates, and while the codebase is mature at this stage we do regular audits and make changes as a result, so there is an ongoing development effort there.

What do you all think about the security of good ol’ postal mail for whistleblowers, especially if they have a hard drive or doc trove to share? Is it always better to go with a secure digital solution or is there still a utility to the old-fashioned tactics like mail and IRL dead drops?

Kevin: A lot of newsrooms still offer postal mail as an option for tips, and there are definitely cases where it makes sense. If you’re dropping multiple gigabytes worth of files for example, systems using Tor are going to be slow and prone to network issues. (SecureDrop has a hard limit of 500MB on individual submissions, partially for this reason).

But it’s important that sources remember they still need to take steps to protect their anonymity when using postal mail. Obviously, adding a return address that is associated with the source in any way is a bad idea, as is mailing it from a post office or a mailbox somewhere you spend any amount of time. So sources should be posting their tips from mailboxes somewhere they don’t normally go.

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

It’s the 80th day that Rümeysa Öztürk is facing deportation by the United States government for writing an op-ed it didn’t like. Meanwhile, aggression from law enforcement at protests in California have landed journalists in the hospital. Read on for more press freedom news.

Journalists under attack in LA

Our U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has been hard at work documenting the growing list of attacks on journalists — from shootings with crowd-control munitions to detainments to unlawful searches.

It’s a situation that is likely to get worse and spread to other cities, with local law enforcement emboldened by the administration’s rhetoric and federal agents being haphazardly thrown into situations they’re not trained to handle.

We worked with partner organizations in California to send letters to the Department of Homeland Security, Los Angeles law enforcement agencies, the Marines and National Guard informing them of their obligations under the First Amendment, and in the case of the local authorities, California law.

Of course, strongly worded letters are not nearly enough for situations like these, and there’s plenty more work to do. But in the meantime, we’re not going to stay silent. Read the letters here, here and here.

Superstar lawyers join our effort to stop Paramount settlement

As reported in the Los Angeles Times, we’ve got a legal all-star team behind our effort to stop Paramount Global from capitulating to President Donald Trump by settling his frivolous lawsuit over an edited “60 Minutes” interview with then Vice President Kamala Harris.

Abbe Lowell, a highly respected litigator who has handled countless high-profile cases, Norman Eisen, a former ambassador to the Czech Republic and White House ethics advisor and their respective teams sent a formal demand letter to Paramount’s directors on our behalf outlining our plans to file a shareholder derivative suit if Paramount tanks its reputation and furthers America’s democratic backslide by caving.

This is an expensive endeavor, and we don’t get a dime if we win — whatever we recover from rogue Paramount directors and officers goes back to Paramount. Read more here and support us if you can.

FPF takes State Department to court over Öztürk secrecy

Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) is taking the government to court over its refusal to disclose information about the arrest of Tufts graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk for exercising her constitutionally protected right to coauthor an op-ed the government didn’t like.

FPF, represented by Loevy and Loevy, filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the State Department in the District Court for the District of Columbia to force the release of two documents that will shed light on the government’s targeting of Öztürk. Read more here.

Documenting 10 years of Trump’s anti-press social media tirades

61,989. That’s how many social media posts by President Donald Trump over the past decade Tracker journalist Stephanie Sugars has single-handedly reviewed (at least as of yesterday).

Monday will mark 10 years since Trump famously descended a golden escalator at New York City’s Trump Tower in 2015 and launched his first winning bid for the Oval Office. The Tracker is marking the occasion by launching its Trump Anti-Press Social Media Tracker, a comprehensive database of Trump’s attacks on the press on Truth Social, X and elsewhere.

Read former Voice of America press freedom reporter Liam Scott’s article about Sugars and the database here.

What we’re reading

Supreme Court press corps asks chief justice to livestream court’s opinions (NPR). There’s simply no good reason for the Supreme Court to refuse to livestream its opinion announcements.

Woman arrested after interview by St. Paul journalist (Monitor). Federal authorities must promptly explain both their basis for arresting Isabel Lopez and how they knew where and when she’d be talking to reporters. Surveilling journalists is unacceptable.

Lindsey Graham thinks it should be illegal to identify ICE agents (Techdirt). It’s bad enough to ban identifying ICE agents, but notice how Graham slips in “other federal law enforcement officers involved in covert operations.” It’s part of a pro-secret police movement. And it’s bipartisan. Ask the taxpayers of LA.

Condemning SFPD’s detention of Daily Cal staffers and suppression of student journalism (The Daily Californian). Detaining journalists, even for a minute, prevents them from covering events of public concern, and violates their rights. The San Francisco Police Department and other police departments around the country need a crash course on the First Amendment.

DeSantis administration blasted for ‘chilling’ Florida press with cease and desist letter (Naples Daily News). Florida Gov. Ron Desantis is baselessly accusing the press of “coercing” people to say negative things about his wife’s initiatives. We assure you that no one is coercing us to say that Ron DeSantis is an anti-speech, wannabe authoritarian.

Small-town newspapers are dying because no one wants to run them (Columbia Journalism Review). Succession planning doesn’t usually make the list when people talk about the challenges facing the press, but Liam Scott explores the consequences of local newspaper publishers dying and retiring with no one there to take over.

The weaponization of the federal government against its critics used to be a Republican Party talking point when President Joe Biden was in office. Now that President Donald Trump’s in charge, it’s become their playbook.

Journalists and nonprofits, including nonprofit newsrooms, are particularly vulnerable to governmental attacks. Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr, for instance, has turned the investigatory power of the agency against the press, while the Department of Justice is pursuing investigations into nonprofits connected to left-leaning causes.

We wanted to learn more about how federal agencies like the FCC, Internal Revenue Service, and Department of Justice are abusing their authority to target First Amendment rights, so we hosted a discussion with FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez and Ezra Reese, an expert in nonprofit tax law and political law from the Elias Law Group.

As Commissioner Gomez said at the outset of the event, “The First Amendment is, of course, a pillar of American democracy, and consumer access to independent, unbiased news and public information is being threatened by the government itself.” Gomez is so concerned about the Trump administration’s attacks on freedom of speech that she’s launched a “First Amendment Tour” to speak out against what she calls a campaign of censorship and control.

With respect to the FCC, in particular, Gomez explained, “Our licensing authority is being weaponized to curtail the freedom of the press, and these actions set a dangerous precedent that undermines the freedom of the press and the trust in the FCC’s role as an impartial regulator.” Carr has revived, launched, or threatened a slew of baseless “investigations” into broadcasters and public media based on their First Amendment-protected activities.

As a result, Gomez said, broadcasters are being chilled. “I have heard from broadcasters who told me that they are asking their reporters to be careful about how they are reporting about this administration because they are so afraid of being dragged before the FCC,” she said.

Nonprofit organizations, including nonprofit newsrooms, are also feeling the chilling effect of investigations by the Department of Justice intended to silence critics of the administration. Reese described the DOJ’s targeting of nonprofit organizations as “terrifying,” citing investigations of environmental groups and Democratic fundraising outlets. One particular threat to nonprofits is the possibility of being designated a “terrorist” organization based on routine protest activity, Reese said.

In many instances discussed by Gomez and Reese, officials have hijacked vague legal standards to use them in ways that would threaten the First Amendment. The FCC, for instance, has brought investigations under its “news distortion” policy or sought to use its statutory language instructing it to license the airwaves in the public interest to go after news outlets it disfavors because of their coverage.

Gomez was highly critical of these moves, explaining, “The idea that the FCC would take enforcement action or revoke a broadcast license based on editorial decisions is antithetical to the First Amendment and the Communications Act, which prohibits the FCC from censorship.” As she succinctly put it, “The administration is conflating the public interest with its interests.”

Similarly, vague standards in criminal statutes or the tax code could also be used against nonprofits, including nonprofit news outlets, Reese warned. “The current law is very permissive to the federal government, either the president or using other agencies like the secretary of state declaring organizations to be terrorist organizations,” Reese said. “The standards are very loose.”

IRS standards that nonprofits rely on to guide their activities while maintaining their nonprofit status are also often “cobbled together” using administrative rulings by the IRS known as revenue rulings. These rulings, Reese said, “could easily be reversed.” For journalism nonprofits, in particular, Reese flagged that the precedents are “ancient” and do not address social media or shorter-form online journalism. While nonprofit news outlets have significant protections under tax law, Reese warned, “Any nonprofit organization should have some idea of what they’re going to do if the IRS or somebody else comes after them.”

In addition to being prepared, both Gomez and Reese emphasized the importance of speaking out in support of First Amendment rights. Reese cited the “power in shining a light,” noting that both journalists and individuals can bring attention to attacks but also to the organizations that are doing the right thing and fighting back. Similarly, Gomez said, “Sunshine is the best disinfectant, and we cannot allow this administration to trample all over the First Amendment in our democracy without speaking up.”

Gomez and Reese are right. The Trump administration’s attacks on the press and nonprofits are meant to cement government control by silencing dissenting voices. That’s why here at Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), we’ll continue to speak up against these abuses and encourage journalists and the public to do the same. Using our freedom of speech is our best and most powerful weapon for fighting back.

61,989.

That’s how many social media posts by President Donald Trump over the past decade that journalist Stephanie Sugars has single-handedly reviewed.

At all hours of the day, Trump posts about everything from foreign policy to personnel matters. “It’s a staggering amount of posts,” said Sugars, a senior reporter at the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, a project of Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF). But for the past several years, Sugars has trawled through Trump’s prolific activity on X and TruthSocial in search of something specific: anti-media rhetoric.

Since Trump’s first term as president, Sugars has managed an extensive database that documents each and every anti-media post from Trump. In them, Trump sometimes attacks individual journalists. Other times, he takes aim at specific outlets or the media in general. Some posts include all three. While the content varies, Sugars said, the goal appears to be the same: to discredit the media that holds him accountable.

• Explore the dataset

“He is consolidating narrative power and asserting that he is the ultimate, if not singular, conveyor of what is actually true, which, to no one’s surprise, is what is most favorable to him,” Sugars said.

Monday, June 16, marks 10 years since Trump famously descended a golden escalator at New York City’s Trump Tower in 2015 and launched his first winning bid for the Oval Office. The first anti-media post recorded in the database came one day after “Golden Escalator Day,” on June 17, 2015. In it, Trump lambasts the New York Daily News. “Loses fortune & has zero gravitas,” he said about the paper. “Let it die!”

“He is consolidating narrative power and asserting that he is the ultimate, if not singular, conveyor of what is actually true, which, to no one’s surprise, is what is most favorable to him.”

Over the course of his ensuing campaign, Sugars said Trump primarily targeted individual journalists — high-profile ones like Megyn Kelly, Joe Scarborough, and Anderson Cooper — as well as Fox News for what Trump considered to be inadequate support.

“Once he entered office, it was a pretty stark shift,” Sugars said. Trump continued insulting individual journalists, she said, but he also began to target entire outlets, as well as the media as a whole.

For years, Trump has lambasted the mainstream media, which he accuses of bias, as “the enemy of the people.” Attacks on individual journalists and news outlets feed into those broader attacks on the media writ large, according to Sugars.

“His intention appears to be to erode our understanding of what truth is, to erode trust in the media, and to position himself as the ultimate source of truth for his supporters,” she said.

Out of all of the posts Sugars has reviewed, one from Feb. 17, 2017, sticks out to her. “The FAKE NEWS media,” Trump wrote, taking specific aim at The New York Times, CNN, and NBC, “is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American people.”

That post was published at 4:32 a.m., but at some point it was deleted and replaced with a revision at 4:48 p.m. The revised post was nearly identical, except that Trump had added two more news outlets to the list of so-called enemies: ABC and CBS. “It just demonstrated this doubling down,” Sugars said.

Trump’s account on then-Twitter was, at the time, permanently suspended on Jan. 8, 2021, two days after the Jan. 6 insurrection on the Capitol. At that point, the database had documented more than 2,500 anti-media posts from Trump’s campaign and first term.

“His intention appears to be to erode our understanding of what truth is, to erode trust in the media, and to position himself as the ultimate source of truth for his supporters.”

During the Biden administration, Sugars said she would have similarly monitored anti-media posts from President Joe Biden, but he didn’t make such statements. Meanwhile, Trump’s anti-media posts have continued at a similar rate since he returned to the White House in January, according to Sugars. “He picked up just where he left off,” Sugars said.

But one primary difference between Trump’s first and second term, Sugars added, is that this time around, Trump is increasingly framing “the media” as an opposition party of sorts or as partners of the Democratic Party. Sugars said she has also noticed an uptick in posts that demonize leakers and pledge that the administration will crack down on whistleblowers.

• “On social media, Trump targets the press on average once a day — for 10 years and counting”
• “All the president’s invective”
• “Trump, allies pursue multipronged campaign against the press”
• Explore the social media posts

Trump’s hostile rhetoric against the media is the backdrop for more concrete attacks on media freedom, according to Sugars, including lawsuits, investigations by the Federal Communications Commission, the co-optation of the White House press pool, and the revocation of Biden-era policies that protected journalists in leak investigations.

Given those more concrete attacks on media freedom and just how frequently Trump posts on social media, Sugars said it can be easy to dismiss the anti-press posts. But doing so would be a mistake, said Sugars, who thinks it’s important to take what Trump writes seriously because his supporters take it seriously.

“What these posts end up doing is shifting the entire window of how we are understanding the world,” she said.

Watch the full interview:

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

It’s now the 73rd day that Rümeysa Öztürk is facing deportation by the United States government for writing an op-ed it didn’t like. Read on for more press freedom news and and don’t forget to join us on June 9 at 2 p.m. for a conversation about the Trump administration’s attacks on broadcast licensees and nonprofits. RSVP here.

Snowden revelations take on added urgency 12 years later

Twelve years ago today, Edward Snowden — now a longtime Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) board member — blew the whistle to journalists on global mass surveillance programs, changing the way we think about the relationship between privacy and national security.

His revelations and the dialog they initiated are more relevant today than ever. We wrote about 12 of the reasons why. Read more here.

Texas might ban college kids from reporting news at night — or even talking

Texas lawmakers trying to muzzle campus protests have just passed one of the most ridiculous anti-speech laws in the country. If signed by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Senate Bill 2972 would ban speech at night — from study groups to newspaper reporting — at public universities in the state.

We’re not exaggerating. In their zeal to stop college kids from protesting the Israel-Gaza war, lawmakers in the Lone Star State passed a prohibition on “engaging in expressive activities on campus between the hours of 10 p.m. and 8 a.m.” Expressive activity includes “any speech or expressive conduct” protected by the First Amendment or Texas Constitution — in other words, all speech and expressive conduct. Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Senior Advisor Caitlin Vogus has more in the Houston Chronicle. Read the op-ed here.

Virginia gag policy is outrageously unconstitutional

An unconstitutional policy in Greene County, Virginia, prohibits government employees from talking to the media and requires them to label anything they share with the press as “opinion,” even if it’s verifiable fact.

Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) and the Society of Professional Journalists led a letter from a coalition of press freedom and transparency organizations urging Steve Catalano, chair of the Greene County board of supervisors, to rethink the unconstitutional and downright absurd policy. Read more here.

Press freedom coalition warns of dangers of Dobbs leak investigation

The FBI’s investigation into the 2022 publication of the Dobbs draft decision could “instill a wide-reaching chilling effect on First Amendment-protected newsgathering.”

We joined Defending Rights & Dissent and other press freedom groups to warn that the FBI’s investigation into a draft Supreme Court opinion leak could instill a widespread chilling effect on newsgathering everywhere. Read more here.

What we’re reading

Reporters aren’t exempt from ordinance forbidding presence in city park from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. (Reason). Reporters can’t control what time news happens. Under this court’s reasoning, journalists who pass a closed city park at night and observe police beating or shooting someone couldn’t enter the park to cover it. That can’t be the law.

Trump caught trashing US history to hide his secrets (MeidasTouch). FPF’s Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy, Lauren Harper, warns, “The Trump administration’s goal is to become the sole source of information — even if it’s false.”

The ICE agents disappearing your neighbors would like a little privacy, please (The San Francisco Standard). This is exactly how newspapers should react when the government asks them to carry its water.

Fountain Hills officials punished a paper for coverage they don’t like (Phoenix New Times). “It’s very much unconstitutional for the government to in any way punish the press over its editorial or content decisions,” we said after officials punished reporters they don’t like by removing a press desk.

Trump asks Congress to repeal $9 billion from NPR, PBS and global aid (Washington Post). Taking money away from NPR and PBS hurts Americans who rely on them for news. Doing so because the president and other politicians disagree with their coverage violates the Constitution.

Press freedoms and civil rights under attack; and practicing civic self respect (Project Censored). Harper and FPF Advocacy Director Seth Stern joined Project Censored to discuss press freedom, government secrecy, and the Freedom of Information Act.

Texas lawmakers trying to muzzle campus protests have just passed one of the most ridiculous anti-speech laws in the country, as Freedom of the Press Foundation senior adviser Caitlin Vogus explains in the Houston Chronicle.

A new bill, SB 2972, would require public universities in Texas to adopt policies prohibiting “engaging in expressive activities on campus between the hours of 10 p.m. and 8 a.m.” Expressive activity includes “any speech or expressive conduct” protected by the First Amendment or Texas Constitution.

As Vogus writes, Governor Greg Abbott “should veto this unconstitutional and absurd bill before Texas has to waste taxpayers’ money defending it. And Texans should find some time — preferably at night — to exercise their First Amendment right to question the competence of the legislators who wrote or supported this bill.”

Read the whole article here.

We exposed as a lie the Trump administration’s basis for repealing restrictions on surveilling journalists to investigate leaks. The “fake news” that the administration claimed to be combating — reports that the intelligence community disputed its claim that the Venezuelan government directed the activities of the Tren de Aragua gang in the United States – was, in fact, 100 percent accurate.

But just in case that bombshell and the widespread news coverage that followed doesn’t shame the administration into changing course, Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) hosted a discussion about past efforts by the government to out reporters’ sources and what journalists should expect when federal prosecutors come after their newsgathering.

Our panelists would know better than most. Former New York Times reporter and Pulitzer Prize-winner James Risen fought a seven-year battle against attempts by both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations to force him to testify and reveal his sources in a leak investigation. He detailed the Obama administration’s endless litigation against him, while at the same time it engaged in secret digital surveillance of his communications.

Ryan Lizza, the founder and editor of Telos.news and a former reporter at Politico, CNN, and The New Yorker, also joined to discuss his reporting on the Obama administration’s overreach in secretly spying on Fox News reporter James Rosen, as well as efforts by former U.S. representative and current Trump sycophant Devin Nunes to obtain Lizza’s communications from tech companies in separate litigation.

And Lauren Harper, Daniel Ellsberg chair on government secrecy at FPF, discussed the aforementioned revelations about the Trump administration’s false pretexts for cracking down on leaks, which she obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

Risen started by laying out the stakes that emerged after 9/11. “Basically everything about the American conduct in the war on terror was classified,” he explained. “Everything that we now take for granted about our body of knowledge about how the United States conducts warfare in the 21st century came through leaks or unauthorized disclosures of one form or another.”

Lizza agreed, adding that critics of the Iraq War in the current administration would not have been able to mount their criticisms without leaks. Politicians, he explained, use leaked information to form the basis for their political platforms and then turn against leakers when they’re the ones in power.

Harper disputed the administration’s apparent belief that the solution to leaks is more secrecy, not less. “Upwards of 90% of information that is classified ought not to be. So I think in some ways, we can look at leaks as a response to a broken classification system,” she said.

Risen observed that the Obama administration finally backed down from forcing him to testify not due to the law but due to bad press. Lizza had similar impressions from his coverage of the Rosen case, explaining that his reporting “got the ear of some people in the Obama administration who did not like being accused of attacking the First Amendment and going after reporters.”

As Risen explained, when the government comes after journalists it’s often not about finding out who they’re talking to, it’s about “having a chilling effect on journalism in general and making sure everybody is afraid of the government.” Added Risen, “They’ll go after journalists not because they need them, but because they want to punish them and set an example.”

It remains to be seen whether the Trump administration will respond to public shaming like Obama did, but we won’t know unless we try. First, the press needs to avoid surveillance, by implementing digital security best practices when storing data and communicating electronically with sources, but also, as Risen said, going “off the grid” and communicating face-to-face whenever possible.

When that fails and the government comes after journalists’ sources anyway, it’s imperative that the press stand up for itself and its sources, by raising alarms about the risks to investigative reporting and press freedom when the government is able to snoop into reporters’ notebooks and emails. Caving to the pressure only encourages more retaliation.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

An unconstitutional policy in Greene County, Virginia, prohibits government employees from talking to the media and requires them to label anything they share with the press as “opinion” even if it’s verifiable fact.

Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) and the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) led a letter from a coalition of press freedom and transparency organizations urging Steve Catalano, chair of the Greene County board of supervisors, to rethink the policy. As the letter explains, similar policies have repeatedly been struck down as violating government employees’ constitutional right to speak about matters of public concern.

Seth Stern, FPF advocacy director, said: “A free press covering county government must be able to talk to experts with firsthand knowledge and get facts, not PR. Courts regularly reject policies requiring media inquiries to be routed to designated ‘public information officers.’ And courts would have rejected policies compelling people to label their speech as ‘opinion’ if anyone had tried implementing one before. Catalano doesn’t have a monopoly on facts. That requirement is not only unconstitutional but entirely absurd.”

Caroline Hendrie, executive director of SPJ, added: “Members of the public deserve timely and honest answers from their government, and journalists need access to public servants who know what they’re talking about. When agencies and officials impose unconstitutional gag rules, they disrupt the flow of information that people need to make decisions about their communities and their lives.”

You can read the letter here or below. To learn more about “censorship by PIO,” check out SPJ’s online resource, Gagged America.

Please contact FPF or SPJ if you would like further information.

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

It’s now the 66th day that Rümeysa Öztürk is facing deportation by the United States government for writing an op-ed it didn’t like. More press freedom news below.

Risking free speech won’t protect kids

Federal agencies are transforming into the speech police under President Donald Trump. So why are some Democrats supporting the Kids Online Safety Act, a recently reintroduced bill that would authorize the MAGA-controlled Federal Trade Commission to enforce censorship?

As Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) senior advocacy adviser Caitlin Vogus wrote for The Boston Globe, there’s never an excuse for supporting censorship bills, but especially when the political loyalists at the FTC are sure to abuse any power they’re given to stifle news on disfavored topics. Read the op-ed here.

We’re ready to sue if Paramount executives sell out the press

We’ve written previously about how Trump’s frivolous complaint against Paramount Global over CBS News’ editing of an interview with Kamala Harris threatens the freedoms of other news outlets. Yesterday, Trump proved it by claiming his $20 billion damages demand is based on “mental anguish” due to the answer – which doesn’t even mention him. How’s that for a “snowflake”?

As we informed Paramount Global executives last week, we plan to file a shareholder derivative lawsuit if Paramount settles. We believe any settlement – let alone the eight figure range being discussed – would be an effort to launder bribe money through the courts and would damage Paramount irreparably.

Reports this week in the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere have noted that executives fear derivative liability if they settle. They should. Read more here.

Phone companies keep journalist surveillance secret

A letter by Sen. Ron Wyden about surveillance of senators’ phone lines has an important lesson for journalists, too: Be careful in selecting your phone carrier.

Wyden wrote his Senate colleagues revealing which wireless carriers inform customers about government surveillance requests (Cape, Google Fi, and US Mobile), and which don’t (AT&T, Boost Mobile, Charter/Spectrum, Comcast/Xfinity Mobile, T-Mobile, and Verizon). Read more here.

Fallout from silencing Voice of America

As a reporter on the press freedom beat, Liam Scott chronicled abuses against journalists for Voice of America. But now, Scott himself is part of the story.

In March, Trump signed an executive order gutting the United States Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA. Scott and his colleagues have been or are set to be terminated imminently, and the website hasn’t published a new story in months.

We spoke to Scott about his unique perspective on current threats to press freedom, as both a victim and a journalist covering them. We were joined by Jason Scott of Archive Team, who is working to preserve VOA’s content should it be taken offline. Read more and watch the webinar here.

Administration abuses secrecy rules

Lauren Harper, FPF’s Daniel Ellsberg chair on government secrecy, joined MeidasTouch Network’s Legal AF podcast, “Court of History,” to explain how the Trump administration is abusing secrecy to control the news narrative — and how an FPF Freedom of Information Act win revealed the truth.

Harper was joined by University of Maryland professor Jason Baron in a wide-ranging discussion with co-hosts Sidney Blumenthal and Sean Wilentz. Watch the video podcast here.

Federal police reforms repealed

The same week the Justice Department announced it was dropping federal oversight programs and investigations into more than two dozen police departments, including in Minneapolis, the city held a remembrance marking five years since the murder of George Floyd by a local police officer.

Police abuses of protestors and journalists during the demonstrations that followed Floyd’s murder led to the now-abandoned reforms, including consent decrees in Minneapolis and Louisville dealing with how police should interact with journalists covering protests and their aftermaths. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, a project of FPF, has more. Read the Tracker’s coverage here.

What we’re reading

Greene County policy barring staff from speaking to press ‘unconstitutional,’ experts say (The Daily Progress). Local government employees should be able to talk to the press. But in Greene County, Virginia, they can’t. We told The Daily Progress that the county policy is unconstitutional.

Journalist sues LA county, ex-LA county sheriff for criminally investigating her (The Dissenter). It’s good to see journalist Maya Lau stand up for journalists’ right to not be investigated and harassed for doing their jobs.

How to stand your ground, in three (not so easy) steps (American Crisis). Institutions shouldn’t cave to Trump’s threats. Thanks to Margaret Sullivan for citing our plans to sue if Paramount settles with Trump as an example on how to stand your ground.

FBI visits me over manifesto (Ken Klippenstein). Journalists’ sources and newsgathering are none of the FBI’s business. They don’t seriously think Klippenstein was some kind of conspirator — they just want to intimidate him and other journalists.

As a reporter on the press freedom beat, Liam Scott chronicled abuses against journalists at home and abroad for Voice of America. But he was shocked when the experiences of those on the other side of the page became his own.

In March, President Donald Trump signed an executive order suddenly gutting the United States Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA. Scott and hundreds of colleagues have been or are set to be terminated imminently, and the international news service’s website hasn’t published a new story in months.

To understand more about how Trump’s anti-press tactics threaten the independence of public-interest journalism and what comes next for press freedom in the U.S. and around the world, Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) hosted an online webinar May 23 with Scott and Archive Team Co-founder Jason Scott, who is working to preserve VOA’s content should it be taken offline.

“After several years of covering press freedom issues, it still feels weird to be in the midst of a press freedom issue that is affecting me and my colleagues,” Liam Scott said. “There is actually a lot that is happening here that reminds me of what I’ve reported on in other countries.”

He also expressed significant concern for colleagues who are in the U.S. on visas. Without authorization to continue working here, they will be forced to return home to countries where austere rules about free speech can lead to jail time or worse, he cautioned.

“VOA has journalists now imprisoned in Myanmar, Vietnam, and Azerbaijan, and there are other journalists from Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia who are imprisoned in other countries around the world as well, just for doing their jobs,” Liam Scott said, referring to two other international news services long supported by the U.S. government. “So my immediate concern was if VOA and its sister outlets shut down, who is going to advocate for these reporters?”

Preserving VOA’s online content

While the fate of VOA’s employees hangs in the balance, so too does its website, a resource for readers who live in regions of censorship and can’t access this information anywhere else. Amid fears that the site and the reporting it hosts will vanish from the internet and leave behind thousands of stories, efforts are underway to preserve its contents.

Archive Team members, including Jason Scott, have created an “online footprint” of VOA’s website that contains over 400 gigabytes worth of stories. It’s paramount to ensure a replica of the site exists before its potential takedown, he said, because the work cannot be done retroactively.

“The conversation about whether or not to save something usually stops once it’s gone,” he added.

As a general rule of thumb, Jason Scott recommended that journalists keep multiple copies of their work in different locations, in the event they lose access to where their work is published.

Doing so is especially important in the current digital climate under the Trump administration, which has scrubbed countless federal webpages.

In that sense, said Jason Scott, it bears resemblance to a startup company.

“You move fast, you break things, you work it out later. If something can’t be explained to you in two seconds, get rid of it,” he added. This slash-and-burn approach, a Trump administration hallmark, can wreak havoc for preservation efforts because it evokes a digital “entropy” that can change data access on a dime, said Jason Scott.

While trawling internet data can be exhausting, so can reporting through censorship. Liam Scott, who has continued his work on the press freedom beat at outlets elsewhere, said it’s important “to not get fatigued” and to remember that threats and retaliation are often reactions to strong journalism, which underscores the need to protect the rights of those doing the work.

“Attacks on journalists are also attacks on the public,” he said. “Because when you’re attacking a journalist, you’re attacking the information that they’re trying to share with their audience — information that is so important for how we live our lives.”

Just as accountability is met with reprisal, archiving data is met with unpredictability. As the Archive Team compiles the work of countless VOA journalists who risked their lives to report the truth, Jason Scott said to remember that data preservation is an uphill battle. The power to decide what stays online often belongs to those with the most effective keys to the internet: powerful institutions like the government.

“Data is an incredible devil’s bargain,” he said. “Entropy is the house, and the house always wins.”

Federal agencies are transforming into the speech police under President Donald Trump. So why are some Democrats supporting the Kids Online Safety Act, a recently reintroduced bill that would authorize the MAGA-controlled Federal Trade Commission to enforce censorship?

As Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) senior advocacy adviser Caitlin Vogus wrote for The Boston Globe, there’s never an excuse for supporting censorship bills, but especially when political loyalists are at the FTC sure to abuse any power they’re given to stifle news on disfavored topics.

Vogus wrote, “KOSA’s supporters argue that it’s about keeping children under 17 safe from the harms of social media. But at the heart of the bill is something everyone should oppose: empowering the government to decide what speech children should be forbidden from seeing online.”

Read the article here.

A letter by Sen. Ron Wyden about surveillance of senators’ phone lines has an important lesson for journalists, too: Be careful in selecting your phone carrier.

On May 21, Wyden wrote his Senate colleagues revealing which wireless carriers inform customers about government surveillance requests (Cape, Google Fi, and US Mobile), and which don’t (AT&T, Boost Mobile, Charter/Spectrum, Comcast/Xfinity Mobile, T-Mobile, and Verizon).

A handy chart at the bottom of the senator’s press release provides a quick summary.

Wyden’s letter was inspired in part by a Department of Justice inspector general report that revealed that the DOJ had collected phone records of Senate staff as part of leak investigations under the first Trump administration.

But that report wasn’t just about surveillance of the Senate. It also discussed how the DOJ surveilled journalists at The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN in 2020-21 as part of leak investigations related to news reporting about the Trump campaign’s connections with Russia and Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

Investigators demanded telephone records from phone companies for the work and personal phones of journalists at all three outlets. In all three cases, the telephone companies turned over the records, which would have shown the numbers dialed, the date and time of calls, and their duration — information that could reveal the identities of confidential sources.

The telephone companies apparently didn’t notify the Times, Post, or CNN that their records had been sought, even though they legally could have done so. The DOJ also didn’t give the news outlets notice, taking advantage of internal guidelines that allowed them to delay notice to news media companies about legal demands for communications records from third parties in certain circumstances. (The rules for delayed notice from the DOJ remain in effect in the recently revised DOJ news media guidelines.)

According to the inspector general report, DOJ cover letters to the telephone companies asked them not to disclose the demands because the DOJ claimed it might impede the investigation. But the DOJ never sought a court order prohibiting disclosure. One prosecutor told the IG that nondisclosure orders weren’t obtained for the telephone companies “because the providers typically do not notify subscribers when their records are sought.”

That’s a problem, and it’s exactly what Wyden called out in his recent letter. Journalists can’t oppose surveillance that they don’t know about. Notification is what enables journalists (or any other customer) to fight back against overbroad, unwarranted, or illegal demands for their data. That’s exactly what the Times did when Google notified the newspaper of demands for its journalists’ email records in connection with the same leak investigation in which investigators sought phone records from Times journalists.

The Times’ contract with Google required the company to notify the news outlet of government demands. But even contractual agreements might not be enough to compel phone companies to inform their customers when they’re being spied on. Wyden’s letter reveals that “three major phone carriers — AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile — failed to establish systems to notify (Senate) offices about surveillance requests, as required by their Senate contracts.”

In addition, even if large news outlets could negotiate contracts with their phone carriers that require notification of surveillance requests when legally allowed, that wouldn’t help their journalists who speak to sources using personal phones that aren’t covered by their employers’ contracts. Freelance journalists are also unlikely to have the power to negotiate notification into their phone contracts.

Rather than one-off contractual agreements then, it would be better for all phone companies to follow the lead of tech companies, like Google, that have a blanket policy of notifying customers of government demands for their data, assuming they’re not gagged. These policies are now widespread in the tech world, thanks to activism by groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has long monitored tech companies’ notification policies and encouraged them to do better.

Phone companies must do better, too. It’s a shame that some of the largest wireless carriers can’t be bothered to tell their customers when they’re being surveilled. Journalists — and all of us — who care about privacy have a choice to make when selecting their wireless provider: Do they want to know when they’re being spied on, or are they OK with being left in the dark?

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

This week we examine how leaks are fueling reporting in spite of crackdowns on whistleblowers and journalists. And Rümeysa Öztürk may be out of jail but her ordeal isn’t over. It’s now the 59th day that she’s facing deportation by the United States government for writing an op-ed it didn’t like. More press freedom news below.

Recent leaks show why source protection matters

Our Freedom of Information Act request for an intelligence community memo and the reporting that’s followed have turned into “exhibit A” on why leaks to the press serve the public interest.

Journalists have written about how the memo belies the Trump administration’s own rationale for mass deporting Venezuelans, and we’ve explained how it confirms that Attorney General Pam Bondi’s basis for repealing her predecessor’s safeguards against subpoenaing journalists was bunk. 

But even more revelations have followed. This week the Times reported that Director of National Intelligence official Joe Kent pressured intelligence agencies to rewrite their assessment on the Venezuelan government’s control of gang members to support Trump’s position and then supported the release of the rewritten memo because he didn’t understand what it actually said. We also learned that there is a major rift between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the intelligence community. 

Read on our website. For more on leak investigations, catch us live on May 28 at 11 a.m. PT / 2 p.m. ET with Telos.news founder Ryan Lizza and Pulitzer Prize winner James Risen.

Don’t empower Trump to define terrorism

Rümeysa Öztürk never supported terrorism. That’s not even debatable now. 

But lack of evidence isn’t stopping the Trump administration’s efforts to deport her and others. So when Congress contemplates further empowering the same administration to arbitrarily deem its opponents’ conduct “support of terrorism,” alarm bells should sound.

Well, ring-a-ling. Last year’s “nonprofit killer” bill, which would allow the administration to deem rights organizations and nonprofit news outlets terrorist supporters and revoke their tax-exempt status, is making a comeback. Read more here.

An open letter to leaders of American institutions

Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) was proud to join a letter led by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University urging leaders of civic and other major institutions to defend free speech amid the Trump administration’s multifront assault on First Amendment freedoms.

As the letter says, “If our democracy is to survive, the freedoms of speech and the press need a vigorous, determined defense.” Read the whole thing.

US press freedom groups launch Journalist Assistance Network

Five major U.S.-based press freedom organizations (including FPF) announced the launch of a network to provide legal and safety resources and training to journalists and newsrooms in the United States. Read more about it here.

What we’re reading

Coalition to Columbia, Barnard: ‘Do better’ for student journalists (Student Press Law Center). We joined a coalition demanding Columbia stop investigating student journalists and respect students’ free press rights.

Paramount could violate anti-bribery law if it pays to settle Trump’s ‘60 Minutes’ lawsuit, senators claim (Variety). Don’t just take our word for it. Settling with Trump puts Paramount executives at risk of significant liability. It also puts CBS at risk of further shakedowns. 

Why does GOP budget bill focus on punishing people who leak tax returns? (The Intercept). “Lawmakers and judges should focus on stopping tax evasion by the rich and powerful, not on disproportionate punishments for whistleblowers,” explained FPF Advocacy Director Seth Stern.

Trump administration asks Supreme Court to keep DOGE records secret (Politico). Seems like it’d be more “efficient” to comply with basic transparency requests than waste government resources to keep your work secret.

Judge orders U.S. to keep custody of migrants amid claims they were sent to South Sudan (The New York Times). The Trump administration says “that’s classified” any time it doesn’t want to answer difficult questions to the courts or to the public.

Disclose the Trump crypto dinner guests (The Wall Street Journal).  So much for the “most transparent administration in history.”

FCC Chairman Carr seeks to designate NBC equal time issue for hearing (The Desk). Another week, another sham investigation by Brendan Carr in the news. 

Indiana hides executions. Firing squads would be more honest. (IndyStar). “Indiana killed Ritchie under a veil of secrecy, with no media present . ... We don't know if Ritchie suffered."

New Montana law blocks the state from buying private data to skirt the Fourth Amendment (Reason). Montana is leading the way. Other states and the federal government should follow.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) has informed Paramount Global executives that it plans to file a lawsuit if Paramount settles with President Donald Trump over his court case against CBS News.

News reports indicate Paramount Global is prepared to settle Trump’s frivolous and unconstitutional complaint against its subsidiary, CBS News, over its editing of an interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris. United States senators and others have said the purpose of settling may be to bribe the president to clear the path for Paramount to finalize a merger with Skydance Media.

We’ve written previously about how Trump’s complaint against CBS is a clear First Amendment violation and threatens the basic press freedom rights of other news outlets.

So today, FPF sent a letter to Paramount Chair Shari Redstone to put her and other Paramount executives on notice that it plans to file a shareholder’s derivative lawsuit should Paramount settle with Trump, and to demand that Paramount preserve all records that may be relevant to its claims. FPF is a Paramount Global shareholder.

A derivative lawsuit is a procedure that allows shareholders of a company to recover damages incurred due to impropriety by executives and directors. Any damages award would go to Paramount, not FPF.

Paramount executives have reportedly feared liability for settling, and this week, U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren opened an investigation of whether settling would violate bribery laws and asking whether Paramount had evaluated the risk of derivative liability.

FPF Director of Advocacy Seth Stern said:

“Corporations that own news outlets should not be in the business of settling baseless lawsuits that clearly violate the First Amendment and put other media outlets at risk. A settlement of Trump’s meritless lawsuit may well be a thinly veiled effort to launder bribes through the court system. Not only would it tank CBS’s reputation but, as three U.S. senators recently explained, it could put Paramount executives at risk of breaking the law.

“Our mission as a press freedom organization is to defend the rights of journalists and the public, not the financial interests of corporate higher-ups who turn their backs on them. When you run a news organization, you have the responsibility to protect First Amendment rights, not abandon them to line your own pockets.

“We hope Paramount will reconsider the dangerous path it appears to be contemplating but, if not, we are prepared to pursue our rights as shareholders. And we hope other Paramount shareholders will join us.”

John Cusack, an FPF founding board member, activist and actor, added, “I’m proud that Freedom of the Press Foundation is doing what CBS’s corporate owners won’t — standing up for press freedom and against authoritarian shakedowns. People who aren’t willing to defend the First Amendment should not be in the news business.”

You can read FPF’s letter here.

Please contact us if you would like further comment.

When the Trump administration quickly fulfilled our Freedom of Information Act request for a memo belying its own rationales both for mass deporting Venezuelans and for cracking down on leaks to the press, we had plenty of theories about why.

Maybe someone in the FOIA office used our request as an opportunity to blow the whistle. Maybe it was some kind of mistake. But one possibility that never occurred to us was that administration higher-ups thought that the memo made them look good. After all, everyone knows President Donald Trump hires only the “best and most serious people.”

But according to a report in The New York Times, that’s exactly what happened. So who was the poor junior staffer who somehow read a short, straightforward memo wherein intelligence agencies said Venezuela’s government does not control the Tren de Aragua gang, as Trump claims, and took it to mean, well, the complete opposite? The intelligence community had better stop hiring from whatever school gave that kid a degree!

Turns out it wasn’t some kid, though. It was Joe Kent, chief of staff to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. And get this: He’s Trump’s nominee to lead the National Counterterrorism Center. Apparently, after a first memo undermined Trump’s narrative that Venezuelan migrants are actually President Nicolás Maduro’s secret foot soldiers, Kent requested some “rewriting … so this document is not used against the DNI or POTUS.”

The memo released to us was apparently the rewrite — which confirmed the conclusions of the initial memo. It did mention that the FBI believed some Venezuelan government officials might communicate with some members of Tren de Aragua, but no serious legal minds believe that constitutes an invasion that justifies Trump’s invoking of the Alien Enemies Act.

Kent, however, somehow read it (or maybe that’s giving him too much credit) and thought it vindicated the administration. No one else read it that way, including Secretary of State (among other jobs) Marco Rubio. Rubio didn’t even attempt to twist the memo into somehow supporting the administration’s policies — he just said the intelligence community got it wrong.

But the reason Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) filed the FOIA in the first place was not to prove whether Maduro has gangbangers on speed dial or whether high-ranking intelligence officials lack intelligence. It was to check whether Attorney General Pam Bondi’s basis for repealing her predecessor’s safeguards against subpoenaing journalists held water.

Bondi, as well as Gabbard, claimed reports from The New York Times and The Washington Post were false when stating that intelligence agencies disbelieved Trump’s claims about Tren de Aragua. The administration, these officials said, needed the ability to investigate the source of the leak, including by subpoenaing journalists, to protect the nation from so-called fake news from the so-called deep state.

The memo, as we’ve written before, confirmed that the Times and Post got it right and the only thing a crackdown on leaks was meant to protect was Trump and his cronies from embarrassment. But the memo has turned into more than that — it’s become Exhibit A on why leaks to the press serve the public interest.

Here’s a non-exhaustive list of news we now know about because of the leaks to the Times and Post, the memo we were able to request as a result of those leaks, and the reporting that followed.

• Kent, the nominee to lead the National Counterterrorism Center, can’t comprehend basic intelligence reports.
• Kent demanded intelligence agencies rewrite their findings to save his bosses from embarrassment and, according to the Times, there are emails to prove it (we have filed requests for those, too).
• There is a major rift between the State Department and the intelligence community about one of the Trump administration’s most significant policies.
• Gabbard requested Bondi initiate a leak investigation based on lies.
• Bondi repealed protections for reporters and their sources based on the same lies.
• The United States mass deported people to a dangerous prison in El Salvador to perform slave labor for a Trump-friendly authoritarian — all based on the same lies.

Virtually every time the government has cracked down on leaks claiming some kind of threat to the homeland, the real threat has been to its own reputation. Usually it takes years to confirm the obvious. It took decades for Nixon officials who once argued that releasing the Pentagon Papers would gravely endanger national security to admit that was nonsense all along. But this time we know the truth almost immediately, thanks to leaks.

Bondi was right about one thing — the leaks undermined the administration’s policies. But she left out that they were policies that needed undermining because they were built on lies — the kinds of lies that the drafters of the Constitution intended journalists to expose when they wrote the First Amendment’s press clause. That’s what the Times, Post, and their sources did, and it’s exactly why journalist-source confidentiality needs protecting.

Rümeysa Öztürk never supported terrorism. That’s not even debatable at this point. A federal judge confirmed the government has no evidence to deport the Tufts University graduate student besides her co-authorship of an op-ed opposing the war in Gaza.

The Washington Post has reported that the State Department warned the government before it nabbed her off the street near her home that there was no basis to deport her.

But lack of evidence isn’t stopping the Trump administration’s efforts to deport her or others. So when Congress contemplates granting the same administration further powers to arbitrarily deem its opponents’ conduct “support of terrorism,” alarm bells should sound.

Well, ring-a-ling. Last year’s “nonprofit killer” bill is making a comeback. That’s the bill that would allow the secretary of the treasury to deem nonprofit organizations terrorist supporters and revoke their tax-exempt status, all with little to no due process.

It was buried at the back of President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” that passed the House Ways and Means Committee, before being stripped out of the next version of the megabill, likely for procedural reasons. There’s no reason to think it’s gone for good.

Opposing the bill’s next incarnation must be top priority for all defenders of press freedom and the rule of law. The bill was a horrible idea during the Biden administration, when many Democrats pandering to anti-Palestinian donors supported it while knowing full well Trump might be president in a few months. Now it’s downright scary.

We don’t have to speculate about slippery slopes anymore — Trump has already shown what he’ll do if he’s allowed to be judge, jury, and executioner when it comes to who is a terrorist supporter. Öztürk is still facing deportation proceedings, and Mahmoud Khalil is still in jail in Louisiana despite Secretary of State Marco Rubio admitting in a court filing that the “terrorism” case against him is solely based on his beliefs — primarily his opposition to the Israel-Gaza war.

He’ll almost certainly demand his Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declare any organizations that advocate for or assist Palestinians to be terrorist supporters. That’s practically a given. If Bessent refuses, he’ll find someone who will. But what about protesters? Minor property damage will quickly become a terrorist attack in Trump’s alternative reality — an “invasion!” And the administration has already made clear its intent to target environmental nonprofits.

And then, of course, there are nonprofit media outlets, not to mention press freedom groups like Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF).

Trump’s creativity knows no bounds when it comes to conjuring up frivolous legal theories against news outlets. Just last week, his White House claimed that Business Insider’s parent company engaged in illegal political meddling by reporting on his son’s business entanglements. He has argued that reporting critically about him constitutes “tortious interference” or even election interference — months after the election. The list goes on.

Trump’s creativity knows no bounds when it comes to conjuring up frivolous legal theories against news outlets.

And his own party has already shown him the way. Last year, Sen. Tom Cotton and other Republicans demanded that major news outlets be investigated for terrorism because they bought photographs from freelancers in Gaza (one of whom the Israeli army just assassinated). One letter even threatened charges for merely reporting things officials didn’t like.

Those news outlets were for-profit companies and the threats were under existing laws on material support for terrorism. Cotton and his friends’ antics were mere stunts — those laws require the government to prove its case, and it couldn’t. But the nonprofit killer bill solves that problem when it comes to nonprofit news outlets, by eliminating the government’s burden of proof and the defenses afforded to organizations investigated under current law.

Sure, a nonprofit could challenge the constitutionality of the claims against it — and should win — but that could take years, and the controversy could permanently steer donors away.

Here’s what’s puzzling: This bill could easily backfire on Republicans, but they’re pushing it anyway. It’s one thing for anti-immigrant officials to claim broad powers to deport immigrants like Öztürk and Khalil. But conservatives aren’t anti-nonprofit. They have nonprofits too.

One could easily imagine a future Democratic administration, using powers gifted to it by today’s Republicans, deeming anti-abortion organizations terrorist supporters, or punishing conservative groups because of ties to white supremacists far less tenuous than the alleged ties between Öztürk and Hamas. Pro-Israel groups that associate with illegal West Bank settlers could be targeted in the unlikely event the Democrats nominate a pro-Palestine president.

So why don’t the bill’s proponents care about the obvious “shoe on the other foot” possibility? Is it because they’re just that shortsighted? Maybe. Or perhaps they don’t intend to ever relinquish power, and destroying civil society and the press is one part of that plan.

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

Rümeysa Öztürk may be out of jail but her ordeal isn’t over. It’s now the 52nd day that she’s facing deportation by the United States government for writing an op-ed it didn’t like. More press freedom news below. 

Attacks on the press aren’t just unconstitutional — they’re anticompetitive 

Some say President Donald Trump runs the country like a business. That’s debatable, though he certainly treats the press like one of his corporate rivals — including by targeting news outlets with legal actions that are normally seen in business litigation. 

His lawsuits are baseless. But they may open up opportunities for the press to go on the offensive with real legal claims. Trump’s attacks on the press aren’t only a product of his thin-skinned vindictiveness — he’s also acting as majority shareholder of Trump Media & Technology Group, owner of Truth Social, which he has alleged in court is a competitor of the media outlets he harasses. 

We wrote about the remedies that might be available to the press and others when Trump and Elon Musk undermine their competitors to line their own pockets. Read more here.

State Department must release Öztürk memo

In his ruling ordering Öztürk’s release, U.S. District Judge William Sessions III confirmed that Öztürk’s only apparent offense was co-authoring an op-ed critical of Israel.

He’s not the only one who said that there was no basis to deport Öztürk — according to The Washington Post, so did the State Department, before federal immigration officials abducted her anyway. But the memo the Post based its reporting on still has not been released, so we requested it under the Freedom of Information Act. But the government is stalling. 

The last memo we FOIA’d proved the administration was lying about its bases both for deporting Venezuelans to El Salvador and cracking down on leaks to the press. The public is entitled to know if the administration is misleading it again (spoiler alert, it is). Read more here. 

Nonprofit killer bill is back

We wrote last year about a ridiculous bill that would give the Secretary of the Treasury power to unilaterally deem nonprofits to be supporters of terrorism and revoke their tax-exempt status, with little to no due process. The bill is likely intended to target organizations that oppose the war in Gaza, but once that kind of power is codified there is no telling who might be targeted — including nonprofit news outlets. 

It was reintroduced this week, buried in a 300-page tax bill. It’s even more dangerous now that we’ve got an openly anti-free speech president who has already threatened to target nonprofits he doesn’t like. Tell your representative to oppose this censorship bill. 

What we’re reading

Why the fuck are Democrats helping build MAGA’s censorship machine with KOSA? (Techdirt). How can Sen. Richard Blumenthal or any other Democrat think for a second that this is a good idea, especially now? The current FTC will use the Kids Online Safety Act to go after tech companies that give kids news and information about gay rights, trans rights, abortion, racism, and more.

Trump White House sharpens its knives for Politico’s owner (The Bulwark).  Hate to say we told you so (again), but it was obvious that the bipartisan push to ban TikTok was going to normalize even more baseless attacks on foreign-owned news outlets. If your representatives supported it anyway, ask them what they were thinking.

Israel admits killing journalist in Gaza hospital bomb, saying he ‘documented’ 7 October massacre (The Journal). The Israeli army is basically admitting to murdering a journalist for “documenting” news. We don’t know what else to say.

Union will pay Review-Journal attorney fees in settlement over Henderson jail video (Las Vegas Review-Journal). Yet another example that should send a message to those who try to use baseless lawsuits to censor the press and hide the truth: It will cost you.

White House excludes wire services from Middle East trip (U.S. Press Freedom Tracker). In a break with tradition, President Donald Trump left for the Middle East on May 12 without any wire services in the Air Force One press pool. Read more about the harm attacks on wire services do to the news ecosystem.

Nassau County legislators want to create a moving 15-foot halo for its officers (Techdirt). Does anyone think those who support these buffer bills wouldn’t outright ban recording cops if they could get away with it? We shouldn’t give an inch to opponents of transparency, let alone 15 feet.

We’ve got big plans

Our new two-year strategic plan isn’t just about us: It’s about protecting the public’s right to know. A free press serves everyone. If we want journalism that challenges the powerful, we must defend press freedom, even when the press is imperfect. 

Journalists should be able to fearlessly investigate, publish, and speak truth to power. Otherwise, all that’s left is propaganda. Read more here.

We’re not your lawyers and this article isn’t legal advice. Talk to your attorney before taking any legal action.

Some say President Donald Trump runs the country like a business. That’s debatable, though he certainly treats the press like one of his corporate rivals – including by targeting news outlets with legal actions that are normally seen in business litigation. The claims are baseless. But they may open up opportunities for the press to go on offense.

Case in point, Trump recently took to his platform Truth Social to accuse The New York Times of “tortious interference,” a legal theory usually employed when one company undermines another’s contractual or business relationships. His reasoning? The Times cited experts who doubted the strength of his lawsuit against CBS for editing an interview with presidential rival Kamala Harris.

At risk of reading too much into Trump’s ramblings, he may have been accusing the Times of interfering with his expected settlement with CBS, which is reportedly afraid he’ll block its parent Paramount’s merger plans with media company Skydance if it doesn’t pay up. He also alluded to election interference, but that makes even less sense — the Times article ran five months after the election (and, of course, news reporting is not election interference).

That lawsuit against CBS doubles down on business litigation theories by including “unfair competition” claims, premised on Trump’s assertion that Truth Social competes with CBS. Trump loyalist and “special government employee” Elon Musk has similarly said his social media site, X, is a competitor of traditional media outlets. Both Trump and Musk have also sued news outlets and publishers under consumer fraud and deceptive business practices laws.

To state the obvious, news outlets cannot be held liable for citing legal experts or editing interviews. The Supreme Court has made clear that First Amendment protections can’t be circumvented by repackaging lawsuits aimed at punishing journalism under creative legal theories.

But the Constitution does not extend the same protections to malicious smear campaigns to harm business competitors. Routine hyperbole and exaggeration are not actionable (for example, “My car dealership is the best in town”), but verifiable lies to undermine competitors sure are (for example, “The car dealership across the street falsifies accident records to sell lemons”). So are other deceptive antics to undermine corporate rivals (“Hey carmaker, that’s a nice retailer agreement you’ve got with my dealership — wouldn’t want something to happen to it if you sell cars to that other place too”).

And that is exactly what Trump is up to — not just in his capacity as president, but in his capacity as majority shareholder of Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., owner of Truth Social. When he lies about Reuters and Politico receiving improper payments from the government, including misrepresenting contracts his administration signed with a Reuters business unrelated to its newsroom, he’s damaging Truth Social’s competition. Same goes for Musk and X.

Trump is not only retaliating against news outlets that don’t do his bidding, he’s abusing his office to boost his business interests

When Trump sics Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr on news broadcasters to baselessly threaten their licenses, or when he denies access to The Associated Press and other wire services that he sees as competition, he’s not only retaliating against news outlets that don’t do his bidding, he’s abusing his office to boost his business interests.

The potential legal theories against Trump, Musk, and their companies aren’t perfect. Trump’s mixed motives — anticompetitiveness as an entrepreneur, on the one hand, and censorship as an authoritarian on the other — complicate things, particularly given the legal immunity he enjoys and abuses.

But Truth Social and X aren’t immune, and neither is Trump, to the extent he was acting as a businessperson rather than a sitting president. It would sure be interesting to take discovery to find out what his real agenda is. Remember, Trump has long dreamed of starting his own media empire.

And whatever flaws the legal claims against Trump and his holdings may have, they’re a whole lot stronger than the nonsense lawsuits Trump pursues to shake down the press.

One problem is that many potential claims, like one for tortious interference, would need to be brought by a media outlet Trump targets. The same corporations caving to Trump probably won’t sue him. That’s unfortunate — principles aside, Trump has already shown that bending the knee doesn’t work. After ABC capitulated, he came after it again. It’s time to try a different approach.

But even if media companies don’t grow some courage, there could be avenues for others to sue. Unfair competition, and consumer fraud and deceptive business practices claims, depending on state law, may be available to impacted consumers, not just competing businesses. For example, a news publisher or reader who relied on the AP’s dispatches to their local newspaper until Trump banned his competitor may have remedies. So might someone (or a class of people) who wasted money on premium subscriptions to X based on Musk’s lies about his competition.

State attorneys general and other local authorities may be able to act as well. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launched an investigation into Media Matters for allegedly deceiving Texas consumers about hate speech on X. Paxton’s legal claims were unserious. Media Matters didn’t publish anything false. It’s also not a competitor of X and has never claimed to be.

But that doesn’t mean similar legal theories can’t succeed under different circumstances — like an actual self-proclaimed competitor of news outlets trying to sink their businesses with lies. Back in 2016, Trump settled a lawsuit alleging deceptive business practices (among other things) by then-New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman over Trump University’s shenanigans.

Yes, bringing these kinds of claims in cases involving the press could backfire by validating legal claims that could come back to bite journalists. That’s a legitimate concern, although the flip side is that they could force Trump and Musk to argue for limited readings of laws they’ve previously weaponized. But good lawyers should be able to navigate those minefields.

This is not a new problem — courts have long punished deceptive commercial speech while managing to distinguish it from journalism, political debate, and other constitutionally protected speech. As a completely random example, no one would suggest the First Amendment protects someone, say, hawking watches made in China and falsely marketing them as from Switzerland because it’s “free speech.”

Regardless, we’re living in unprecedented times and need to take more risks than we might prefer under normal circumstances. That doesn’t mean be reckless, but we can’t let hypothetical concerns about adverse precedents around the margins of constitutional law stop us from fighting back against someone who wants to destroy the First Amendment, full stop. If we pull punches in hopes of fighting another day, there might not be one.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

A federal judge ruled today that Tufts University graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk must be released from U.S. custody. Öztürk was abducted by federal immigration authorities outside her home in Somerville, Massachusetts, on March 25.

The only known evidence for deporting Öztürk was her co-authorship of an op-ed critical of Israel in a Tufts student newspaper, and Judge William Sessions III confirmed it “literally is the case there is no evidence here … absent consideration of the op-ed.”

Seth Stern, director of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), commented that “it is unfathomable that in the United States legal system, it takes 45 days for a judge to rule that people can’t be put behind bars for writing op-eds the government doesn’t like. Without a system committed to its principles, the Constitution is just words on paper, and they don’t mean much if this can happen here. Öztürk’s abduction and imprisonment is one of the most shameful chapters in First Amendment history. We’re thankful that Judge Sessions moved it one step closer to an end and we call on the Trump administration to release Öztürk immediately and not attempt to stall with any further authoritarian nonsense.”

Lauren Harper, FPF’s Daniel Ellsberg chair on government secrecy, noted that the government has kept secret a memorandum, prepared before Öztürk’s detention and reported in The Washington Post, showing there were not sufficient grounds for revoking Öztürk’s visa. Harper has submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for the memorandum.

“The government is not allowed to hide information to prevent embarrassment or conceal wrongdoing, which is exactly what’s happening here, and Ms. Öztürk and her lawyers deserve to have access to information that could aid in her legal case. If the administration wants to not have to disclose embarrassing information about its actions, it should stop making up reasons to deport people,” said Harper.

Please contact us if you would like further comment.

Dear friend of press freedom,

A judge ordered Rümeysa Öztürk’s release today. But it's still the 45th day she spent incarcerated by the U.S. government for writing an op-ed. Hopefully this shameful chapter in First Amendment history is nearing a close. Other press freedom news below.

Memo obtained by FPF shows DOJ’s new anti-press policy is based on lies

Last week, we argued that Attorney General Pam Bondi’s reversal of her predecessor’s policy restricting subpoenas of journalists will help President Donald Trump lie to the public. 

This week we proved it. A memorandum released following a public records request by Lauren Harper, our Daniel Ellsberg chair on government secrecy, confirmed prior reports that U.S. intelligence agencies don’t believe Trump’s claims that Venezuela’s government controls the Tren de Aragua gang. Bondi’s memo cited that same reporting as an example of damaging fake news that results from leaks. 

As it turns out, the journalists who reported the intelligence agencies’ position got it exactly right, and the leaks in question only damaged Trump’s reputation by exposing the deception behind his invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to ship Venezuelans to gulags in El Salvador. What better way to further our late co-founder’s legacy than exposing presidential lies to justify atrocities abroad? Read our press release and the New York Times report. 

Attacks on law firms and nonprofits endanger the press

It doesn’t take a law degree to see that Trump’s attacks on law firms and nonprofits could also do irreparable harm to press freedom. 

To learn more about what’s at stake, we spoke to legendary First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams; general counsel for The Intercept, David Bralow; and Albert Sellars, partner Kendra Albert. Read about and watch the conversation here. 

Ed Martin should be disbarred

Ed Martin, interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, was mostly in the news for palling around with white supremacists when Trump pulled his nomination for the permanent job as top prosecutor in Washington. But he’s also spent his career making a mockery of the ethical rules governing attorneys. 

That’s why Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) and Demand Progress filed a comprehensive disciplinary complaint against Martin. As our Advocacy Director Seth Stern explained, Martin’s antics, like sending “bogus letters and tweets to intimidate people exercising First Amendment rights and his threats to target news outlets President Trump dislikes, should disqualify him from practicing law, full stop.” Read more here. 

Lights, camera, national security crisis! 

Trump’s recent announcement that he plans to impose a 100% tariff on movies made outside the United States has created more confusion than the ending of “Inception.”

What is Trump talking about when he claims that making movies abroad threatens national security? When Trump claims to be protecting the homeland from foreign adversaries, he is often actually protecting his own false narratives from domestic scrutiny. Read more here.

Administration seeks to appoint itself the sole arbiter of truth

Trump’s vilification of the press should be seen in the context of his larger agenda to discredit any arbiter of fact and fiction that has not kissed the ring.

The goal is to make Trump’s “alternative facts” the only facts. That’s why the administration is going after not only journalists, but everyone from prestigious universities in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to small medical journals in Glenview, Illinois. Read Stern’s op-ed in the Daily Beast here. 

What does Fullerton, California, have to hide?

We joined First Amendment Coalition in a letter objecting to a ban on newspaper distribution in government buildings by the city of Fullerton, California.

As the letter explains, “The ban sends the message … that the city is hostile to the free press and discourages criticism of its policies, preferring that residents only read government-approved messaging.” Read the letter here. 

What we’re reading

Fear and intimidation at Newark airport (Al Jazeera). A Palestinian-American journalist was interrogated at the border about her reporting, but she refuses to stay silent. Journalists must continue to speak up about these abuses.

Jury orders NSO to pay $167 million for hacking WhatsApp users (Ars Technica). NSO Group has a long history of helping dictators and authoritarians spy on journalists and activists. Hopefully, this multimillion-dollar verdict will finally get their attention.

Montana governor signs landmark bill, as state becomes the 37th to enact anti-SLAPP protections (Institute for Free Speech). Legislatures in red and blue states alike understand there’s nothing partisan about protecting journalists, activists, and everyone else from anti-speech lawfare.

Takeaways from AFPC-USA’s 2025 World Press Freedom Day panel (The Association of Foreign Press Correspondents USA). FPF’s Seth Stern’s “remarks painted a stark picture of press freedom under direct political attack. He warned that without structural protections, the First Amendment itself is being tested, and norms that were once assumed unbreakable are now being shattered.”

A student journalist covered a pro-Palestine protest. Soon, her graduation came under threat (Columbia Journalism Review). Columbia hit a new moral low by targeting a student journalist for her reporting on a pro-Palestinian sit-in before changing course. Lesson learned? Nope. The university then stooped even lower by suspending student journalists for covering protests.