stLouISTA dangerous time to attack whistleblowers
Dear Friend of Press Freedom,
Here’s what we’re working on this week.
Trump attacks oversight, Dems attack whistleblowers
After Trump’s mass firing of inspectors general to silence internal whistleblowing, our Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy, Lauren Harper, explained that whistleblowers would be left with no choice but to go to the press. She wrote that Congress should reform the Espionage Act so they can do so without fear of retribution.
Senate Democrats had a different response. They attacked Tulsi Gabbard — Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence — for refusing to call whistleblower and Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) board member Edward Snowden a traitor, cutting her off when she attempted to explain that his revelations exposed illegal surveillance under a domestic spying law that a court found unconstitutional just last week. Our Senior Advocacy Adviser Caitlin Vogus wrote about why now is a particularly dangerous time to signal hostility to whistleblowers.
We also joined Defending Rights & Dissent and others in an open letter explaining that, while there are legitimate reasons to oppose Gabbard’s nomination, her past criticism of domestic surveillance isn’t one of them.
A perfect setup to punish journalism
And speaking of Democrats shooting themselves in the foot …
We’ve said before that by extracting a guilty plea to Espionage Act violations from WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, the Biden administration set up its successor to punish journalists who expose government secrets. But President Donald Trump’s also got oligarchs to protect.
Not to worry — former President Joe Biden handed him a roadmap to censoring corporate secrets too, by prosecuting Florida journalist Tim Burke under computer crime laws for exposing Fox News outtakes of Ye’s unaired, antisemitic rant to Tucker Carlson. Our Director of Advocacy Seth Stern explains in Lawfare.
Our executive director, Trevor Timm, also went on The Daily Beast’s podcast “The New Abnormal” to talk more about the Biden administration’s press freedom failures.
Patel would mark a new low for FBI
In a 2023 podcast interview, Kash Patel threatened to “come after the people in the media” and target them “criminally or civilly.” We joined a letter calling on senators to ask Patel about his plans to prosecute journalists at his confirmation hearing for FBI director, among other things.
Press-specific issues didn’t get the attention we would’ve liked at the hearing, but Patel did try to walk back his comments about weaponizing the FBI against Trump’s perceived enemies. We don’t believe him, and we oppose his confirmation as FBI director — as should anyone who values press freedom. We said in a statement that “Senators who vote for Patel’s confirmation will be to blame if and when he supersizes the FBI’s sordid history of targeting journalists, protesters, academics, and activists.” Read more here.
What we’re reading
F.C.C. chair orders investigation into NPR and PBS sponsorships (The New York Times). We told the Times that FCC Chair Brendan Carr’s claim that NPR and PBS broke sponsorship disclosure rules is an obvious pretext to attack their funding and independence. Carr was appointed to do Trump's censorial bidding. All his moves should be viewed through that lens.
Baseless SLAPP suits threaten the speech rights of all Americans (The Dispatch). “Consumer fraud statutes have no place in American politics or in regulating the news. But it has become an increasingly popular tactic to use such laws in misguided efforts to police political speech.”
Idaho Senate widely passes anti-SLAPP bill that aims to curtail frivolous lawsuits (Idaho Capital Sun). Idaho state Sen. Brian Lenney is right. SLAPPs “are not designed to win. They’re designed to intimidate, to distract, to bankrupt or to punish a person for exercising free speech.” Every state and the federal government needs a strong anti-SLAPP law.
Brendan Carr, Trump’s ‘free speech’ warrior, wastes no time violating Trump’s new free speech executive order (Techdirt). Hypocrite and FCC Chair Carr revived several frivolous complaints against news networks that his predecessor dismissed — but not the one against Fox News. Techdirt has more on Carr’s "deceptive editing" of the FCC's case docket to carry his boss's political water.
Check out our other newsletters
If you haven’t yet, subscribe to FPF’s other newsletters, including “The Classifieds,” our new newsletter on government secrecy and overclassification, and Digital Security Tips, our weekly updates on how to keep your work and your sources safe.
