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Prosecutors are taking a second look at a deadly 2023 crash on the Jefferson Barracks Bridge after new evidence emerged in a civil lawsuit.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Administrators expressed their apologies to anyone who had to see the offensive messages and commended the student who reported the graffiti.

Twenty-six people are indicted in federal court and are accused of being part of a Sinaloa Cartel drug pipeline from Mexico to the St. Louis region.

Tower Grove Park officially began its major renovation project on Thursday, aiming to modernize core facilities and restore historic structures.

CHICAGO – Attorney General Kwame Raoul, as part of a coalition of 22 attorneys general and the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, today filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to block the Trump administration from enforcing the “Defund Provision” in the recently enacted federal budget reconciliation law. The Defund Provision was designed to exclude Planned Parenthood facilities and other health centers that provide abortions from receiving federal Medicaid reimbursements, even though federal dollars do not pay for abortions. The excluded centers also provide essential health care services to low-income patients who receive Medicaid, including cancer screenings, testing for and treatment of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), birth control, and other critical medical services. Raoul and the coalition filed the motion asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts to grant a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit the coalition filed July 29 ove

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KANSAS CITY — U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced Thursday plans to boost American farmers by purchasing millions of bushels of crops. In an effort to increase American exports, the USDA will purchase 417,000 metric tons of commodities immediately to support the international food aid programs. That’s equivalent to more than 16 million […]

The Supreme Court pulled off another shadow docket masterpiece this week, granting Trump’s request to keep FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter fired while simultaneously pretending they haven’t already made up their minds about whether presidents can ignore 90-year-old Supreme Court precedent. What makes this particularly brazen is that the Court is allowing Trump to violate […]

Phones went down Thursday Sept. 18 at the Clyde S. Cahill courthouse, commonly known as the civil courts building.

ST. LOUIS - A Romanian national, who authorities say was in the country illegally, has pleaded guilty to federal charges tied to a national sleight-of-hand scheme that targeted the St. Louis area and at least 20 states. Adrian Stoica, 46, pleaded guilty Thursday to three counts of wire fraud and one count of illegal entry [...]

From St. Louis/Southern Illinois Labor Tribune: When Bricklayers Local 1 suffered a spate of three suicides, they knew they had to do something. Working with contractors, they developed the Riding Boss program, an innovative approach that today is saving lives. Brian Jennewein, director of the Bricklayers and Allied Crafts Administrative District Council (BAC ADC) of […]

The post Bricklayers Riding Boss Program is Saving Lives appeared first on Construction Forum.

A group of U.S. investors will take over the massive video-sharing platform TikTok, President Donald Trump said Thursday. Trump signed an executive order certifying a transaction for TikTok complies with a 2024 law requiring the platform’s Chinese parent company, Byte Dance Ltd., divest TikTok or face a ban in the U.S.  The company is valued at […]