Biden’s press freedom legacy: Empty words and hypocrisy

Joe Biden by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
The Biden administration helped create a road map for criminalizing journalism.
Despite accomplishments such as freeing journalists Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva from Russia and strengthening internal government guidelines on legal demands to journalists, former President Joe Biden’s press freedom record was decidedly mixed.
Among other failures, Biden’s continued prosecution of Julian Assange under the Espionage Act helped create a road map to criminalize reporting; he routinely put exaggerated national security concerns over the First Amendment; and he allowed the Israeli military to kill journalists in Gaza without consequence from the U.S.
The Trump administration's Department of Justice secretly obtained the phone and email records of a CNN journalist last year. Senator Wyden has called on the Biden admin to categorically bar the surveillance of journalists in order to root out their sources.
Department of Justice subpoenas for the phone records of three Washington Post reporters represent an outrageous invasion of the First Amendment rights of journalists to communicate with sources, and the defense of their use by the Biden administration raises alarming questions about its commitment to press freedom.
As we come to the end of Sunshine Week — the long-running annual initiative focusing on government transparency — we're taking a look at how the first few months of the Biden administration have shaped up on that front.
A coalition of two dozen press freedom, civil liberties, and human rights groups call for an immediate end to the prosecution of Julian Assange by Biden's Department of Justice.
Talking about the importance of press freedom is nice, actually protecting it is much better.
Well, I guess this is a thing now…people running for president musing about whether they might reintroduce the torture techniques Obama “prohibited” when he took office. The latest is Jeb Bush; three years ago, it was candidate Romney. The fact that torture is framed by these candidates as …
Ninety-Nine Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests filed by journalists and researchers since last July were flagged by the Department of Defense (DOD) and had to receive “Department Level Clearance” before agencies within DOD could issue a response and/or responsive records. I obtained the latest so-called Department Level Interest list …