Espionage Act: The zombie law haunting Halloween week

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

In the spirit of Halloween, we’re calling for an end to the Espionage Act — a zombie statute that keeps popping up to drag journalists and their sources into hell. More about the act and its latest victims below. Also, the Department of Homeland Security and cops are sabotaging public records requests, and a new coalition of veteran journalists is fighting back against censorship.

The Espionage Act’s big, bad week

The Justice Department unsealed new Espionage Act charges against former FBI Director James Comey, accusing him of leaking national defense information to the press in 2016.

Comey has a strong argument that the prosecution violates the statute of limitations, but the problems with Espionage Act prosecutions go far beyond procedural technicalities. The 1917 law’s vagueness and overbreadth have long made it the government’s weapon of choice not only for political grudges but for prosecuting whistleblowers who share important news with the press and public. Comey’s own FBI led plenty of these investigations.

In fact, just days before news of the Comey case broke, we learned that former government contractor Ian Brinksman was arrested and charged under the Espionage Act for sharing information with a reporter. The reporter wrote a series of articles based on CIA reports about Israel’s relationship with U.S. military and intelligence — information firmly within the public interest.

Journalists fight back

We’ve long advocated for journalists to vocally defend their freedoms and the public’s right to be informed, rather than treating attacks on the First Amendment as inside baseball.

The Trump administration has, unfortunately, left them no choice, and everyone from small left-wing outlets to mainstream broadcasters that share a corporate parent with Mickey Mouse is standing up for themselves. Among the leaders of this sea change are former ABC journalists Ian Cameron and Lisa Stark, who have led a series of coalition letters from veteran journalists calling attention to the current administration’s abuses. We’re proud to join their new coalition, Press4Democracy, and stand in solidarity with hundreds of esteemed reporters.

Gov. Moore’s office says it’s stopped retaliating against Sinclair outlets

Readers of this newsletter may recall that we recently led a letter demanding that Maryland Gov. Wes Moore stop sending inquiries from Sinclair-owned news outlets for legal review before answering them. His office has cited a personal defamation lawsuit a Sinclair executive filed against Moore to justify the practice.

We received a statement from Moore’s office this week that says, “We have now concluded this temporary legal review process. We will continue to send any inquiries regarding the lawsuit from any outlet to our attorneys for review.” The statement still contends that the legal reviews were “basic due diligence,” not retaliation, but Moore’s office has not clarified how responding to routine inquiries about basic local news reporting could conceivably jeopardize the governor’s legal defense in the defamation case (or even if it could, why that should be the problem of Maryland reporters and news consumers).

We still have plenty of questions about the legal review process and the justifications asserted by Moore’s staff following our letter, and we’ve filed public records requests to sort it out. More on that to come, but regardless, we commend Moore’s team for changing course.

Overspending and secrecy at DHS

The Department of Homeland Security is flush with taxpayer cash. But it can’t seem to find the resources for its Freedom of Information Act offices. Our records requests about the program it’s using to funnel cash to local police to detain immigrants — paying, in one example, more than $2 million per arrest — have met with silence. In a video, Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Executive Director Trevor Timm breaks down how DHS is in fact actively sabotaging its FOIA operations, keeping the public in the dark.

Photojournalist speaks out from ICE jail

We’ve written before about the overlooked and alarming imprisonment of Texas photojournalist Ya’akub Vijandre, who the Trump administration wants to deport over social media posts expressing pro-Palestine views and criticizing controversial prosecutions. We’ve also interviewed his lawyers and friends about his case and his treatment by immigration officers.

But until now, we hadn’t heard from him directly. In a new essay for USA Today, Vijandre writes that “my detention is not only unlawful, but un-American. … For the sake of future generations — and for the sake of America herself — we have to push back.”

What to do when cops claim anonymity

Law enforcement and immigration agents across the country have been hiding their faces, concealing misconduct records, and attempting to keep their identities hidden in court, evading accountability for their actions on the job. Journalists Raven Geary and Sam Stecklow and the ACLU of Tennessee’s Miriam Nemeth joined FPF Senior Adviser Caitlin Vogus for a webinar this week about how journalists and the public can push back on these anti-transparency tactics.