It’s time to declassify 9/11 records

Dear Friend of Press Freedom:

It’s Sept. 11, the 25th anniversary of the deadly attacks on the U.S. and the beginning of the “war on terror.” It’s time for critical records on the attacks to be declassified, but they’re unlikely to see the light of day. Plus, the government gives up on wiretapping charges against a Florida journalist and Congress must do more to protect the press from “Petty” Pete Hegseth.

Crucial 9/11 documents still secret

The executive order covering classification calls for most historical records to be declassified 25 years after they’re created, which means millions of pages about the Sept. 11 attacks qualify for release this December — records that survivors and victims’ families have been trying to obtain for years.

But systemic failures throughout the declassification system mean that these records are unlikely to become public anytime soon. Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy Lauren Harper wrote for MS NOW about the vital information in these documents, and the path the Trump administration could take to bring justice for survivors and transparency to the public.

Drop the rest of the charges against Tim Burke

On Wednesday, the Department of Justice moved to abandon its appeal of a lower court’s dismissal of felony wiretapping counts against Florida-based independent journalist Tim Burke. Burke exposed unaired outtakes of antisemitic remarks from a Fox News interview with musician Ye, formerly known as Kanye West; the government then raided his newsroom and hit him with numerous charges under the Wiretap Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The ordeal isn’t over — the CFAA charges remain pending, and the government could reindict Burke under the Wiretap Act.

FPF Chief of Advocacy Seth Stern called on the DOJ to drop the rest of the charges, saying, “By confiscating most of Tim Burke’s newsroom equipment for years and getting multiple extensions in court before ultimately dropping its appeal, the DOJ has successfully held Burke’s journalism hostage and used the legal system to punish him for reporting on a clearly newsworthy issue.”

Protect journalists from ‘Petty’ Pete

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is an incompetent propagandist — despite his myriad censorship efforts, few Americans have favorable views of him or his Iran war. But he could get a lot more effective at selling the public on lies if the independent information ecosystem continues to erode. As Stern writes, U.S. lawmakers need to get serious about protecting journalists and whistleblowers to prevent Hegseth and his colleagues in the Trump administration from stamping out independent journalism like their authoritarian idols abroad.

Stars and Stripes censorship looks familiar behind bars

Hegseth remains persistent. One of his more recent efforts to control the narrative has been taking an axe to the staff at military newspaper Stars and Stripes after they published reporting he didn’t like about the USS Abraham Lincoln. To FPF contributor Jeremy Busby, who’s been incarcerated for 28 years in Texas, the crackdown was reminiscent of the fate of Texas prison newspaper The Echo, where the content has been neutered by prison officials. Busby breaks down what happens when news outlets become tools of the state, or vanish altogether.

Government health agencies are lockboxes

Federal health agencies control information of life-or-death importance, but their stonewalling of reporters has reached new heights. At a webinar last week, reporters Bob Herman of the Boston Globe’s STAT, Sheryl Gay Stolberg of The New York Times, and Robert King of Politico, along with FPF Senior Advocacy Adviser Caitlin Vogus, recounted the obstacles they and others have faced in getting information from these agencies, and the strategies they’ve found for pushing past them to get to the story.