Dear Friend of Press Freedom,
For 164 days, Rümeysa Öztürk has faced deportation by the United States government for writing an op-ed it didn’t like, and for 83 days, Mario Guevara has been imprisoned for covering a protest. Read on for more, and click here to subscribe to our other newsletters.
Recording police is not ‘violence’
It was bad enough when government officials claimed that journalists are inciting violence by reporting. But now, they’re accusing reporters of actually committing violence.
The supposed violence by reporters? Recording videos. At least three times recently, a government official or lawyer has argued that simply recording law enforcement or Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers is a form of violence. Read more here.
Thanks for citing us, House Republicans. Now do something
Congressional Republicans introduced our farewell article to the former president, titled Biden’s press freedom legacy: Empty words and hypocrisy, into the record at a House Judiciary Committee hearing this week.
That’s great — it’s always nice to have our work recognized. But if these lawmakers agree with us that former President Joe Biden was bad on press freedom, someone should really tell them about this Donald Trump character who’s in office now. All the abuses we identified in the article Republicans cited have (as the article predicted) worsened under the new president, and he’s come up with plenty of new ones too.
We wrote a letter to let the committee know that if it’s serious about addressing the issues our article discussed, regardless of who is in office, we’re here to help. We’ll let you know if they reply (but don’t hold your breath). Read the letter here.
Will secret law prevail in drug boat massacre?
The Trump administration has not provided any legal justification for blowing up a boat carrying 11 alleged Venezuelan drug traffickers on the Caribbean Sea. We filed a Freedom of Information Act request to find out if lawyers at the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel were consulted before the slaughter and, if so, what they said.
If there is an OLC opinion about the targeting of the Venezuelan boat, the public and Congress should be able to debate it right now. Unfortunately, the government has long taken the position that OLC opinions should be secret, even though there should be no such thing as secret law in the United States. Read more here, and, if you want to learn more about government secrecy and what we’re doing to combat it, subscribe to The Classifieds.
Stop the judicial secrecy bill
An amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act would allow lawmakers to scrub information about themselves from the internet. The bill fails to achieve its stated purpose of keeping lawmakers safe — except from investigative journalism.
This week we helped lead a letter to senators from press freedom and civil liberties organizations objecting to the misguided legislation. Even if the NDAA amendment does not succeed, it’s likely that this bill will be back, and we’ll be ready to fight it. Read the letter here.
ICE revives contract for spyware
In 2023, Biden issued an executive order limiting government use of commercial spyware. Subsequently, the Biden administration issued a stop-work order on a $2 million contract between Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Paragon, a spyware vendor that makes products that have reportedly been used to spy on journalists.
It now appears ICE is reinstating this contract. Read more here and subscribe to our Digital Security Tips newsletter.
What we’re reading
Inside Trump’s decade-long war on the press: 75,000 posts, 3,500 direct attacks
Trump’s anti-press rhetoric is “not bluster; it is not a personality trait. It is deliberate,” our U.S. Press Freedom Tracker’s Stephanie Sugars said. “It is very much at the cost of the strength of our social fabric and our shared reality.”
RSF and Avaaz launch international media operation
Great work by our friends at Reporters Without Borders organizing this response to Israel’s slaughter of journalists in Gaza. It’s unfortunate that more U.S. outlets did not participate. If the outlets you support were not among the few, ask them why.
Illinois restores protections for press targeted with frivolous lawsuits
We spoke to The Dissenter about the Illinois Supreme Court’s ridiculous ruling that the state’s law against strategic lawsuits against public participation doesn’t protect reporting, and the recently passed bill to repair the damage.
He plagiarized and promoted falsehoods. The White House embraces him
We talked to the Times about influencers replacing journalists at the White House. Yes, it’s awful that Trump won’t grant reporters the honor of getting lied to at press briefings. But the decimation of FOIA — a source of facts, not spin — is even more concerning.
Noem accuses CBS of ‘deceptively’ editing interview about Abrego Garcia
Kristi Noem’s complaints underscore why news outlets can’t settle frivolous lawsuits. Now, the door is wide open for government officials to question every editing decision news outlets make, whether to shorten an interview for time or to not air lies and nonsense.
Police body cameras are supposed to shed light. Rhode Island rules let officers keep footage in the dark
When rules restrict police body cameras from being used to provide transparency, the only use left for them is surveillance.
Judge Charles Wilson defends New York Times v. Sullivan
A good recap of why “originalist” attacks on the actual malice standard — which limits defamation claims by public figures — are so disingenuous.
