Like clockwork, every time government documents leak, officials claim the sky is falling, and the media eats it up. The content of the leaked documents is forgotten amidst wall to wall coverage of supposedly imminent harms that never materialize. Later, everyone inevitably acknowledges that the threat was exaggerated, but by then the public’s attention has moved elsewhere. 

As Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) executive director Trevor Timm told the Intercept, "the journalists covering this story probably know there is a massive overclassification problem, and they almost certainly know that any time there is a leak of any magnitude, the government goes on TV and claims that national security will be forever damaged.” 

The real story is not the purported dangers of the leak, or the identity of the leaker and his alleged motives, but that the leaked documents reveal, for example, American forces on the ground and Ukrainian President Zelensky’s desire to use American missiles within Russia. Ben Burgis correctly argues that matters like these should have been the subject of spirited national debate before the leak. They certainly should be now. But rather than being called upon to explain its overclassification addiction, the administration is reportedly exploring how to increase social media surveillance to tighten its secrecy system even further.  

Assange prosecution undermines U.S. efforts to free journalists abroad

Russia’s espionage charges against respected Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich are an obvious sham. But so are U.S. Espionage Act charges against Julian Assange. He’s not accused of anything fitting the commonly understood definition of espionage — i.e., spying for a foreign power — just obtaining and publishing national defense documents, like investigative journalists do all the time. 

As we wrote on our blog, “just as it is outrageous that Russia has said it will ignore the pleas of major news outlets to release Gershkovich, the same can and should be said for the Justice Department, which is putting press freedom at dire risk in this country, with eerily similar charges to those Russia is pinning on Gershkovich.”

It’s great that members of Congress are finally joining major news outlets and press rights and civil liberties organizations in calling on the DOJ to drop Assange’s prosecution. We commend Rep. Rashida Tlaib for leading that important effort. As we told Common Dreams, “as long as the government claims the power to prosecute newsgathering, all journalists can do is hope prosecutors exercise restraint and don't come after them for doing their jobs. Journalists will surely tread more cautiously as a result.”  

It’s a shame that we have to make statements like that about Joe Biden and not just Vladimir Putin. Until the government heeds the demands of Tlaib and her colleagues, its credibility when it comes to Gershkovich’s prosecution and other press freedom issues abroad will remain needlessly compromised. 

Stop unconstitutional criminalization of legal support numbers 

Prosecutors in Georgia are raising a novel and alarming argument in pursuing domestic terrorism charges against “Cop City” protesters: that protesters writing legal support phone numbers on their arms should be taken as evidence of criminal intent. 

Journalists covering protests also write lawyers’ numbers on their persons, not because they’re planning to commit crimes but because they know they may be wrongfully arrested and their phones might be seized. Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) advises journalists to do so in our own guides. And data from FPF’s U.S. Press Freedom Tracker shows that the vast majority of journalist arrests occur at protests.  

We joined the National Lawyers Guild and over 40 civil liberties and human rights organizations in objecting to prosecutors’ disingenuous legal theory. More on our blog. 

What we’re reading

What protects Fox News also protects our democracy. Jeff Kosseff’s piece for the New York Times explained why all Americans, regardless of political party, benefit from strong protections against defamation lawsuits by public figures. Relatedly, Mike Pence recently became the latest prominent Republican to oppose Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s proposals to help the powerful bankrupt the press with litigation. Hopefully, after Florida and the entire U.S. reject DeSantis’s policies, Congress will consider Kosseff and Matthew Schafer’s proposal to codify the same protections DeSantis is attacking into federal law.

WGEM joins news outlets seeking to unseal Bliefnick trial documents. It’s great to see local news outlets oppose an Illinois judge’s order sealing court files in a murder case due to “extensive publicity.” Too many judges either don’t know or intentionally ignore that SCOTUS has repeatedly held such orders unconstitutional.

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