Threats to Twitter Files reporter underscore need for PRESS Act

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Dear friend of press freedom,

Here are some of the most important stories we’re following from the U.S. and around the world. If you enjoy reading this newsletter, please forward it to friends and family. If someone has forwarded you this newsletter, please subscribe here ([link removed]) .

Police evicting a homeless encampment in Asheville, North Carolina. Courtesy of Veronica Coit, Asheville Blade.

Asheville, North Carolina journalists Matilda Bliss and Veronica Coit were found guilty of trespassing this week because they recorded police evicting unhoused people from a public park after the park’s closing time. Here is the statement ([link removed]) we issued following the verdict.

We explained in NC Newsline ([link removed]) before the trial that the prosecution was not just unconstitutional but pointless. Yes, the First Amendment prohibits the government from retaliatory targeting of journalists, even under generally applicable trespassing laws. Bodycam footage, released following a petition filed by Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) and others, showed that officers arrested the journalists before the eviction “because they’re videotaping.”

But legalities aside, it does not serve the interests of justice, or of the taxpayers funding the prosecutions, to pursue charges against journalists who not only did not harm anyone but performed the public service of documenting police conduct. Officers admitted ([link removed]) during the trial that there was nowhere outside the park where journalists could have observed the evictions.

The journalists intend to appeal, as they should. The episode threatens to irreparably tarnish the progressive image Asheville cultivates, especially when local prosecutors are also pursuing equally absurd “felony littering ([link removed]) ” charges against mutual aid workers who brought food and supplies to the same homeless encampment.

We’ll be participating in a National Press Club panel discussion ([link removed]) of this case and other arrests of journalists on May 5. Hopefully that will bring further attention to this anti-press prosecution, which is just starting to get some media coverage ([link removed]) outside North Carolina. When mainstream journalists are arrested it’s often a national story. Independent journalists' rights are just as important.


** Congressional harassment over Twitter Files reporting continues
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Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett this week sent a letter to journalist Matt Taibbi requesting he supplement his Congressional testimony regarding the Twitter Files in light of his admission of errors in his reporting during a television interview. Plaskett’s letter then implies that Taibbi could face years in prison for perjury should he not comply with her requests.

Plaskett, a lawyer, knows full well that perjury requires knowingly false testimony. She admits in her own letter that Taibbi’s misstatements were inadvertent errors that he has publicly acknowledged. The letter appears to be a bad faith intimidation tactic. As we told Lee Fang ([link removed]) , baselessly threatening journalists with prison is reprehensible, no matter what one thinks of the journalist in question and no matter which political party the threats come from.

The letter also continues ([link removed]) demanding that Taibbi disclose his conversations with alleged sources. It underscores that press freedom is not a partisan issue and provides another reason why legislators from both parties should support the PRESS Act ([link removed]) and put an end to the government’s efforts to pry into journalists’ confidential newsgathering.


** Copyright abuse to censor journalists previews Section 230 repeal
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Artist and actor David Choe made news this week when he filed copyright complaints with online platforms to censor journalists’ discussions of a 2014 podcast interview where he detailed raping a masseuse. He claims it was performance art that shouldn’t be taken literally.

Choe is only the latest public figure to abuse the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s takedown procedures to silence legitimate criticism from the media. As we wrote on our blog ([link removed]) , it’s a preview of a world without Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields platforms from liability for user-posted defamation.

If Section 230 is repealed or reformed, as many in Congress have called for, public figures would surely replicate their DMCA playbook by demanding platforms remove newsworthy content they baselessly claim defames them. And platforms with no interest in risking liability would comply rather than investigating.


** Oklahoma officials threaten to prosecute journalists who recorded them plotting murders
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Journalists caught an Oklahoma sheriff and other government officials on tape fantasizing about murdering reporters as well as bemoaning the illegality of lynchings. The governor rightly called on the officials to resign. We told Voice of America ([link removed]) that the recorded comments, although extreme, “raise questions about how many other public officials across the United States hold similar contempt for the press and how those sentiments influence their actions and policies.”

The sheriff’s response to the ordeal? Threatening felony charges against the journalists for recording. It’s outrageous that officials are focused on prosecuting the recorder and not their own despicable conduct. In any event, the journalists reportedly made the recording because they rightly suspected officials would continue conducting public business after ending a public meeting, in violation of open meetings laws. Obviously public officials have no expectation of privacy in meetings they illegally closed in the first place.


** What we’re reading
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Why did journalists help the Justice Department identify a leaker? ([link removed]) The Intercept observes that a Washington Post report, without irony, accused ([link removed]) the “Discord Leaker” of exposing readers to prosecution for viewing classified documents. Yes, the overbroad Espionage Act allows charging people who merely read national defense information, including in newspapers like The Washington Post. That’s not something to be commended. Rather than scold leakers, the press should demand repeal of the archaic law.
The EARN IT bill is back, seeking to scan our messages and photos ([link removed]) . Congress is again attempting to pass the EARN IT Act, a twice-failed bill that would undermine online privacy, as well as encryption services on which journalists rely, while failing to accomplish its purported goal of combatting “CSAM” (short for Child Sexual Abuse Material). Instead, the bill would force platforms to either remain willfully ignorant ([link removed]) of CSAM or cast an overbroad net and censor lawful content, potentially leading to wrongful prosecutions of innocent people. We’ve opposed the bill ([link removed]) in past years and will continue doing so this time around.

LA journalist files anti-SLAPP motion against city, citing first amendment rights ([link removed]) . Journalist Ben Camacho is employing California’s anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) law to seek dismissal of a lawsuit by the City of Los Angeles to claw back pictures of undercover cops that the city itself released to Camacho. The city claims it included the pictures in a response to Camacho’s records request by mistake. We’ve called ([link removed]) the lawsuit “as frivolous as it gets” because the Supreme Court has repeatedly held journalists are entitled to keep and publish records provided by the government, even by accident. We hope Camacho succeeds in dismissing the case and recovering his attorney’s fees.


** FPF and Field of Vision to host free digital security trainings
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We are hosting a series of free digital security trainings geared towards filmmakers and media makers with our partners, Field of Vision, in the coming weeks! Join us to learn more about how to protect your data in the field, during the edit, and on the circuit. Sign-ups are open now ([link removed]) .


** New Digital Security newsletter
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FPF has a new weekly newsletter on digital security and journalism! It’ll be a short update on digital security news, what you can do about it, and other news from our team. Subscribe here ([link removed]) .
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