Don’t give presidents the tools to jail journalists

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** Dear friend of press freedom,
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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]) .
At a Texas rally this weekend, Donald Trump called for law enforcement to go after journalists and publishers to find who leaked the Supreme Court’s draft Dobbs opinion earlier this year. In a rambling and occasionally vulgar speech, the former president suggested investigators could claim the leak was a national security issue, and threaten the reporters and their outlets with prison violence ([link removed]) . These comments echoed similar remarks he’d posted to Truth Social this summer ([link removed]) .

Trump’s heinous positions are hardly new: As a public figure, then as a candidate, then as president, then as a defeated former executive, he has repeatedly voiced similarly objectionable views on the value of press freedom in this country.

It’s a stark reminder that future presidents may attempt to imprison journalists who report on the machinations of secret government.

It’s also why, ever since the Trump administration initiated the prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, we’ve warned that the dangerous precedent set by the case could easily be used against national security reporters at The New York Times, The Washington Post and everywhere else.

Those charges received condemnation from top American news organizations and nearly every major international human rights group ([link removed]) when they were filed in 2019, but the DOJ under Biden continues to pursue them. Freedom of the Press Foundation is among the more than two dozen groups that have repeatedly called for the Department of Justice to drop the charges ([link removed]) . Those demands have only picked up this month as Assange tested positive for COVID ([link removed]) while awaiting extradition in a U.K. prison.

Yesterday, the DOJ released important guidelines that would virtually bar the surveillance of journalists ([link removed]) doing their jobs. But until the department breaks meaningfully with its predecessor’s disregard for the First Amendment and drops the charges against Assange, future administrations (Trump is likely to run again, after all) will have been handed all the tools they need to imprison journalists they do not like.


** What we’re reading:
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* Knight Institute sues CIA and other agencies to obtain intelligence report on Khashoggi murder ([link removed]) : The Columbia University-based First Amendment organization filed a FOIA lawsuit seeking the still-withheld report on the slain journalist’s 2018 murder.
* LAPD launches criminal probe of racist leak at request of Martinez, De León, Cedillo ([link removed]) : The Los Angeles police chief announced that his department has initiated a criminal investigation into the leaked recording that has shaken city politics for weeks. Experts note that the anonymous poster who published the recording to Reddit could invoke California’s shield law, which protects a reporter’s privilege not to disclose sources.
* Iran’s media blackout sets the stage for state violence ([link removed]) : Brutal crackdowns to protests in Iran have intensified as the government blocks reporters from documenting the scene. “There are no journalists on the ground. No journalists are allowed to work in these situations. Unless you are working for the regime,” said the editor-in-chief of an Iranian fact-checking organization.
* Charges — and punishments — for J6 rioters who hurt journalists, damaged news equipment ([link removed]) : Our U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documented 18 journalists assaulted during the riots and tens of thousands of dollars of news equipment damaged. Last week, a rioter was sentenced to nearly three years in prison for his actions that day, including the assault of an Associated Press photographer. It’s the first sentencing to include crimes on the media.

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