DOJ Reverses Rule Protecting Journalists from Ratting Out Their Sources

Pictured: U.S. Attorney General, Pam Bondi

​The Department of Justice has rescinded its policy shielding journalists from being compelled to produce records or testify in federal leak investigations. Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a memo that the move is needed for “safeguarding classified, privileged, and other sensitive information.” The memo also reportedly discusses the danger of leaks that “undermine” the president’s agenda.
 
This is a step in the wrong direction. DOJ’s former policy was a laudable and necessary bulwark against government meddling in the collection and dissemination of free information. It is an own-goal for conservatives feeling wronged by lawfare and official censorship. The confidence of sources to expose secret transgressions made it easier for conservative journalists to reveal the IRS campaign to harass conservative non-profits during the Obama administration, for The New York Post’s to stand by its brave and lonely investigation of Hunter Biden’s laptop, for the independent reporting of Catherine Herridge, and for Matt Taibbi’s exposure of the extent of social media censorship.
 
In recent years, we’ve seen federal intrusion into the records of the AP, CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and even morning raids to confiscate the phones of activist journalists. For decades, journalists have been held in contempt and jailed for refusing to reveal their confidential news sources.
 
As a result, almost every state in the country has a “press shield” law that protects journalists’ sources and notes, with reasonable exceptions. But the federal government has no such law.
 
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press president Bruce Brown said in response to the decision: “Some of the most consequential reporting in U.S. history – from Watergate to warrantless wiretapping after 9/11 – was and continues to be made possible because reporters have been able to protect the identities of confidential sources and uncover and report stories that matter to people across the political spectrum. Strong protections for journalists serve the American public by safeguarding the free flow of information.”
 
That’s why there has been strong bipartisan support in the House of Representatives for the Protect Reporters from Exploitive State Spying (PRESS) Act, passing it twice. The PRESS Act would prohibit federal authorities from spying on journalists through collection of their phone and email records while imposing strict limitations on when the government can require a reporter to give up their sources. It reasonably grants exceptions for emergencies.
 
In the Senate, the PRESS Act has strong bipartisan support, including from Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), as well as Democrats Sen. Ron Wyden (R-OR) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL). But it has yet to make it out of committee.
 
Congress must act now. Enshrining protections for journalists is a logical policy fix designed to protect newsgathering, which is our primary means of directing the disinfecting rays of sunlight towards government corruption and malfeasance. Doing so would be consistent with the aims of the founders, who took great pains to ensure the First Amendment had a place of primacy in the Bill of Rights. And it would protect against increasing constitutionally illiterate, illegal acts by government officials against reporters. 
 
General Bondi promises that warrants should “limit the scope of intrusion into potentially protected materials or newsgathering activities.” That is a subjective and potentially politicized assessment. We need a brightline rule. Laws to protect journalists’ notes and sources have worked well across America’s red and blue states. The PRESS Act will work just as well in Washington, D.C.

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