I have been shouting into the wind for 15 years that the war on whistleblowers and government sources – started under Barack Obama and continued by Presidents Trump and Biden – was a backdoor war on journalists. Donald Trump has now brought the battle to the front door and his administration is using a battering ram to get inside.
Just ahead of his 100-day mark in office, the Trump administration set off two major earthquakes that shook the media landscape and threatened the foundation of a free press. First, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that federal authorities may once again seek reporters’ phone records and compel their testimony in leak investigations. Second, Bondi announced that she plans to pursue cases “where a Government employee discloses sensitive information for the purposes of personal enrichment and undermining our foreign policy, national security and government effectiveness.” She claimed that “this conduct could properly be characterized as treasonous.”
When the government first started using the Espionage Act to go after “leakers” (most of whom were whistleblowers), in every single one of the cases, reporters and news outlets featured prominently in the indictments. But there was always an unspoken understanding that the government would not go after reporters directly. When the government first tried to criminalize leaking in this century, the case against NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake imploded and the judge excoriated the government:
“We’re...
The Hindu reported on Saturday that the Tribal Council in Nicobar islands has written a fresh letter to the Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram about the island administration’s claims of settling t...