Pam Bondi Rolls Back Protections For Journalists In New DOJ Memo | EUROtoday

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department is cracking down on leaks of data to the information media, with Attorney General Pam Bondi saying prosecutors will as soon as once more have authority to make use of subpoenas, courtroom orders and search warrants to hunt for presidency officers who make “unauthorized disclosures” to journalists.

New rules introduced by Bondi in a memo to the employees obtained by The Associated Press on Friday rescind a Biden administration coverage that protected journalists from having their telephone information secretly seized throughout leak investigations — a follow lengthy decried by information organizations and press freedom teams.

The new rules assert that information organizations should reply to subpoenas “when authorized at the appropriate level of the Department of Justice” and likewise enable for prosecutors to make use of courtroom orders and search warrants to “compel production of information and testimony by and relating to the news media.”

The memo says members of the press are “presumptively entitled to advance notice of such investigative activities,” and subpoenas are to be “narrowly drawn.” Warrants should additionally embrace “protocols designed to limit the scope of intrusion into potentially protected materials or newsgathering activities,” the memo states.

“The Justice Department will not tolerate unauthorized disclosures that undermine President Trump’s policies, victimize government agencies, and cause harm to the American people,” Bondi wrote.

Under the brand new coverage, earlier than deciding whether or not to make use of intrusive ways in opposition to the information media, the legal professional basic is to guage whether or not there’s an affordable foundation to consider {that a} crime has been dedicated and that the data the federal government is searching for is required for prosecution. Also, deciding whether or not prosecutors have first made affordable makes an attempt to “obtain the information from alternative sources” and whether or not the federal government has first “pursued negotiations with the affected member of the news media.”

The rules come because the Trump administration has complained a few sequence of reports tales which have pulled again the curtain on inside decision-making, intelligence assessments and the actions of outstanding officers akin to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Tulsi Gabbard, the director of nationwide intelligence, mentioned this week that she was making a trio of “criminal” referrals to the Justice Department over intelligence group leaks to the media.

The coverage shift additionally comes amid continued scrutiny of the best ranges of the Trump administration over their very own lapses in safeguarding delicate data. National safety adviser Michael Waltz was revealed final month to have inadvertently added a journalist to a gaggle textual content utilizing the Signal encrypted messaging service, the place prime officers had been discussing plans to assault the Houthis. Hegseth has confronted his personal drumbeat of revelations over his use of Signal, together with a chat that included his spouse and brother, amongst others.

In a press release, Bruce Brown, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, mentioned in a press release that “strong protections for journalists serve the American public by safeguarding the free flow of information.”

“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,” he mentioned.

The coverage that Bondi is rescinding was created in by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland within the wake of revelations that the Justice Department officers alerted reporters at three information organizations — The Washington Post, CNN and The New York Times — that their telephone information had been obtained within the closing 12 months of the Trump administration.

The new rules from Garland marked a startling reversal of a follow of telephone information’ seizures that had endured throughout a number of presidential administrations. The Obama Justice Department, below then-Attorney General Eric Holder, alerted The Associated Press in 2013 that it had secretly obtained two months of telephone information of reporters and editors in what the information cooperative’s prime government known as a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into newsgathering actions.

After blowback, Holder introduced a revised set of pointers for leak investigations, together with requiring the authorization of the best ranges of the division earlier than subpoenas for information media information could possibly be issued.

But the division preserved its prerogative to grab journalists’ information, and the latest disclosures to the information media organizations present that the follow continued within the Trump Justice Department as a part of a number of investigations.