US secretly issued subpoena to access Guardian reporter's phone records

[alwaysinasnit]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/12/us-government-subpoena-guardian-reporter-phone-records

The US justice department secretly issued a subpoena to gain access to details of the phone account of a Guardian reporter as part of an aggressive leak investigation into media stories about an official inquiry into the Trump administration’s child separation policy at the southern border.

Leak investigators issued the subpoena to obtain the phone number of Stephanie Kirchgaessner, the Guardian’s investigations correspondent in Washington. The move was carried out without notifying the newspaper or its reporter, as part of an attempt to ferret out the source of media articles about a review into family separation conducted by the Department of Justice’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz.

It is highly unusual for US government officials to obtain a journalist’s phone details in this way, especially when no national security or classified information is involved. The move was all the more surprising in that it came from the DoJ’s inspector general’s office – the watchdog responsible for ethical oversight and whistleblower protections.

Katharine Viner, the Guardian’s editor-in-chief, decried the action as “an egregious example of infringement on press freedom and public interest journalism by the US Department of Justice”.

snip...

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[efhmc]

2. I love and trust the Guardian so much more than I do any American media.

[empedocles]

3. Looks like trump DOJ was doing this. September 2020.

[Brainfodder]

4. I'm going with: necessary evil?

[Phoenix61]

5. Curious the request came right before Biden was sworn in.

Even more curious who specifically requested it.

[GoCubsGo]

10. Given that they were looking into family separations at the border,

I'm going with Stephen Miller.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

6. Attorney General Merrick Garland restricts efforts to seize reporters' records

Under DOJ policies put back into effect by AG Garland, this cannot be done now

Link to tweet

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/merrick-garland-justice-department-subpoenas-reporters/

The Justice Department on Monday unveiled a new policy tightening the rules on prosecutors seeking subpoenas, warrants and court orders for journalists' records after the Trump administration was found to have secretly obtained information from reporters at three news outlets as part of its efforts to tamp down on leaks.

In a three-page memo to federal prosecutors and top Justice Department officials, Attorney General Merrick Garland said he is prohibiting the department from using compulsory legal process — subpoenas, warrants, court orders and civil investigative demands — to obtain information from members of the press who are acting within the scope of the newsgathering process when pursuing leak investigations.

"Because a free and independent press is vital to the functioning of our democracy, the Department of Justice has long employed procedural protections and a balancing test to restrict the use of compulsory process to obtain information from or records of members of the media. There are, however, shortcomings to any balancing test in this context," Garland wrote in the memo.

The ban by Garland applies to reporters, their publishers or employers, and third-party service providers and extends to the "full range of compulsory process," including subpoenas, warrants, court orders and civil investigative demands. The prohibition also applies regardless of whether investigators are seeking testimony, documents, telephone records, metadata or digital content.

[alwaysinasnit]

7. Garland is OK, this happened under TFG.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

8. I know

I am glad that Garland in effect restore the old and correct policies

[alwaysinasnit]

9. I can't even imagine how much damage control Garland is facing after having inherited such

a shambles.