Congress’s declassification work shouldn’t end with JFK

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Congress took the lead on JFK declassification. That should happen more often

Today is the anniversary of the JFK assassination. Congress passed a landmark law over 30 years to release millions of pages of assassination records, even though it doesn’t normally get involved in declassification efforts.

This makes 1992’s Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act a remarkable outlier in combating government secrecy. As of this writing, a few thousand records remain secret, based on arguments that are tenuous at best. But thanks to the law, millions of pages are now public, an overwhelming success.

Despite this, Congress hasn’t successfully ordered another targeted, high-level declassification review effort since. It should. Read more on our website.

Trump opposes the PRESS Act. We’re not stopping the fight

President-elect Donald Trump made headlines this week by calling for Republicans to “kill” the PRESS Act — the bipartisan journalists’ shield bill to protect journalist-source confidentiality.

We told The New York Times, CNN, and The Intercept why he should reconsider. Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Executive Director Trevor Timm told the Times that “The PRESS Act protects conservative and independent journalists just as much as it does anyone in the mainstream press. … Democratic administrations abused their powers to spy on journalists many times. The bipartisan PRESS Act will stop government overreach and protect the First Amendment once and for all.”

We’re not alone. Veteran investigative journalist Catherine Herridge, herself embroiled in a fight to protect her sources, told Chris Cuomo on NewsNation that her reporting — including stories that exposed defects in the Russian collusion narrative during Trump’s first term — would not have been possible without confidential sources. She explained how citizen journalists, including those using social media platforms like X and Trump’s Truth Social, need journalist-source confidentiality more than anyone.

San Francisco should not aid tech exec’s censorship campaign

We told you last week about the multifaceted censorship campaign by tech executive Maury Blackman against journalist Jack Poulson, who reported on Blackman’s past domestic violence arrest.

This week, we’ve got an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle, co-written by Ginny LaRoe of California’s First Amendment Coalition, calling out San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu for his role. Chiu, at the request of lawyers for Blackman (whose companies, by the way, have received lucrative contracts from the city), sent a letter to Poulson telling him his reporting violated a California law against disseminating sealed arrest reports.

We told Chiu to go back to constitutional law class and stop carrying water for censorial bullies.

Both parties abuse spying powers

Are you a national security reporter who wants to know if the FBI has accessed your social media, email, or phone records? Too bad, that’s classified. The government can demand your information from a wide variety of third parties, and it can force those companies to keep the fact that it is investigating you a secret indefinitely.

Government gag orders to silence these third parties are especially concerning because the threshold for their use is low and they’ve often been abused — by Democratic and Republican administrations alike. Social platform X, owned by Elon Musk, has unsuccessfully waged separate lawsuits to curtail some of the government’s favorite surveillance tools. Whatever you think of Musk and his ties to Trump, people across the political spectrum should nonetheless wish X success in fighting secret surveillance. Read more on our website.

Time to confirm inspectors general

The more powerful the agency, the greater the need for strong internal oversight. But this can't happen without an inspector general. Yet the Treasury Department hasn't had one for nearly 2,000 days, and the National Security Agency has gone over 700 days without one.

FPF endorsed a letter organized by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington urging Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to prioritize filling the vacancies before time runs out. Read the letter here.

What we’re reading

A legal showdown over press freedom (The Free Press). Appellate judges conducted parts of a hearing over Catherine Herridge’s First Amendment right to protect sources behind closed doors. As we told The Free Press, it’s a serious problem when, “The future of the reporters’ privilege for Washington, D.C.-based whistleblowers and journalists, a pretty important group, ends up being heard in secret.”

US House passes bill to punish non-profits deemed to support ‘terrorism’ (The Guardian). The House passed a dangerous bill that would give the Trump administration wide discretion to declare nonprofit organizations terrorist supporters and strip them of their tax-exempt status. That includes nonprofit media outlets and organizations that serve as sources for reporters. Fewer representatives voted for the bill this time around than in the past, but shame on those who still did.

‘Unconstitutional scheme’: Alabama journalists, school officials sue over arrests (AL.com). Two Alabama journalists, among those arrested last year for nothing more than reporting news, have sued the Escambia County district attorney and others involved in the shocking charges. Good. We’ve long called for accountability for those behind this outrageous case.

Biden's legacy: Leaving FOIA in shambles (The Dissenter). No "systems" for greater transparency were established, and issues with FOIA were not properly dealt with in the Biden administration. As Trump returns to the White House, FOIA is just as fragile and in disrepair as it was when Joe Biden was elected in 2020.

Inside an American reporter’s Russian prison ordeal (The Washington Post). The imprisonment of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich rightfully got plenty of attention, but he wasn’t the only American journalist who spent time behind bars in Russia on sham charges. The Post has more on the case of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Alsu Kurmasheva.

Publisher of raided Kansas newspaper delivers advice to journalists: ‘Make democracy great again’ (Missouri Independent). Congratulations to Marion County Record Publisher Eric Meyer on his induction into the Kansas Press Association Newspaper Hall of Fame. It would’ve been well deserved even if last year’s raid on the Record hadn’t made him an involuntary press freedom icon.