Attorney General Pam Bondy has repeatedly restricted leaked enquiries imposed by the Justice Department more than a decade ago, making it easier for investigators to avoid legal bars on search warrants seizing news collection records.
Protection was imposed in 2013 after the revelation that the FBI portrayed the Fox News reporter as a criminal bypassing restrictions to seize reporters' emails.
The change was part of Bondi's amendment regulations, including leaked inquiries issued this week. Most of the discussion focuses on how investigators once again use court orders, subpoenas and search warrants to chase reporters' information, and end the flat ban on tactics imposed by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland in 2021.
Essentially, Mr. Bondy returned to the norm before Garland's intervention. However, a thorough reading shows that in doing so, it also removed a key section of the previous regulations that emerged from the Fox News incident. In this section, investigators' ability to circumvent the 1980 law that generally prohibits search warrants for newsroom records.
The omission was prominent as many conservatives and Republicans were furious at the incident that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. led the reforms. Fox News target reporter James Rosen is currently the Chief Washington correspondent for another conservative network, Newsmax.
In a memo last week, when announcing the end of Garland's ban, who used a forced tool to pursue reporters' correspondence records, notes, or testimony, Bondy declared:
However, her memo also did not mention its intention to eliminate changes inspired by the Fox News incident that remained under the original Trump administration. Department news outlets did not respond to requests for comment.
Gabe Rottman, vice president of policy for reporters, warned that Safeguard's removal could “see a recurring view of the James Rosen incident,” and that he “stimulated important First Amendment concerns.” He posted an analysis of the new regulations on the group's blog.
“Reducing or eliminating protections from journalists and their sensitive news collection records will undermine the press as well as the public,” Rottman added. “It harms the people's ability to hold the government accountable.”
The issue focuses on the Privacy Protection Act of 1980, and generally prohibits ensuring that news collection materials are searched and seized. However, the law includes exceptions when reporters themselves are suspected of criminals.
In 2009, Rosen reported on North Korea's plan for nuclear tests. The Justice Department began a leak investigation and ultimately charged State Department contractor Stephen Jin Wookim. (In 2014, Kim pleaded guilty to unauthorized disclosure of restricted information and was sentenced to 13 months in prison.)
The Justice Department's bringing criminal charges in leak cases disappeared in the 20th century. But it began to become common midway through the George W. Bush administration, and the numbers continued to rise under Holder's surveillance.
It was then revealed in May 2013 that investigators seized two months of Associated Press phone records, portraying Rosen's Fox News report as a criminal in a search warrant application, and raising the reporter's unprecedented prosecutor's outlook for the information to be made public.
In search of a warrant to access Rosen's email on Google, FBI agents told the judge “it's highly likely that reporters have committed, committed or believe they are committing a violation.”
Party critics have expressed concern that the Justice Department is moving too far in oppression of leaks, and some lawmakers have also accused the holders of misunderstanding the assembly.
Justice Department officials retorted that they had no intention of actually prosecuting Rosen, and retorted that they only portrayed him as a criminal suspect to call exemption from the 1980 law. Critics said the defense essentially amounted to recognition that the department was set in malicious law.
“That tactic avoids the clear intent of the privacy law,” Rottman said. “The law is intended to ensure that the government is not required to search warrants for journalist records or unpublished stories.
In response to wider anger, President Obama has ordered a review of the process of the leakage investigation, saying he was “troubled” that the investigation report could be suppressed. Holder met with news media leaders repeatedly and acknowledged criticism that the Justice Department had turned it all too far towards offensive law enforcement.
He developed new guidelines for leakage investigations. Something that prohibits portraying reporters as conspirators in criminal leaks was included simply to avoid legal spheres to avoid legal investigators in secret search warrants in reporting materials. His regulations said investigators could only call exemptions from the 1980 law if reporters were officially under investigation.
These rules revealed that, until early in the Biden administration, under the Trump administration, the Justice Department seized communication records of reporters for the New York Times, Washington Post and CNN.
President Biden ordered prosecutors to stop seizing reporters' phone and email data. Garland has established regulations that prohibit the use of mandatory legal proceedings “with the exception of limited circumstances, for the purpose of obtaining records or records of members of news media acting within the scope of news collection.”
Last year, the House unanimously passed a bipartisan bill, strengthening reporters' ability to protect confidential sources. But he died in the Senate after Trump instructed Republicans to “kill the bill.”
