Fears of a press crackdown under US president-elect Donald Trump’s second term deepened with his nomination of Kash Patel as FBI director, given his calls for retribution against journalists. Yet, a rare chance to protect press freedom has emerged. The bipartisan Protect Reporters from Exploitative State Spying (PRESS) Act, the strongest press freedom legislation in US history, is on the brink of a vote. While Trump has urged Republicans to block it, the US Senate could still deliver it to US President Joe Biden before the lame-duck session ends in January.
The PRESS Act would ban secret government demands for journalists’ communications from tech giants, such as Google or Verizon, and protect reporters from jail for refusing to reveal sources. For investigative reporters to do their jobs — holding government officials to account for corruption and wrongdoing — they need to be able to protect the confidentiality of their sources. With courts recently weakening already-imperiled “reporter’s privilege” protections, that bill would finally give journalists in the US federal protections comparable to those afforded to other relationships where confidentiality is paramount, such as lawyers and clients, doctors and patients, and spouses.
The bill has something for Democrats and Republicans to like. The PRESS Act’s broad and nonpartisan definition of “journalist” takes into account the modern media landscape: You do not have to work full-time for a mainstream media organization to be covered. Freelancers, independent reporters writing Substack newsletters and even journalists posting primarily to social networks such as X would be included. It protects right-leaning journalists just as much as anyone at the New York Times or The Guardian. It also has common sense national security exceptions (such as preventing a terrorist attack or an imminent threat of violence) without diluting the bill’s strong protections. It is worth remembering that Democratic administrations have abused their powers to go after the first amendment rights of journalists just as much as Republicans. The administration of former US president Barack Obama brought a record number of prosecutions against whistleblowers and was implicated in several government spying scandals, including secretly targeting journalists at the Associated Press and Fox News.
Even the Biden administration, before reversing course after public outrage, continued pursuing at least some of the surveillance orders against news outlets that the first Trump administration initiated. That is why, in an age of extreme political polarization, the PRESS Act is about as bipartisan as it gets.
The US House of Representatives passed the bill earlier this year unanimously, with several prominent Republicans publicly touting its importance. The bill also has powerful co-sponsors in the US Senate, ranging from Democrats such as Senator Ron Wyden and Judiciary Committee chair Dick Durbin to Republicans such as senators Mike Lee and Lindsey Graham.
Even former Fox News host Tucker Carlson supports the bill, as he made clear in a recent interview with the former Fox News and CBS reporter Catherine Herridge, who was subpoenaed to reveal a source for a story she wrote several years ago. Herridge was recently in front of the DC Court of Appeals, where her lawyers said that forcing reporters to reveal their sources in court sends a chilling effect to countless others around the country. For the bill to pass, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer must make it a priority. The lame-duck session is only a few weeks long; if senators do not act now, we might not have this opportunity for another decade or more.
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