The Trump administration’s “asinine attempts to silence objective journalism just hit a new low,” said one press freedom advocate late Monday after the Pentagon announced that the US Department of Defense would mark its press office as a classified area, banning journalists from the space where they’ve previously talked openly with DOD officials. Reporters on the military are currently…
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A Tennessee man who spent over a month in jail for posting a meme following the death of right-wing pundit Charlie Kirk has received a large cash settlement from his home county, an outcome he described as a victory for free speech rights. Larry Bushart, a 61-year-old man from Lexington, Tennessee, spent 37 days in Perry County jail last fall following his arrest by the sheriff’s department…
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Faculty members at Rutgers University in New Jersey on Thursday were among those condemning the school’s decision to rescind an invitation to Rami Elghandour, a biotech executive and producer of the Gaza-focused film The Voice of Hind Rajab, who had been invited to speak at the School of Engineering commencement next week. Elghandour said the engineering school’s dean, Alberto Cuitiño…
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As President Trump continues to attack media organizations and journalists, we speak with a sitting member of the Federal Communications Commission about how the administration has weaponized the FCC to go after his perceived enemies in the media. Anna Gomez is the sole Democratic commissioner on the FCC, which is currently operating with just three commissioners instead of the usual five.
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Lawmakers and privacy advocates are demanding answers from the Trump administration about its weaponization of digital tools and popular web platforms to spy on critics and activists. Targets have included a student who attended a pro-Palestine protest and anonymous web users posting about President Donald Trump’s violent immigration crackdown, but the administration’s secret systems of…
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A federal judge has found that an interim Department of Defense (DOD) policy — which replaced a similar policy that sought to restrict journalists’ access to Pentagon sources earlier this year — violates First Amendment press freedoms and is therefore unlawful and unenforceable. The original policy had restricted journalists by barring them from entering the Pentagon and speaking with…
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