CPJ calls on Biden administration to commit to source protection in wake of Washington Post subpoena revelations – CPJ Press Freedom Online

Washington, D.C., May 10, 2021 The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on the Biden administration to make public why the Justice Department under former President Donald Trump secretly subpoenaed journalists phone records, and to commit to respecting journalist and source relationships.

The Justice Department secretly obtained call records from April 15, 2017, to July 31, 2017, for the phone numbers of currentWashington Postreporters Ellen Nakashima and Greg Miller and formerPostreporter Adam Entous,The Postreported on May 7. The reporters were separately notified on May 3 in letters that did not specify when the material was obtained, according to the report.

Public interest journalism cannot work if the U.S. government is willing to disregard journalists right to source protection, said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna in New York. The Biden administration must provide more information about why theWashington Postreporters call records were subpoenaed, and commit to upholding protections in place at the Justice Department to prevent this form of government overreach in the future.

An unnamed Justice Department spokespersontoldThe Postthat the departments decision to subpoena the records was made in 2020, when William Barr was attorney general. According toThe Post, the material included records for Nakashimas work, cell, and home phones, Entous cell phone, and Millers work and cell phones.

Quoted inThe Post, Justice Department spokesman Marc Raimondi said,The targets of these investigations are not the news media recipients but rather those with access to the national defense information who provided it to the media and thus failed to protect it as lawfully required.

The Justice Department did not immediately return CPJs request for comment submitted through its online media portal.

In arecent white paperto the Biden administration, CPJ called on the president to back guidelines that protect confidential sources, and to refrain from using the Espionage Act to prosecute journalists or whistleblowers.

The Trump administration indicted at least eight government employees and contractors for leaking classified information to journalists, and also charged WikiLeaks creator Julian Assange with obtaining and publishing secret government materials,CPJ reported.

In 2017 the Justice Department, then under Jeff Sessions, said that it planned to relax U.S. government guidelines to make it easier for investigators to subpoena journalists and their records, CPJdocumented at the time.

The Obama administration prosecuted 10 government employees and contractors for leaking classified information, including eight under the Espionage Act, asCPJ reported.

The threePostreporters had written articles about alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election using classified intelligence intercepts, the paper reported. The letters to the reporters did not state the purpose of the subpoena, according toThe Post. The phone records included information about who made calls to and from the specified numbers, as well as the length of calls, though not what was said during the conversations,The Postreported.

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CPJ calls on Biden administration to commit to source protection in wake of Washington Post subpoena revelations - CPJ Press Freedom Online