More legal focus here at #ONA19, with the covertly titled Leaks and Secrets up next on our docket. Since tracking began in 2017, @uspresstracker has documented 7 people investigated or prosecuted for leaking information to journalists. #ONA19Law
Reality Winner, an Air Force veteran and federal contractor, was arrested and charged under the Espionage Act in June 2017, accused of sending journalists top-secret NSA intelligence on Russian efforts to access states’ electronic voting systems in 2016 : pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/…
Former FBI agent Terry Albury was charged with two counts under the Espionage Act for leaking classified documents to a news organization. Albury was sentenced in October 2018 to four years in prison and three years of supervised release: pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/…
James Wolfe, Senate Intelligence Committee security director, was charged with lying to federal investigators after being interviewed for allegedly leaking “sensitive and confidential” information to the press : pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/…
Joshua Schulte, a former NSA and CIA staffer, was indicted on multiple Espionage Act charges in June 2018, for allegedly leaking sensitive CIA files to WikiLeaks. pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/…
Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards, an official in the U.S. Treasury’s financial crimes division, was arrested in October 2018, and charged with giving details about suspicious banking transactions to a reporter at BuzzFeed News: pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/…
John Fry, an IRS employee, was charged on Feb. 4 by the DOJ with “unlawful disclosure of Suspicious Activity Reports” involving overseas financial transactions of President Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen: pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/…
Most recently, former intelligence analyst Daniel Everette Hale was arrested on May 9 and charged with leaking classified information about drone warfare and other counterterrorism measures to a reporter. He could face up to 50 years in prison: pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/…
“Prosecuting journalistic sources chills investigative reporting and poses an enormous threat to whistleblowers, press freedom rights, and the public’s right to know.”
- @trevortimm@FreedomofPress
The @uspresstracker is investigating reports of at least nine journalists assaulted or who had equipment damaged while documenting brawls between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protesters outside a synagogue in west LA on June 23. pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/…
LA protest, Jun. 23: The fighting arose after the Southern California chapter of the Palestinian Youth Movement called for demonstrators to meet outside the Adas Torah synagogue to protest the alleged sale of occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank. latimes.com/california/sto…
Freelance photojournalist @HuntedHorse was pepper-sprayed twice and his camera struck while documenting clashes between protesters and counterprotesters
He noted on social media that some in the crowd were openly hostile to journalists reporting that day.
According to a @LVMPD press conference, detectives found DNA evidence, damaged items of clothing linking Clark County Public Administrator Robert Telles to the stabbing death of @reviewjournal investigative journalist Jeff German: pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/…
@LVMPD@reviewjournal@pressfreedom “Every murder is tragic, but the killing of a journalist is particularly troublesome.” — LVMPD Sheriff Joseph Lombardo during a press conference where the department said it tied multiple pieces of evidence of the murder of reporter Jeff German to a county official.
Journalists: Before setting out to cover the March for Our Lives on Saturday in DC — or one of the hundreds of local marches planned across the country — read this thread for some resources and best practices:
Need to bring your phone to a protest, but worried it may be confiscated? Here are nine steps you can take to secure your mobile phone before you walk out the door: freedom.press/training/mobil…
Photos and how we share them can present risks to the people and sensitive information we capture in them. How to safely redact photos on the go: freedom.press/training/redac…
The City of Minneapolis agreed to a $600,000 settlement in photojournalist Linda Tirado’s lawsuit filed after she was permanently blinded in one eye by a crowd-control munition while covering protests in May 2020: pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/…
Tirado and the City of Minneapolis jointly filed for dismissal of the case on June 2, rendering the city’s subpoenas of three journalists in connection with the case moot.
Minnesota Reformer Deputy Editor @maxnesterak was ordered to produce a broad range of material connected to his coverage of protests in Minneapolis, his injury on May 27 and any communications with Tirado or her attorneys: pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/…
As of today, the @uspresstracker has documented 100 assaults of journalists in 2021. These cases involve 81 journalists, meaning some have been assaulted multiple times this year.
We’ve already documented 100 assault cases so far in 2021. For comparison, from 2017 to 2019 we documented a total of 120 assaults combined. Find our write-ups on this year’s assaults here: pressfreedomtracker.us/physical-attac…
In January, we documented more than a dozen journalists who were physically attacked while reporting on the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. pressfreedomtracker.us/physical-attac…
Following the riots at the Capitol and other national protests around the certification of electoral ballots, @uspresstracker is documenting assaults, detainments, equipment damage and harassment of journalists. The majority of these incidents occurred in D.C.
We have reported on or are currently investigating:
- 5 arrests/detainments;
- 9 assaults, 2 with equipment damage;
- Equipment damage of multiple outlets’ gear, incl. @CNN, @MSNBC and @AP;
- Multiple threats and harassment of journalists across the U.S.
Published: Multiple journalists were detained in a police kettle for violating a curfew order in D.C. on Jan. 6 in the wake of riots at the Capitol. Journalists and other essential workers were explicitly exempted from the curfew order. pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/…