Court Says Trump Can't Use Leaks To Justify Spying On Journalists' LinkedIn DMs (arstechnica.com) 28
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Trump administration's fight to stop suspected leaks of top-secret military information on LinkedIn can't sweep in "a vast number of confidential sources" of random journalists "who have no conceivable relationship" to the Department of Justice's investigation, an appeals court ruled (PDF) Tuesday. The order came after the DOJ asked LinkedIn to turn over 18 months of communications from targeted journalists who collectively published more than 1,000 articles on many different topics over that time period. The request was not limited to journalists involved in a controversial report from a news outlet that Trump said exposed confidential military information in a foreign country. (The outlet is not being named to protect national security secrets.) Instead, the DOJ cast a wide net, requesting extensive LinkedIn data on journalists who had any possible link to the journalists around the time the report was drafted.
The majority of journalists have LinkedIn accounts and publish their contact information to encourage sources to connect on the platform, LinkedIn argued. So allowing that government overreach went beyond harming targeted journalists and threatened to undermine a critical platform where journalists frequently connect with confidential sources, judges ruled. Even more concerning, the Trump administration secured a secrecy order barring LinkedIn from telling anyone about the sweeping request for a year. That left journalists unaware for far too long that their First Amendment rights had been compromised, judges ruled. "A request by the government to scoop up reporters' records wholesale and ascertain the identity of their sources would tip the balance against informed discourse in a manner inimical to democratic health," Wilkinson wrote. He criticized the lower court for approving the request simply because the records were technically feasible to collect, emphasizing that "serious security and speech claims are in tension in this case. There is space under law for both."
While declining to quash the order entirely, Wilkinson also directed the lower court to reconsider a limited exception to the government's secrecy order that would allow LinkedIn to notify an attorney representing the news outlet under investigation.
Bruce D. Brown, President of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP), celebrated the ruling, saying: "This ruling is a big deal and will quickly become one of the leading opinions in the area -- one we will be quoting from it for a long time. The court recognized that confidential sources are the 'lifeblood' of investigative reporting and that dragnet demands from technology companies to reveal those sources violate the law."
The majority of journalists have LinkedIn accounts and publish their contact information to encourage sources to connect on the platform, LinkedIn argued. So allowing that government overreach went beyond harming targeted journalists and threatened to undermine a critical platform where journalists frequently connect with confidential sources, judges ruled. Even more concerning, the Trump administration secured a secrecy order barring LinkedIn from telling anyone about the sweeping request for a year. That left journalists unaware for far too long that their First Amendment rights had been compromised, judges ruled. "A request by the government to scoop up reporters' records wholesale and ascertain the identity of their sources would tip the balance against informed discourse in a manner inimical to democratic health," Wilkinson wrote. He criticized the lower court for approving the request simply because the records were technically feasible to collect, emphasizing that "serious security and speech claims are in tension in this case. There is space under law for both."
While declining to quash the order entirely, Wilkinson also directed the lower court to reconsider a limited exception to the government's secrecy order that would allow LinkedIn to notify an attorney representing the news outlet under investigation.
Bruce D. Brown, President of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP), celebrated the ruling, saying: "This ruling is a big deal and will quickly become one of the leading opinions in the area -- one we will be quoting from it for a long time. The court recognized that confidential sources are the 'lifeblood' of investigative reporting and that dragnet demands from technology companies to reveal those sources violate the law."
what's to stop him? (Score:2)
if he orders it, someone will do it
Re:what's to stop him? (Score:5, Informative)
Probably nothing, the same thing that stopped Obama from secretly seizing two months' worth of telephone records covering 20 phones lines at the Associated Press.
Slight difference here, what the Obama administration subpoenaed was call records: what number called, and how long the call lasted, which does not include the content of the conversation . What is to be seized here was the actual messages. It was widely criticized [ap.org] at the time.
-- also, 18 months is a much larger window to search than two months. It's hard to see that asking for 18 months worth of records is a search for one identified leak.
Re: (Score:2)
were your Obama Derangement Syndrome meds cancelled by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act?
pity.
Re:what's to stop him? (Score:4, Interesting)
if he orders it, someone will do it
Well, he might be immune... depending on what the order is... but anyone who follows illegal orders is not!
Hegseth appears to be about to learn all about this...
Re: (Score:2)
if he orders it, someone will do it
Well, he might be immune... depending on what the order is... but anyone who follows illegal orders is not!
Hegseth appears to be about to learn all about this...
We'll see if any of them learned anything from the Watergate scandal where 40 of the Nixon admin went to prison while Tricky Dick got to play elder statesman and Russian advocate.
The outlet is not being named (Score:5, Informative)
The outlet is not being named to protect national security secrets
Can we please not do that shit?
It was almost certainly Dave Philipps and Matthew Cole's 20250905 NYT article [nytimes.com] about a failed 2019 attempt by SEAL Team 6 to bug Best Leader when they unwisely chose to blow a random fishing vessel out of the water. Unsurprisingly, that wasn't a great way to stay hidden during what was supposed to be the most covert of ops.
Re: (Score:3)
You did check the link I provided, right?
Re: (Score:2)
I tried by a moment after it opened two thirds of the screen was covered by a giant ad telling me I needed to subscribe to read it.
The calls (Score:3)
are coming from inside the house. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
when (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
We still don't even see leaks of the unredacted Epstein's Files and that's the most egregious material possible to be illegally concealing.
Not like in the 70's when a Mathematics professor orchestrated the raid on an FBI office.
Re: when (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Even if Trump were to be completely exonerated in the Epstein files, fueling speculation by keeping them secret forms an excellent diversion from his real crime, subverting the Constitution he swore to protect
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, and universities and k-12 pushing a single ideological viewpoint at every possible turn
Uh, have you ever seen a group of university or K12 instructors? They cannot agree on whether or not water is wet, much less "a single ideological viewpoint". Rather than parroting your own single ideological viewpoint, maybe you could talk to a few such instructors and discover the disjoint opinions that they pass on to their students, which lets the students shop at the marketplace of ideas.
Re: inimical to democratic health? (Score:2)
pushing a single ideological viewpoint
But your viewpoint is that gay people shouldn't exist. Then somehow the rest of the world gets lumped together into one ideology because, of course, they disagree on that point. This is where reality having a progressive bias comes from. You must feel like you're surrounded by it, and that sparks me with joy.
You're the one with a fringe ideology. Two people could disagree on everything else but that you're a bigot justifying your beliefs with hatred, then to you they have a single ideological viewpoint beca
Surprising. (Score:2)
I don't think linkedin has, or has ever claimed to offer, any sort of protection of user data against administrator access, and the broligarchy has been nothing but eagerly cooperative.
Why not just use the NSA backdoor :o (Score:3)
LinkedIn seriously? (Score:2)
Trump is a bigger leaker (Score:2)
Word association (Score:2)