Before Trump, Obama’s
Justice Department did more to hurt press freedom than any administration since Nixon. Here’s how we stop history repeating
The US Department of Justice is under increasing
fire for the still-unfolding scandals involving the secret surveillance of journalists and even members of
Congress in the waning days of the Trump presidency. Some of these actions were even initially defended by the Biden administration’s Department of Justice.
In response to the growing scandal – and the scathing condemnations from the surveillance targets at the
New York Times,
Washington Post and
CNN – the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, has vowed the DoJ will no longer use legal process to spy on journalists “doing their jobs”. The Times, the Post and CNN are set to meet with the justice department this week to seek more information on what happened and extract further promises it won’t happen again.