Documents Obtained Via FOIA Reveal Justice Department Rules For Targeting Journalists With FISA Court Orders

I cannot say that I am surprised, but getting actual proof the Justice Department had rules for targeting journalists with secret FISA court orders is still shocking to me.

The Freedom Of The Press Foundation today announced as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by Freedom of the Press Foundation and Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University that it had obtained documents outlining the rules.

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While it has been known unofficially the government has gone after journalists before, there has been no public acknowledgement that this is a practice the government has engaged in or supports doing.

The FISA court rules below are entirely separate from—and much less stringent—than the rules for obtaining subpoenas, court orders, and warrants against journalists as laid out in the Justice Department’s “media guidelines,” which former Attorney General Eric Holder strengthened in 2015 after several scandals involving surveillance of journalists during the Obama era.

A great analysis by Knight First Amendment Institute of Columbia University of the secretive FISA rules can be read here which goes into more detail. The documents in question can be read here starting on page ten.

Before the anti-right Trump haters jump on this and implicate Trump, this all dates back way before Trump even took office when beloved Obama was still in power.

People don't realise that Obama was very non-transparent and helped expand government surveillance powers while he was president allowing secretive rules like these to target whistleblowers and journalists doing investigative political-oriented journalism.

People are so blinded by their hate of Trump they'll make the past actions of previous presidents his fault. I repeat this was something instituted under Obama and no doubt, it all ties back to Snowden leaking the existence of Obama sanctioned surveillance and policies with lack of oversight.

There are still unknowns here, like how many times have these rules been used to surveil journalists and what were the circumstances surrounding those cases? The FOIA case is still ongoing, so who knows what else is going to turn up.

Another day, another reminder the government is not a democratically operated entity with the interests of its own citizens in mind. The U.S government is different than a corporate entity like Amazon or Google, only they affect policy and dictate how society operates and thinks.