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U.S. Waged Secret Legal Battle to Obtain Emails of 4 New York Times Reporters

41 points by lobo_tuerto 5y ago

LatteLazy 5y ago
The first half of the piece seems to claim the Biden administration actively continued the case. Then we get this: >Anthony Coley, a Justice Department spokesman, noted that “on multiple occasions in recent months,” the Biden-era department had moved to delay enforcement of the order and it then “voluntarily moved to withdraw the order before any records were produced.” Sounds like it just took a while for the new team to get up to speed and kill this. Am I being naive?
- stefan_ 5y ago
  > the Biden administration continued waging the fight this year, telling a handful of top Times executives about it but imposing a gag order to shield it from public view You don't need to get "up to speed" on this.
  - Tostino 5y ago
    You do if you take over and are not aware this is happening by a team levels below you.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  It's tricky to move in and quash crooked investigations when you are also trying to be "hands-off" of the Justice Department. But if the Biden administration wanted to signal their sensitivity to Press freedoms, dropping the Julian Assange extradition and Chelsea Manning harassment campaigns would be clearer.
- 0xy 5y ago
  You are being naive because both sides do this. The DoJ under Obama went after phone records for AP reporters repeatedly. No government is above this behavior.
  - Gibbon1 5y ago
    The Obama administration was surprisingly and especially authoritarian and anti-press freedom.
- GeekyBear 5y ago
  >Am I being naive? Yes. >Unfortunately, new revelations suggest that the Biden Justice Department not only allowed these disturbing intrusions to continue — it intensified the government‘s attack on First Amendment rights before finally backing down in the face of reporting about its conduct. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/06/fred-ryan-biden-doj-press/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/06/fred-ryan...
  - kar5pt 5y ago
    If you're going to call someone naive, you should say more than just linking to a paywalled article.
WalterGR 5y ago
The battle was over an ultimately unsuccessful effort by the Justice Department to seize email logs from Google, which operates The Times’s email system, and which had resisted the effort to obtain the information. Good on Google!
adrr 5y ago
The interesting part of the story is that Google fought the order to turn over email records because in their contract to NYTimes they had stipulated they must notify NYtimes of all log requests and the initial order had a gag requirement. Would Google have turned over records if that statement didn’t exist?
- orzig 5y ago
  I am not anyone’s lawyer but I imagine they would have come up with the next best legal defense if that statement didn’t exist
- Leparamour 5y ago
  >the initial order had a gag requirement I can never wrap my mind around how this construct can even be lawful in a country supposedly governed by the rule of law. It's like, "Hey, we know we are doing really shady stuff, so we better prevent you from taking legal recourse".
gotoeleven 5y ago
If reporters aren't given the legal protection they need to do their jobs then how will they uncover the next big story of national importance like trumps russian collusion or debunk misinformation like the wuhan lab theory.

41 points by lobo_tuerto 5y ago

The first half of the piece seems to claim the Biden administration actively continued the case. Then we get this: >Anthony Coley, a Justice Department spokesman, noted that “on multiple occasions in recent months,” the Biden-era department had moved to delay enforcement of the order and it then “voluntarily moved to withdraw the order before any records were produced.” Sounds like it just took a while for the new team to get up to speed and kill this. Am I being naive?

stefan_ 5y ago
> the Biden administration continued waging the fight this year, telling a handful of top Times executives about it but imposing a gag order to shield it from public view You don't need to get "up to speed" on this.
- Tostino 5y ago
  You do if you take over and are not aware this is happening by a team levels below you.
ncmncm 5y ago
It's tricky to move in and quash crooked investigations when you are also trying to be "hands-off" of the Justice Department. But if the Biden administration wanted to signal their sensitivity to Press freedoms, dropping the Julian Assange extradition and Chelsea Manning harassment campaigns would be clearer.
0xy 5y ago
You are being naive because both sides do this. The DoJ under Obama went after phone records for AP reporters repeatedly. No government is above this behavior.
- Gibbon1 5y ago
  The Obama administration was surprisingly and especially authoritarian and anti-press freedom.
GeekyBear 5y ago
>Am I being naive? Yes. >Unfortunately, new revelations suggest that the Biden Justice Department not only allowed these disturbing intrusions to continue — it intensified the government‘s attack on First Amendment rights before finally backing down in the face of reporting about its conduct. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/06/fred-ryan-biden-doj-press/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/06/fred-ryan...
- kar5pt 5y ago
  If you're going to call someone naive, you should say more than just linking to a paywalled article.

WalterGR 5y ago

The battle was over an ultimately unsuccessful effort by the Justice Department to seize email logs from Google, which operates The Times’s email system, and which had resisted the effort to obtain the information. Good on Google!

adrr 5y ago

The interesting part of the story is that Google fought the order to turn over email records because in their contract to NYTimes they had stipulated they must notify NYtimes of all log requests and the initial order had a gag requirement. Would Google have turned over records if that statement didn’t exist?

orzig 5y ago
I am not anyone’s lawyer but I imagine they would have come up with the next best legal defense if that statement didn’t exist
Leparamour 5y ago
>the initial order had a gag requirement I can never wrap my mind around how this construct can even be lawful in a country supposedly governed by the rule of law. It's like, "Hey, we know we are doing really shady stuff, so we better prevent you from taking legal recourse".

gotoeleven 5y ago

If reporters aren't given the legal protection they need to do their jobs then how will they uncover the next big story of national importance like trumps russian collusion or debunk misinformation like the wuhan lab theory.