They can kidnap you like they did to the Venezuelan diplomat (violating the Vienna Convention) who was tasked to help secure food and medicine around the US embargo and sanctions. They can force the landing of your plane on friendly territory of a countries head of state like they did to Bolivia's Presidents Evo Morales plane over Austria (violating numerous UN and diplomatic treaties). They can try to kill you as the CIA planned for Assange as they do regularly (look up the Orwellian Disposition Matrix).
We live in a different era of empire where the corporate media and the corporate journalists are the ones calling for censorship.
The media used to "actively" report on matters like the Pentagon Papers, Church Commission, My Lai Massacre.
Decorated CIA officers like John Stockwell who exposed genocides and massacres in non-white countries were not muzzled (although denied an income from their whistleblowing). Daniel Ellsberg was free to roam.
It seems that the journalists who actively cover the machinations of the national surveillance state are primarily entrepreneurs (substack etc.) and not part of the corporate media apparatus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stockwell_(CIA_officer)
https://www.amazon.com/Search-Enemies-CIA-Story/dp/039300926...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposition_Matrix
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2021/10/19/outrage-following-ill...
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/cia-plot-shows-us-promis...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%E1%BB%B9_Lai_massacre
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/yes-virginia-there-is-a-deep-s...