The media has been too lazy for too long printing press release from the government. This government has nothing to say but propaganda - I don’t even bother reading the government quotes any more. They are content free and self aggrandizing at a level of absurdity that would put North Korea to shame.
There have been governments hostile to journalists in the past, and those are the governments with the most to lose when journalists dig into their work. I look forward to the investigative journalism of the next three years.
So, who is owning the media publishing the investigative journalism? Will they risk shaking the grass, considering the powers that be?
The most famous of such sources, deep throat, refused to talk about information in the office or on the phone. Instead he would meet in an underground car garage.
This seems imminently sensible if you are disclosing damaging information about powerful and dangerous people doing illegal or immoral things. You’re not going to chat about it in the hallways at the pentagon.
In fact by creating an atmosphere of fear and paranoia through political persecution of the federal workforce they’re going to invite this sort of behavior. People are going to feel afraid and hide their beliefs but will need an outlet. The only reason to persecute people for their political beliefs and lock down transparency is to hide things that people unaligned to your ideology might disclose. They will still be there no matter what you do, they will just go underground in their behavior and take elaborate routes to tell what’s going on - and there will a lot to tell because it’s being hidden for a reason.
The more they dismantle oversight the more violation of ethics and legal requirements will happen - there’s no reason to dismantle the oversight functions unless you have things to hide. The more outrageous it comes, the more flagrant, the more those with discontent and grievance will seek out the press. (Surely there are some people in the government unhappy with how they or their (former) coworkers have been treated by this administration).
This is going to be the most spectacular case over over reach and hubris in our history and the blowout will be extraordinary as it unfolds and collapses around them, and I hope this will revitalize the independent press and investigative journalism - which frankly is not doing poorly already despite perception. There’s a lot of excellent outlets out there. And now increasingly major outlets are becoming independent of government influence once again.
As with anything regarding the first amendment it's very fuzzy, which the administration is taking advantage of here.
They got in hot water earlier this year because they explicitly denied the AP access to some White House event because of AP's editorial refusal to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. That sort of singling out is definitely prohibited when it comes to restricting press access.
Now they're learning a bit, and they're treating everyone the same (everyone has to sign the same thing). They're heating the frog more slowly.
They're treating people who didn't sign the thing differently from people who did sign the thing. The thing doesn't have any legal basis; it was implemented only to create a dichotomy for discrimination.
That's not a thing. They can't require different things of different press organizations (arbitrary/capricious), or exclude orgs because of their speech (excluding the AP FOR calling it the Gulf of Mexico)
Courts may find that this specific requirement of signing the policy is lawful, or no. But if everyone has to sign it, it's not arbitrary.
I think you're misunderstanding my point. You are saying the request does not have arbitrary targets but I am saying the request itself is arbitrary. By this meaning, it would not be an arbitrary request to ask all of the reporters for their eye color but it would be arbitrary to deny access to green-eyed people.
> exclude orgs because of their speech
This is what they're planning to do to the organizations which choose not to sign it. Signing it (or not) is an act of expression. Choosing not to sign it would not be violating any law; there is no reason for them to be excluded. Perhaps there's a legal definition of "arbitrary" that I'm naive to but, by a plain English understanding, it's obviously arbitrary to deny access to the groups that didn't sign it based on their decision not to sign it, unless the requirement itself is not arbitrary.
And I myself am not a lawyer in the slightest, but this specific claim feels pretty iffy from a 1A standpoint.
The government is not prohibited from setting rules for access to their facilities. If they apply rules unevenly, that is the sense of arbitrary that applies here. Arbitrary administration of rules, not arbitrary in the sense that someone finds the rule itself to be arbitrary.
When rules are arbitrarily administered in a situation when constitutional rights are at issue, that is where the rubber the meets the road in a constitutional law sense. This goes (I believe) to the Equal Protection clause of the 14th amendment.
If the courts allowed the government to deny a press org access (and thus suppress their speech) according to some obscure rule, while other press orgs that are technically violating the same rule continue to enjoy access, that creates an environment where the government has carte blanche to violate constitutional rights by creating subtle inequity in their admin of the rules.
That they can make said rules is well-established - IF the rule itself is constitutional. That is a separate legal concern from the uneven admin scenario.
What I'm saying up above is: this isn't uneven admin, less likely there are grounds for a 1A claim. Whether this signature requirement passes muster is entirely different, and I'm less informed on that part of the law. I certainly don't like it, though.
I think they would be allowing access to organizations that accept the procedures. Maybe you don't agree with the procedures, but it's no different than "I agree to the terms" required on pretty much every product you use.
That said, this is entirely different – citizens have the right to know what is happening within all branches of the government, and not only via official press releases. Some level of transparency is a critical requirement for a functioning democracy (I understand the US might be a little past that point).
There's nowhere that says that a government has to give access to the grounds of a building. Did you feel as strongly when Biden gave no press conferences between November 2023 to July 2024? It's just silly to put your flag into the ground on this particular issue.
The press had been access prior and the difference now is that they will lose access unless they agree to report what they’re told.
And I'd have hoped that by now, consumers have learned that being in the ToS does not make something legal, let alone enforcable