Jeff Bezos Needs to Speak Up

"Journalists are supposed to enjoy legal protections from raids such as this, because courts have recognized that if the government could treat them as criminals for acquiring nonpublic information, their work-protected by the First Amendment-would become impossible. Gray areas do exist, and previous administrations have often tangled with the media over where to draw the line between legitimate investigations of important government secrets and impingement upon the free press."

"One is that Donald Trump refuses to accept the legitimacy of an independent media. He has repeatedly described media outlets whose reporting he doesn't approve of as operating illegally, and has threatened more than a dozen times to remove the broadcast license of offending outlets. In his first term, he retaliated against The Washington Post 's owner, Jeff Bezos, by withholding a lucrative Pentagon contract from Amazon."

FBI agents searched Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson's home and seized her devices in an alleged leak investigation targeting sources she covered. Courts have recognized legal protections for journalists against such raids because treating reporters as criminals for acquiring nonpublic information would undermine work protected by the First Amendment. Gray areas exist between legitimate investigations of government secrets and impingement on the free press. Donald Trump refuses to accept the legitimacy of an independent media, has described disfavored outlets as operating illegally, threatened broadcast-license removals, and in his first term retaliated against Jeff Bezos by withholding a Pentagon contract from Amazon.

Read at The Atlantic