Attorney General Eric Holder has updated Justice Department guidelines regarding its practices toward the news media. In other words, how it questions, arrests, charges and obtains info from members of the media.
“These revised guidelines strike an appropriate balance between law enforcement’s need to protect the American people, and the news media’s role in ensuring the free flow of information,” Holder said. “This updated policy is in part the result of the good-faith dialogue the department has engaged in with news industry representatives over the last several months. These discussions have been very constructive and I am grateful to the members of the media who have worked with us throughout this process.”
Holder first ordered a review of the department’s media guidelines in 2013.
Among the new revisions announced Wednesday, according to release, is that the Attorney General has eliminated the word “ordinary” when describing news gathering activities affected by the policy. This has been replaced with “news gathering activities.” The revisions, the release says, “serve to expand” high-level review by the Attorney General for the use of certain law enforcement tools, such as subpoenas and applications for warrants.
Quick question: Will any of this apply to Breitbart News‘ Matthew Boyle? (The DOJ coordinated with Media Matters in 2011 to attack the pesky right-wing reporter.)
For example, says a more in-depth explanation of the department’s revisions, “the changes ensure the highest level of Department oversight by providing that the Attorney General must both determine that the affected member of the news media is a subject or target of an investigation relating to an offense committed in the course of, or arising out of, news gathering activities, and authorize the use of the requested law enforcement tool.”
This doesn’t sound like bureaucratic mush at all, right?
We’re just going to translate out of bureacratese here. Before the department can subpoena a journalist, search a journalist’s workplace or records, or question or charge a journalist, the DOJ must consult the Policy and Enforcement Unit of the Criminal Division’s Office of Enforcement Operations.
The DOJ member cannot act until they receive a written response from the Criminal Division.
They say the U.S. Attorney’s Manual will be updated.