News execs protest seizing of journalists’ phone, email records

Bruce Brown, second from right executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, speaks accompanied by Washington Post publisher Fred Ryan, left, Washington Post Executive Editor Sally Buzbee, Washington Post general counsel Jay Kennedy, New York Times Publisher A.G. Sulzberger, and CNN executive vice president and general counsel David Vigilante, right, after a meeting with Attorney General Merrick Garland at the Department of Justice, Monday, June 14, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

WASHINGTON (AP) – Executives with CNN, The New York Times and Washington Post met with Attorney General Merrick Garland to protest the Trump-era Justice Department’s efforts to seize phone and email records of journalists.

The records sought were from eight journalists who in 2017 were writing about investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 general election.

The journalists are concerned that it represented an attempt to find out their sources, and would have a chilling effect on people wanting to give them information in the future.

The Biden administration has halted that effort, but news organizations want a permanent policy to prevent a future administration’s ability to do the same thing.