Governments using hacking charges against journalists

A Brazilian federal judge dismissed criminal charges against Glenn Greenwald, an American journalist, who released hacked cellphone messages between prosecutors and government officials. Brazil’s laws provide strong protections for journalists. (The New York Times, February 6, 2020, by Ernesto Londono)

Governments are increasingly using hacking laws to squelch political speech, writes James C. Goodale, Columbia Journalism Review, February 18, 2020. In indicting Greenwald, Brazil was following the lead of the U.S. in its pursuit of WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange. In 2001 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that if stolen documents landed in the hands of journalists, they could publish them so long as they did not engage in the theft. But the court did not address whether a journalist could press sources for leaks. The Justice Department has recently made it clear that journalists should not seek the release of classified documents. Goodale thinks other governments will follow the U.S. and Brazil in the use of hacking charges. “Conversations between sources and reporters.” he writes, “will be scrutinized to determine whether reporters crossed some imaginary line between passive receipt of information and active pursuit of it.”

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