Last month’s firing of the publisher of Stars and Stripes, as well as an editor and reporter, further cemented the Trump administration’s full-fledged declaration of war against press freedom. To me personally, it stood out from his countless other attacks because I know the dangers this specific form of censorship entails.

I am in my 28th consecutive year of incarceration in the state of Texas. When I first arrived, I enjoyed receiving the prison’s newspaper, The Echo. Each month, there were stories that provided useful information about legal, social, and educational issues that were vastly important to the incarcerated population.

At that time, the Texas prison system was still under federally imposed “special master” supervision as a result of a civil rights lawsuit filed by seven jailhouse lawyers nearly three decades earlier.

In 1972, incarcerated individuals accused the Texas prison system of violating their constitutional rights in numerous ways. The litigation became known as the “Ruiz case” after one of the original plaintiffs, David Ruiz.

This lawsuit resulted in a trial that holds the record as the longest prisoners’ case in the history of American jurisprudence. In 1980, the court found Texas was indeed violating the constitutional rights of people in its care and ordered systemic change.

A year after my arrival in prison, issues of the prison’s newspaper disappeared without explanation.

The Echo was the tool that incarcerated journalists used to keep the incarcerated population — and their loved ones, because it was not uncommon for people to mail news clippings to family members — updated on prison officials’ compliance or lack thereof with the federal mandates.

A year after my arrival, issues of The Echo disappeared without any explanation. In 2003, it resurfaced as a shell of its prior self. Instead of critical coverage, the pages were filled with “feel-good stories” that inaccurately depicted prison life in Texas as the best of all possible worlds.

The old staff had been replaced by a new group of workers subservient to prison officials, who had taken complete control over all editorial decisions. The Echo was no longer independent. It had become — and continued to be — a tool for false government propaganda.

Before the Stars and Stripes firings (which have been paused due to legal proceedings), the newspaper was publishing the kind of reporting that the Echo was known for before its makeover, except for members of the military rather than the incarcerated population.

That changed, according to a lawsuit filed by the fired journalists, when Stars and Stripes angered the Pete Hegseth-led Department of Defense through its reporting on the USS Abraham Lincoln, a 5,000-person aircraft carrier that had been out at sea for a record-setting nine months.

Stars and Stripes was publishing the kind of reporting the prison newspaper was known for. That changed.

Reports revealed that sailors on the military vessel were suffering from low morale as a result of the long deployment and difficult living conditions. Americans read about a shortage of basic supplies, water contamination, broken toilets, disruption in the mail system, and deck safety concerns, leading to deteriorating mental health and suicide attempts. MS NOW and others reported that sailors have actually jumped from the carrier.

The staff at Stars and Stripes — despite knowing the administration was looking for reasons to target them — upheld their journalistic responsibility by reporting accurately to the military American public about the situation on the USS Abraham Lincoln.

But in Trump’s world, which Hegseth also inhabits, an independent press serves no legitimate purpose. If a media outlet’s content does not praise him or demonize and discredit his critics, it’s fake news and counterproductive.

Of course, the removal of the staff at Stars and Stripes is just the latest attack in the administration’s war to eradicate independent media. Hegseth doesn’t only want to control government-funded media — he wants private journalists to swear away their constitutional rights as a condition of attending news conferences. Trump himself has raided journalists’ homes, subpoenaed them and their families, sued them for billions, and targeted them for immigration and other arrests.

In Trump and Hegseth’s world, an independent press serves no legitimate purpose.

Authoritarian regimes, current and past, have shown how brutal a government becomes when press freedoms are restricted. But the Echo’s example shows one does not have to travel back to Nazi Germany or apartheid South Africa to grasp the dangers.

Since the Echo became an instrument for the state, incarcerated people in Texas are exposed daily to inhumanity beyond description, contributing to the same mental health issues the government seeks to cover up by silencing Stars and Stripes. Texas prisons averaged about 56 suicides a year from 2020-23, compared to 28 per year from 2005-19.

Others have turned to extreme substance abuse as an escape. Walking onto any cellblock at any Texas prison can be like taking a stroll down Philadelphia’s infamous Kensington Avenue. Incarcerated people are laid out, unconscious, in a drug-induced stupor. Texas prisons report a nearly 2,500 percent increase in drug overdose deaths in the past seven years alone.

Basic necessities like toilet paper, deodorant, toothpaste, soap, and functioning plumbing are scarce, forcing people without outside sources of funds to resort to all sorts of bizarre measures.

Most importantly, there is no independent press to inform the incarcerated population inside the prison system and help them protect or advocate for their constitutional freedom from cruel and unusual punishment.

Despite the suicide crisis and substance-use epidemic, the cover story for the July issue of the Echo is “Stitches With Love,” a story about a new prison quilting program.

This exemplifies what news content in Stars and Stripes and elsewhere will look like if Trump and Hegseth are successful. Military families may no longer hear about the horrid conditions causing sailors to jump ship, but they’ll get to read all about the activities offered in aircraft carriers’ craft rooms.

freedom.press/issues/the-stars…

The ePrivacy framework limits commercial tracking and state access to communications. It is now being weakened from several directions at once.

The post Europe’s cookie law is really a law about surveillance appeared first on European Digital Rights (EDRi).

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is obsessed with controlling the narrative. His censorship and propaganda efforts are myriad: lashing out over photographs of himself he doesn’t like, barring reporters from the Pentagon who don’t sign away their First Amendment rights, forcing suspected leakers to take ineffective polygraph tests, undermining the independence of military newspaper Stars and Stripes, and secretly compensating social media influencers who praise him.

But as Guardian columnist Margaret Sullivan recently noted, Hegseth is failing as a propagandist. The Iran war is deeply unpopular, and his approval numbers are far lower than whatever testosterone level he and his insecurities deem unworthy of military service.

Still, Hegseth’s inability to sell the public on alternative facts doesn’t mean Americans are uniquely resistant to spin. It only means Hegseth can’t control the information ecosystem, no matter how many reporters he bans from news conferences. But that could change if politicians of both parties don’t stop supporting measures that undermine journalists and whistleblowers.

Journalists in the U.S. don’t need government permission to report — for now. But there are some things they do need.

Sources willing to come forward.

News outlets that aren’t vulnerable to reliance on the government. (The attacks on Stars and Stripes and other outlets that get federal funding show the limits of statutory guarantees of independence).

And an open internet where information can travel, notwithstanding private actors’ efforts to censor some corners.

When these conditions exist, journalists who turn in their press passes rather than sign loyalty pledges can find scoops in plenty of other ways, most of which would be far more difficult, if not impossible, absent the independent media and open internet.

Hegseth can’t sell the public on alternative facts because he can’t control the information ecosystem.

Officials in other countries without these ingredients have succeeded in pushing propaganda where Hegseth and the rest of the Trump administration have failed, and it’s not because those countries have less courageous journalists, a more gullible public, or more likable censors.

In Russia, independent outlets not controlled by loyal oligarchs have been forced to shut down or relocate abroad. Those who stay face prosecution for even calling the war in Ukraine a war. Many social media companies have been shut down, and Russia has started blocking VPNs that its citizens were using to evade the bans.

By contrast, the Trump administration’s efforts to relabel the war in Iran as anything but have been met with mockery, and anyone with an internet connection can get in on the joke.

In North Korea and Eritrea, the two lowest-ranking countries in Reporters Without Borders’ global press freedom index this year, there are no local journalists to blow the whistle to because reporting anything but authorized propaganda is a crime, punishable by imprisonment in horrid conditions or labor camps.

Those who oppose Trumpian censorship presumably appreciate that the conditions that blunt its impact exist here. And yet, support across both political parties in the U.S. remains strong for crackdowns on government leaks, and increased restrictions and surveillance of the internet.

Even as leaks enable countless important news stories about the administration — on immigration enforcement, the war in Iran, or the fiasco involving Trump’s unsafe Qatari jet — few politicians are standing up for whistleblowers who speak to the press.

We haven’t heard any mea culpas from politicians who supported prosecuting WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange under the Espionage Act, even after the Trump administration cited Assange’s case to justify raiding the home of a Washington Post reporter in January, seizing terabytes of data.

Even as leaks enable countless important news stories about the administration, few politicians are standing up for whistleblowers.

In fact, last year, despite Trump threatening journalists and sources throughout his campaign, Democratic Sen. Mark Warner made calling whistleblower and Freedom of the Press (FPF) board member Ed Snowden a “traitor” into a litmus test for service in government. Warner hasn’t changed his tune since.

Similarly, lawmakers from both parties have shown a disturbing willingness to support initiatives to make the internet far less free.

Both Democrats and Republicans have cheered legislation that would require adults to submit to invasive age verification in order to read news online, as well as praised the recent legal settlement by Meta that will likely impose similar requirements across a swath of social media companies.

These requirements destroy the anonymity that people rely on to speak, read, and watch freely online. In an era where the feds may show up at your door over what you read, and tech companies may out you for criticizing the government, online anonymity is vital.

Similarly, proposals to repeal or gut Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to make platforms legally responsible for user content — supported by some politicians from both parties — would do little to stem the tide of lawful but awful online posts. What it would do is push platforms to remove anything that upsets the powerful rather than invest in legal review of an infinite number of posts.

If you don’t like how the government cajoles tech companies into taking down users’ posts that displease it today (or yesterday), this problem will be far worse if platforms are unprotected from civil liability.

Congress should be focused on passing laws that safeguard First Amendment freedoms, rather than supporting measures that will allow Hegseth and his colleagues in the Trump administration to stamp out independent journalism like their authoritarian idols abroad.

Congress should be focused on passing laws that safeguard First Amendment freedoms.

It should pass The Daniel Ellsberg Press Freedom and Whistleblower Act, named after the famed Pentagon Papers leaker and FPF co-founder, which would increase protections for those who expose government wrongdoing.

And it should pass The Privacy Protection Updates Act, which would help put a stop to government raids on reporters.

It should also pass The Subpoena Abuse Prevention Act to rein in administrative subpoenas targeting journalists.

And, finally, it should pass the PRESS Act to stop the government from compelling reporters and tech companies to out whistleblowers.

These are some of the bills that you can urge your lawmakers to support. Otherwise, the consequences for the free press may be far uglier than any bad Hegseth hair day captured by news photographers at the Pentagon.

freedom.press/issues/hegseth-i…

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

New York, Sept. 9, 2026 — The Department of Justice moved today to dismiss its appeal of a lower court decision that rejected seven felony wiretapping counts against Florida-based independent journalist Tim Burke.

Burke was indicted in 2024 after he exposed unaired outtakes of antisemitic remarks from a Fox News interview with musician Ye, formerly known as Kanye West. The government raided Burke’s newsroom — seizing dozens of pieces of equipment, many of which remain in FBI custody — and charged him with various offenses under the Wiretap Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. In September 2025, a federal trial court dismissed the Wiretap Act counts, holding that the government’s reading of the statute was overbroad.

The following can be attributed to Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Chief of Advocacy Seth Stern:

“By confiscating most of Tim Burke’s newsroom equipment for years and getting multiple extensions in court before ultimately dropping its appeal, the DOJ has successfully held Burke’s journalism hostage and used the legal system to punish him for reporting on a clearly newsworthy issue.

“Prosecutors were right to drop their appeal of the Wiretap Act counts, but they’re wrong to continue to pursue other charges to punish a journalist who exposed antisemitism.

“Perhaps most disturbing is the DOJ’s use of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a vague, ambiguous law that would criminalize routine journalism if the government had its way. The DOJ should not stop with dismissing this appeal. It must drop all of the charges against Tim Burke.”

Freedom of the Press Foundation and a coalition of press freedom organizations previously filed an amicus brief in support of Burke’s motion to dismiss the Wiretap Act counts.

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