The Guardline
Seventeen nonprofit organizations, led by The Intercept’s Press Freedom Defense Fund, filed an amicus brief today urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to prevent the Federal Trade Commission from conducting an retaliatory investigation into Media Matters for America, brought after Media Matters published critical reporting about allies of the Trump administration.
“Nonprofit organizations must be aggressively vigilant to protect First Amendment rights in the face of a federal government’s onslaught,” said David Bralow, legal director of the Press Freedom Defense Fund. “The chilling investigation into Media Matters is one of many affronts to free speech. These unabridged regulatory invasions, combined with such other attacks like the arrest of journalists in Minnesota and the invasive seizure of confidential communications in Washington, D.C., demonstrate the perilous state of our democracy.”
The coalition includes a mix of nonprofit research, advocacy, and media organizations, including CalMatters, the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Coalition for Independent Technology Research, the Dangerous Speech Project, Defending Rights & Dissent, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the First Amendment Coalition, Free Press, Freedom of the Press Foundation, Lion Publishers, MuckRock Foundation, the National Coalition Against Censorship, Open Vallejo, the Project on Government Oversight, Public Knowledge, and Reporters Without Borders USA.
“The Press Freedom Defense Fund exists to confront exactly this kind of abuse. When the government uses open-ended investigations to drain resources, intimidate funders, and silence critics, the damage goes far beyond one organization — it sends a warning to every journalist and researcher in the country. We’re standing with Media Matters because the First Amendment is not negotiable,” said Annie Chabel, CEO of The Intercept.
For more information, please contact The Intercept’s Miroslav Macala at miroslav.macala@theintercept.com.
