Judge rejects Trump administration’s sanctions on Pentagon journalists

The Trump administration’s decision to restrict journalists’ activities at the Pentagon, which forced most news organizations out of the building, was blocked by a federal judge in Washington on Friday.The court ruled in favor of a lawsuit brought by The New York Times, which accused the administration of violating freedom of speech.Last fall, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth demanded that news organizations agree to new limits on their reporting. The Pentagon’s policy has put journalists at risk of being labeled as a “security risk”, which could lead to their credentials being stripped if they are found soliciting material that could be considered classified or controlled unclassified information, a ubiquitous label on Defense Department documents.That standard, Judge Paul Friedman wrote in his opinion, “provides no way for journalists to know how they can do their jobs without losing their credibility. The policy is therefore vague in violation of the Fifth Amendment.”“We disagree with the decision and are immediately appealing,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a post on Twitter.Bloomberg News, the five major television networks as well as the AP, the Times and other news organizations had said they would refuse to sign on to the policy, and their reporters walked out on October 15. In the years following World War II, journalists had been working in the building located across the Potomac River from Washington in Arlington, Virginia.The judge said that “in view of the country’s recent incursions into Venezuela and its ongoing war with Iran, it is more important than ever that the public has access to information from a variety of perspectives about what its government is doing.” (This is a Bloomberg story)