Wyden, Balint introduce reporter privacy bill

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Becca Balint introduced a bill to strengthen privacy protections against government searches and seizures that could impact reporting.

The bill follows the Department of Justice raiding the home of a Washington Post reporter. According to Wyden, the Privacy Protection Updates Act aims to protect journalists from having their notes and electronic devices seized.

“My father was a journalist who escaped Nazi Germany,” Wyden said. “He taught me you can’t have a functioning democracy without a free press.”

The Privacy Protection Updates Act would require the government to disclose the existence of the Privacy Protection Act and prove that an exception applies if the government wants to search or seize a journalist’s materials with a warrant. The bill maintains the existing exception for emergency circumstances but establishes a new process for judicial review within 48 hours of emergency seizures of a journalist’s materials.

The bill creates a process for suppression of journalist records that are illegally searched or seized. It also clarifies that the Privacy Protection Act applies to journalist records stored on the cloud.

The Privacy Protection Updates Act is endorsed by the Committee to Protect Journalists, Demand Progress, Freedom of the Press Foundation and Protect the 1st Foundation. Bob Goodlatte, former Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and Senior Policy Advisor for Protect the 1st, said the update to the Privacy Protection Act is a needed safeguard that removes incentives to ransack the notes and sources of reporters.

Seth Stern, Chief of Advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, said at least six times in recent years prosecutors seeking warrants have failed to disclose to judges that such searches are illegal under the Privacy Protection Act of 1980. Stern said by the time…

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