Federal judge appears skeptical of recent Pentagon policy restricting journalists' activities
CBSN
A federal judge sharply questioned the government on Friday about a new Pentagon policy that places strict controls over what journalists can report if they wish to be allowed to continue working from inside the building. Eleanor Watson contributed to this report. In:
A federal judge sharply questioned the government on Friday about a new Pentagon policy that places strict controls over what journalists can report if they wish to be allowed to continue working from inside the building.
In a tense exchange, U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman for the District of Columbia said he has lived through many military and national security conflicts, from the Vietnam War to the Sept. 11 attacks, and noted that the press played a vital role in all of those events in helping the American public understand what its government was doing.
Regarding the Vietnam War, he said that "the public, I think it's fair to say, was lied to about a lot of things," and added, "A lot of things need to be held tightly and securely, but openness and transparency allow members of the public to know what their government is doing."
The New York Times sued the Pentagon late last year after it ordered all of the credentialed journalists who worked inside the building to sign a lengthy set of restrictions on their news gathering activities. Violating the policy could lead to the revocation of their press passes by the Pentagon. Most of the press outlets who worked in the building refused to sign the new policy and were forced to vacate.
CBS News is among an array of media organizations — including Newsmax, The New York Times, The Washington Post, NewsNation, The Hill and Fox News, which previously employed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as an on-air host — that declined to sign the new Pentagon restrictions.
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