NewsGuild warns cell phone snooping case threatens press freedom

“We believe a reporter’s rights and sources should be protected at all times,” says Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild Executive Director Cet Parks. “We need the freedom to report and that means we can’t be subject to constant surveillance,” adds Bernard Lunzer, president of the NewsGuild-CWA. Both were responding to the cell phone privacy case the U.S. Supreme Court heard on Wednesday. The NewsGuild-CWA and 19 other news organizations said that freedom of the press is threatened by the case, Carpenter v US, which could let law enforcement engage in unlimited snooping against citizens via their cell phones. The GOP Trump administration, defending the indiscriminate gathering of the cell phone-generated data without a warrant and without notice to the cell phone user, did not reply to the journalists’ brief.
- Chris Garlock, with reporting by PAI

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