Trump admin loses fight to spy on random journalists’ LinkedIn DMs

An appeals court ruled that the Trump administration's request to LinkedIn to turn over 18 months of communications from targeted journalists was too broad and threatened to undermine a critical platform for journalists to connect with confidential sources. The court ordered the US district court to narrow the order to avoid posing a grave threat to press freedoms. The request was not limited to journalists involved in a specific report, but rather included any journalist who had any possible link to the journalists around the time the report was drafted. The court noted that the majority of journalists have LinkedIn accounts and publish their contact information to encourage sources to connect on the platform. The secrecy order barring LinkedIn from telling anyone about the request for a year was also deemed excessive and left journalists unaware of the compromise of their First Amendment rights for too long.