Hi there,

Please don’t turn away from this message. Democracy Now! is a free source of independent news for tens of millions of people around the world, but less than 1% of our global audience donates to support our critical journalism. Let’s pick up the percentage! Today, a generous contributor will TRIPLE your donation to Democracy Now!, which means if you give $10, we’ll get $30. Please don’t miss out on this opportunity to triple your impact. Democracy Now! doesn't accept advertising income, corporate underwriting or government funding because nothing is more important to us than our editorial independence. We rely on you for support—and we’re counting on you right now. I hope you’ll give as much as you can today. Every dollar makes a difference. Thanks so much.
-Amy Goodman

Non-commercial news needs your support.

We rely on contributions from you, our viewers and listeners to do our work. If you visit us daily or weekly or even just once a month, now is a great time to make your monthly contribution.

Please do your part today.

Donate

SCOTUS Makes FOIA Requests More Difficult for Journalists

HeadlineJun 25, 2019

On Monday, the Supreme Court made it more difficult for journalists to access commercial information under the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA. The case involves a South Dakota newspaper which was refused documents by the U.S. Agriculture Department related to grocery stores participating in the food stamp program. The publication, the Argus Leader, was investigating fraud in the federally funded program.

The justices ruled 6 to 3 against the newspaper, with Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Breyer dissenting. The Committee to Protect Journalists said of the ruling, “In order to hold institutions to account, journalists often need to petition the government to make documents public. Today’s ruling will undermine the ability of reporters to access the information they need to do their jobs and is a blow to the transparency of the United States government.”

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top