In January 2016, the Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) won a lawsuit against the U.S. Justice Department that disclosed the government maintained secret rules for using National Security Letters and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court orders against journalists. The disclosure showed that press-related surveillance standards were not fully available to the public, raising concerns about how the government could identify, monitor, or obtain information about reporters and their sources without transparent oversight.
The case formed part of FPF’s broader legal campaign for government transparency and journalists’ rights. In March 2016, a separate FPF lawsuit revealed that the Obama administration had secretly lobbied against bipartisan Freedom of Information Act reforms, even though the proposed bill closely tracked the administration’s own stated transparency guidelines. The revelations demonstrated a gap between public commitments to openness and the government’s actual handling of surveillance and records-access policy, leaving secrecy rules and executive accountability as continuing legal and political issues.
