Appeals Court Limits DOJ Bid For Reporters' LinkedIn Data

A federal appeals court on Tuesday blocked a Trump administration bid to force LinkedIn to turn over a sweeping trove of journalists' account data, ruling that the Justice Department's demand would improperly expose the identities of confidential sources.^[1]

In a unanimous decision, a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit said the order requiring 18 months of data about several reporters was overly broad and violated press protections, and it sent the case back to the lower court to craft a narrower request. Judge Harvie Wilkinson, writing for the panel, warned that complying with the subpoena as written could unmask numerous people who had nothing to do with the underlying leak investigation, including confidential sources whose identities news organizations are duty-bound to shield.^[1]

The dispute grew out of a Justice Department leak investigation believed to center on a 2019 news story that disclosed details of a failed US intelligence operation in North Korea, an article that alarmed national security officials and prompted aggressive efforts to identify its source. As part of that probe, prosecutors convinced a federal district judge to order LinkedIn to quietly hand over extensive metadata and account information tied to the reporters, and they simultaneously obtained a gag order that barred the Microsoft-owned company from informing the journalists or the public.^[1]

LinkedIn challenged the demand under seal, arguing that the government was asking for far more information than was necessary and that the breadth of the request clashed with Justice Department guidelines meant to limit intrusions into newsgathering. The company maintained that the subpoena would inevitably sweep in data about many LinkedIn contacts and messages unrelated to the leak, raising the risk that prosecutors could piece together reporters' professional networks and identify sources who had never been targeted in any investigation.^[1]

Press freedom advocates have long warned that social media and professional networking platforms have become backdoor repositories of sensitive reporting trails, allowing the government to reconstruct who journalists communicate with even without reading the content of messages. The Fourth Circuit's ruling underscores those concerns by recognizing that large-scale demands for metadata can be as revealing as direct surveillance, and by signaling that courts must weigh the First Amendment costs more carefully when prosecutors seek reporters' digital footprints.^[1]

The decision does not end the leak investigation, and it leaves open the possibility that a narrower, more tailored subpoena for LinkedIn data could survive legal scrutiny on remand. But by rejecting the Justice Department's attempt to collect a year and a half of journalists' information in one sweep, the appeals court drew a clearer line around how far the government can go when national security interests collide with the protection of confidential sources, a clash that has surfaced repeatedly under administrations of both parties.^[1]

1. New York Times