USA Today is fighting an FBI demand for information related to readers who accessed a report on the newspaper’s website earlier this year about a shooting in which two agents were killed during a search at a Florida apartment.
The FBI made the request via subpoena to USA Today‘s owner, Gannett, in April. The agency sought information including the IP addresses and mobile identification information of people who accessed the Feb. 2 article about the agents during a 35-minute window. After Gannett objected to disclosing the subpoenaed records, the FBI confirmed on May 25 it had received the response, and the company moved to quash the subpoena as unconstitutional, according to a May 28 court filing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
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“Being forced to tell the government who reads what on our websites is a clear violation of the First Amendment,” said USA Today publisher Maribel Perez Wadsworth. “The FBI’s subpoena asks for private information about the readers of our journalism. We have asked the court to quash the subpoena to protect the important relationship and trust between USA Today’s readers and our journalists.”
USA Today was among several news outlets that covered the story centered on agents Daniel Alfin, 36, and Laura Schwartzenberger, 43, who were killed after a man, identified by authorities as David Huber, opened fire on them as they approached his Fort Lauderdale apartment on the morning of Feb. 2. Three other agents were wounded in the shooting. The agents were serving a search warrant in a child pornography investigation.
Huber, 55, took his own life shortly after killing the agents.
Last month, Charles Tobin, the attorney for the firm that represents Gannett, informed the FBI his client objected to turning over the records in a letter written to the agent who made the request.
Tobin cited First Amendment protections in his reasoning and noted that agents did not follow standard procedural policies in their request. The Justice Department typically asks law enforcement to first notify and negotiate with media members whose records they seek and to get approval from the U.S. attorney general.
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President Joe Biden vowed in May he would not allow his administration to secretly seize phone or email records from journalists after disclosures about the Justice Department during the Trump administration employing such a practice.
