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

The Trump administration fought that limited request, arguing that the news outlet’s attorney may not be trustworthy or could possibly tip others off to the LinkedIn probe, but Wilkinson rejected those arguments. Noting that the justice system often deals with “imperfectly informed litigants,” Wilkinson said that “the government should be given an opportunity to explain why LinkedIn’s narrow disclosure would somehow compromise its investigation.”

“Unless the government’s response to LinkedIn’s proposal is more persuasive than anything the government has presented thus far, LinkedIn’s narrow exception to the breadth of the Secrecy Order must be adopted,” Wilkinson wrote.

LinkedIn, which is owned by Microsoft, does not seem to expect the government to be able to defend the sweeping request on remand. While a narrowed order may not protect all irrelevant users from being caught in the government’s hunt for the military leaker, it would stop Trump from accessing a broad range of journalists’ interactions with confidential sources. In a statement, a Microsoft spokesperson told Ars that “this is an important ruling for the right to privacy and press freedom.”

“Microsoft has consistently defended journalists’ ability to protect confidential sources and the principle that government demands for information should face meaningful judicial scrutiny and be balanced against First Amendment protections,” Microsoft’s spokesperson said.

Several civil rights groups backed LinkedIn in the fight, including the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP). In a statement to Ars, RCFP President Bruce D. Brown celebrated the ruling as a win for all journalists, not just those who rely on LinkedIn to connect with confidential sources.

“This ruling is a big deal and will quickly become one of the leading opinions in the area—one we will be quoting from it for a long time,” Brown said. “The court recognized that confidential sources are the ‘lifeblood’ of investigative reporting and that dragnet demands from technology companies to reveal those sources violate the law.”