To non-journalists, receiving a government subpoena is a serious thing but probably not a violation of basic rights.

To journalists, it’s quite a different matter – an attack on a foundational right to gather information in the public interest and to provide confidentiality to sources.

When the Trump-controlled justice department arrived at several New York Times reporters’ homes last week to deliver subpoenas, that highly unusual action provoked outrage, for good reason.

“When the public’s right to know is crushed, as the Trump administration is trying to do … all of us suffer irreparable harm,” responded Stephen Adler, chairperson of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

In a memo to his newsroom, the top editor of the Times, Joseph Kahn, called the subpoenas “a naked attempt to intimidate individual reporters and to prevent The Times and other independent news media from doing important reporting protected by the First Amendment”. The Times will defend the reporters aggressively, he assured the staff.

The subpoenas call for Times journalists to testify after reporting on a Boeing 747 jet that the Qatari government gave Trump and that he wants to use as a new and improved version of Air Force One, the official........

© The Guardian