“A well-informed citizenry is at the heart of a dynamic democracy,” reads a quotation often attributed to Thomas Jefferson, as it “provides the best defense against tyranny.”

Recent restrictions by the newly renamed Department of War on news organizations come straight out of the playbook of aspiring authoritarians. On the eve of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Americans should recoil at this attempt to deprive them of the information they need to hold the government accountable for its actions.

In January, a week after the Senate confirmed Pete Hegseth as secretary of Defense, he removed The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and NBC journalists from offices assigned to them at the Pentagon. He gave slots instead to three conservative outlets: One America News Network, Breitbart and the New York Post. In a thinly disguised effort to show that the “annual media rotation program” was nonpartisan, he also chose HuffPost, a more progressive organization that had not requested a space.

In February, Hegseth banned all 90 reporters covering the Defense Department from the Pentagon briefing room, except when government officials were making........

© The Hill