A federal appeals court told a judge to narrow an order requiring LinkedIn to disclose journalists’ communications in a leak investigation.
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A federal appeals court in the United States ruled that a judge must narrow an order requiring LinkedIn to disclose journalists’ communications on the platform as part of a leak investigation tied to the Trump administration.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the government was not entitled to a “blanket” order demanding LinkedIn turn over a broad array of user records belonging to the journalists targeted by the probe, whose employer was not identified in court records.
In a unanimous opinion, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III said such a wholesale effort to collect reporters’ records “would tip the balance against informed discourse in a manner inimical to democratic health.”
The appeals panel also said it was not ordering LinkedIn to completely quash the district court’s “substantially overbroad” disclosure order. The court said journalists’ First Amendment rights must be balanced against the administration’s duty to protect national security information.
Wilkinson wrote that “Serious security and speech claims are in tension in this case,” adding that “there is space under law for both.” He noted that the district court had “considerable latitude” in maintaining the integrity of the investigation, but that “that latitude is not infinite” and was not appropriate to approve requests simply because they were logistically feasible.
The case was sent back to U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Hanes, who issued the challenged order. The appeals court instructed her to narrow the scope of the disclosure order so it does not sweep in confidential sources beyond what is necessary for the investigation.
The leak investigation began after an unidentified news organization published an article about a top-secret U.S. military operation in a foreign country, revealing classified information. The journalists targeted by the probe had reported on nearly 1,000 stories over an 18-month period covered by the judge’s order, and the appeals court said the disclosure order would unmask every confidential source the journalists communicated with on LinkedIn during that span.
The appeals panel included Judges James Andrew Wynn and Nicole G. Berner alongside Wilkinson.
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