The Trump administration's 'crackdown' on journalists is escalating with a new tactic that presents "serious constitutional problems," per advocates.
According to reporting by The Guardian, President Donald Trump is going after journalists he dislikes, and freedom-of-the-press advocates are warning that more border patrol agents will try seizing their phones.
The alarm comes after the Trump Department of Justice subpoenaed New York Times journalists who reported on security problems with his Qatari jet.
The Guardian's reporting highlighted reporter Max Blumenthal's legal fight against the Trump administration. Blumenthal told The Guardian that while returning from Iran, he was flagged for secondary inspection by federal law enforcement and questioned while they tried to seize his phone.
"They asked to see his two phones," The Guardian reported. "He declined to give them the passwords. They seized the phones, but not his laptop or digital cameras."
Federal agents returned his phones a week later, less than a day after the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee filed an emergency motion in district court seeking their return, per The Guardian. The U.S. federal government said it couldn't get into his phone, but Blumenthal went back to court on Wednesday to force the Trump administration to prove it. A judge gave them 14 days to respond.
Blumenthal's treatment and his case pose "serious constitutional problems," Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, told The Guardian. "The Trump administration is finding any excuse it can to target journalists it dislikes, and border searches are one more play in the playbook."
The Guardian noted that federal law enforcement also seized the phones of activists against an Atlanta police-training center. Blumenthal said at his Wednesday hearing that his case could affect other journalists who "will face this kind of repression from an administration that isn't responsive to the rule of law."