Policy Regarding Obtaining Information From, or Records of, Members of the News Media; and Regarding Questioning, Arresting, or Charging Members of the News Media

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE <CFR>28 CFR Part 50</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. OAG193; AG Order No. 6251-2025]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Policy Regarding Obtaining Information From, or Records of, Members of the News Media; and Regarding Questioning, Arresting, or Charging Members of the News Media</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of the Attorney General, Department of Justice. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This rule amends the Department of Justice regulations regarding obtaining information from news media to bring the regulations back into alignment with the decades-long practices in place before dramatic changes were adopted in 2022. The purpose of these regulations since their first adoption more than 50 years ago has been to strike the proper balance between the public's interest in the free dissemination of ideas and information and the public's interest in effective law enforcement and the fair administration of justice. But after several years under these changes, the Department has concluded that the current policy strikes the wrong balance, undermining the Department's ability to safeguard classified, privileged, and other sensitive information, and that the earlier, longstanding practices related to news media records were more optimal. The rule therefore rescinds the amendments of 2022 and adopts a modified version of the 2014 regulations, revised to better align with what had been longstanding Department practice. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective on May 2, 2025. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Ashley Dugger, Director, Office of Enforcement Operations, Criminal Division, (202) 514-6809. Although not required by 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(4), a summary of this rule may be found in the docket for this rulemaking at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Discussion</HD> On April 25, 2025, the Attorney General issued a memorandum revoking an earlier memorandum issued by then-Attorney General Garland on July 19, 2021 (“2021 AG Memo”). The revoked 2021 AG Memo was a significant departure from the Department's decades-old practices regarding the use of compulsory legal process for the purpose of obtaining information from, or records of, members of the news media and directed the Deputy Attorney General to promulgate regulations to codify those new policies. Accordingly, the Department published a final rule implementing those policies on November 3, 2022. <E T="03">Policy Regarding Obtaining Information From or Records of Members of the News Media; and Regarding Questioning, Arresting, or Charging Members of the News Media,</E> 87 FR 66239 (Nov. 3, 2022). Since the promulgation of those regulations, there have been growing concerns about Federal government employees intentionally disseminating confidential, privileged, or otherwise protected information to the media for the purpose of undermining Executive agencies' legal obligations and policies. The Attorney General has determined that the constraints imposed by the 2022 amendments to 28 CFR 50.10 have unduly hindered the Department's efforts to subpoena journalists who have coordinated with Federal employees to leak protected materials. Accordingly, the Attorney General has revoked the 2021 AG Memo and is issuing regulations that will allow the Department of Justice to better safeguard the security of protected government information. The Attorney General is issuing this final rule to revise the existing provisions in the Department's regulations at 28 CFR 50.10. These revisions implement the Attorney General's April 25, 2025, directive. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Regulatory Certifications</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Administrative Procedure Act</HD> Because, for purposes of the Administrative Procedure Act, this regulation concerns general statements of policy, or rules of agency organization, procedure, or practice, notice and comment and a delayed effective date are not required. <E T="03">See</E> 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(A), (d). <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Regulatory Flexibility Act</HD> Because this final rule is not promulgated as a “final rule under [5 U.S.C.] 553” and is not required under that section to be published as a proposed rule, the requirements for the preparation of a regulatory flexibility analysis under 5 U.S.C. 604(a) do not apply. In any event, the Attorney General, in accordance with 5 U.S.C. 605(b), has reviewed this regulation and by approving it certifies that this regulation will not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities because it pertains to administrative matters affecting the Department. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Executive Orders 12866 and 13563—Regulatory Planning and Review</HD> This action has been drafted and reviewed in accordance with section 1(b) of Executive Order 12866 of September 30, 1993, Regulatory Planning and Review, and with section 1(b) of Executive Order 13563 of January 18, 2011, Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review. This rule is limited to agency organization, management, or personnel matters as described by section 3(d)(3) of Executive Order 12866, and therefore is not a “regulation” as defined by that Executive Order. Regardless, out of an abundance of caution, this action has been reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget. <HD SOURCE="HD2">D. Executive Order 12988—Civil Justice Reform</HD> This regulation meets the applicable standards set forth in sections 3(a) and 3(b)(2) of Executive Order 12988 of February 5, 1996, Civil Justice Reform. <HD SOURCE="HD2">E. Executive Order 13132—Federalism</HD> This regulation will not have substantial direct effects on the States, on the relationship between the national government and the States, or on distribution of power and responsibilities among the various levels of government. Therefore, in accordance with Executive Order 13132 of August 4, 1999, Federalism, this rule does not have sufficient federalism implications to warrant the preparation of a federalism assessment. <HD SOURCE="HD2">F. Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995</HD> This rule will not result in the expenditure by State, local, and Tribal governments, in the aggregate, or by the private sector, of $100 million or more in any one year, and it will not significantly or uniquely affect small governments. Therefore, no actions were deemed necessary under the provisions of the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995, Public Law 104-4. <HD SOURCE="HD2">G. Congressional Review Act</HD> This action pertains to agency management and is a rule of agency organization, procedure, or practice that does not substantially affect the rights or obligations of non-agency parties; accordingly, this action is not a “rule” as that term is used in the Congressional Review Act, 5 U.S.C. 801 <E T="03">et seq.</E> Therefore, the reporting requirement of 5 U.S.C. 801 does not apply. <HD SOURCE="HD2">H. Executive Order 14192—Regulatory Costs</HD> This regulation is excepted from Executive Order 14192 of January 31, 2025, Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation, because it is related to agency organization, management, or personnel. <LSTSUB> <HD SOURCE="HED">List of Subjects in 28 CFR Part 50</HD> Administrative practice and procedure, Crime, News, Media, Subpoena, Search warrants. </LSTSUB> Accordingly, for the reasons stated in the preamble, part 50 of title 28 of the Code of Federal Regulations is amended as follows: <HD SOURCE="HED">PART 50—STATEMENTS OF POLICY</HD> <REGTEXT TITLE="28" PART="50"> 1. The authority citation for part 50 continues to read as follows: <HD SOURCE="HED">Authority:</HD> 5 U.S.C. 301; 18 U.S.C. 1162; 28 U.S.C. 509, 510, 516, and 519; 42 U.S.C. 1921 <E T="03">et seq.,</E> 1973c; and Pub. L. 107-273, 116 Stat. 1758, 1824. </REGTEXT> <REGTEXT TITLE="28" PART="50"> 2. Revise § 50.10 to read as follows: <SECTION> <SECTNO>§ 50.10</SECTNO> <SUBJECT> Policy regarding obtaining information from, or records of, members of the news media; and regarding questioning, arresting, or charging members of the news media.</SUBJECT> (a) <E T="03">Statement of principles.</E> (1) Because freedom of the press can be no broader than the freedom of members of the news media to investigate and report the news, the Department's policy is intended to provide protection to members of the news media from certain law enforcement tools, whether criminal or civil, that might unreasonably impair lawful newsgathering activities. The policy is not intended to extend special protections to members of the news media who are the focus of criminal investigations for conduct not based on, or within the scope of, such activities. (2) In determining whether to seek information from, or records of, members of the news media, the approach in every instance must be to strike the proper balance among several vital interests: protecting national security, ensuring public safety, promoting effective law enforcement and the fair administration of justice, and safeguarding the essential role of the free press in fostering government accountability and an open society. (3) The Department views the use of certain law enforcement tools, including subpoenas, court orders issued pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 2703(d) or 3123, and search warrants to seek information from, or records of, non-consenting members of the news media as extraordinary measures, not standard investigatory practices. (4) Investigative activities pursuant to this policy may also be subject to the Privacy Protection Act of 1979, 42 U.S.C. 2000aa. (b) <E T="03">Scope</E> —(1) <E T="03">Covered individuals and entities.</E> (i) The policy governs the use of certain law enforcement tools to obtain ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 30k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━