FBI posing as Associated Press violates media's credibility, professor says


LAWRENCE — The Associated Press and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press sued the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday, seeking public records regarding a fake news story the FBI created to plant surveillance software on a suspect’s computer. The FBI sent the fake story to a 15-year old boy suspected of making bomb threats near Olympia, Washington.

In response, the AP filed Freedom of Information Act requests for information about that effort and any other program in which agents posed as journalists or in which fake news stories were used to deliver tracking or other surveillance software. None of the records have been released.

Jonathan Peters, assistant professor of journalism at the University of Kansas, is available to speak with media about the lawsuit and related topics. He said it is wrong for federal agents to pose as journalists.

“The press draws much of its credibility from its actual and perceived independence from the government,” Peters said. “If the press is just an arm of the government, or seen as one, the press loses that credibility. And, more to the point of the lawsuit, the FBI and DOJ have violated the law by refusing to release the requested records.”

Peters is a media lawyer and First Amendment scholar, and he teaches media law at KU. He is the press freedom correspondent for the Columbia Journalism Review and has blogged about free expression for the Harvard Law & Policy Review. He also has written about legal issues for Esquire, The Atlantic, Slate, The Nation, Wired and PBS.

To schedule an interview, contact Mike Krings at 785-864-8860 or mkrings@ku.edu.

Fri, 08/28/2015

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Mike Krings

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