Indictment Sparks Alarm Over Criminalizing Reporting Practices (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Okay, we're getting our first look at charges being filed against Don Lemon and a group of other people in connection with Their presence at a protest at a church They were accused of violating people's First Amendment rights to practice their religion now Obviously the freedom of religion is one of the core rights enshrined in the US Constitution But this indictment starts wading into really tricky territory where it talks about prosecuting journalists for practicing the craft of journalism I'm not part of the group. I'm just here photographing. I'm a journalist. For instance in a few places in the indictment it points out the fact that Don Lemon took steps to Maintain secrecy of the operation saying specifically he took steps to maintain Operational secrecy by reminding certain co-conspirators not to disclose the target of the operation Well that comes up all the time in journalistic context think about in national security Where reporters might be embedded with folks overseas, but will not disclose to viewers or others where they actually are That's that's a common practice. So there are some folks here who are praying And a number of places in the indictment point to Don Lemon giving observations of what he's seeing which also are incredibly common journalistic practices with this indictment The Justice Department is going down the road of taking practices that really are and ought to be Protected under the First Amendment and making them into potentially criminal acts This has huge implications not just for independent journalists, but legacy media organizations alike