Appeals court limits order for LinkedIn to disclose journalists' communications in leak probe

WASHINGTON (AP) — A judge must narrow an order requiring LinkedIn to divulge journalists' communications on the social media platform to the Trump administration as part of a leak investigation, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday in a case with profound free-speech implications.

A three-judge panel from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the government isn't entitled to a “blanket” order for LinkedIn to disclose a broad array of user records belonging to the journalists, whose employer isn't identified in court records.

“A request by the government to scoop up reporters’ records wholesale and ascertain the identity of their sources would tip the balance against informed discourse in a manner inimical to democratic health,” Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III wrote in the court's unanimous opinion.

But the panel also rejected LinkedIn's request to entirely quash the district court's "substantially overbroad” disclosure order. The panel recognized that the journalists' First Amendment rights must be balanced against the administration's duty to protect national security information.

“Serious security and speech claims are in tension in this case. There is space under law for both," wrote Wilkinson, who was nominated to the court by Ronald Reagan, a Republican.

The panel also included Judge James Andrew Wynn, who was nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama, and Judge Nicole G. Berner, who was nominated by Democratic President Joe Biden.

U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Hanes, a Biden nominee based in Newport News, Virginia, issued the order that LinkedIn challenged in the case.

Republican President Donald Trump's administration opened its leak investigation when 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 leak investigation had reported on nearly 1,000 stories on many topics over the 18-month period covered by the judge's order. The order would unmask every confidential source that the targeted journalists communicated with on LinkedIn over that span.

“While that order may catch sources relevant to the government’s investigation, it will also inevitably sweep in every other confidential source with whom the targeted journalists spoke," Wilkinson wrote.

The panel returned the case to Hanes with an instruction to narrow the disclosure order.

“That court was right to accord the government considerable latitude in pursuing and maintaining the integrity of its investigation,” Wilkinson wrote. “Even so, that latitude is not infinite. It is not appropriate for district courts to approve requests purely because the records requested are logistically feasible to compile.”