Last Week in Censorship: March 3 – 15, 2026

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These two weeks saw the Trump administration turning its censorship program in an alarming direction, in which the tools of press suppression are being deployed during an active war. Federal agencies threatened private companies over their editorial decisions, the Pentagon blocked photographers from briefings on Iran because it didn’t like how the defense secretary looked in them, and ICE detained a journalist while she was covering immigration enforcement.

But as always, we’ve got a glimmer of hope for you; read on to see how Kari Lake’s propaganda got undermined this week.

White House Describes Investigative Journalism as “Harassment”

On March 10, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt described to reporters that the New York Times’ reporting and questioning – regarding a preliminary Pentagon investigation that concluded the United States was responsible for the military strike that hit a girls’ elementary school in Iran, killing an estimated 175 people – as “harassment.” Her statement came as the Times’ reporting contradicted Trump’s initial claim, made aboard Air Force One, that Iran had bombed the school itself.

ICE Detains Nashville Journalist Covering Immigration Enforcement

On March 4, ICE agents arrested Estefany María Rodríguez Florez, a Colombian-born reporter for the Spanish-language outlet Nashville Noticias, as she and her husband arrived at a gym in South Nashville. Rodríguez Florez had been covering ICE operations in Middle Tennessee as one of her primary beats since November. She had no criminal record, was married to an American citizen, and had a pending green card application. Her attorneys argue that the arrest and ongoing detention violate the First Amendment and constitute retaliation for her reporting. A coalition of 41 press-freedom organizations, including the Committee to Protect Journalists, PEN America, Reporters Without Borders, Amnesty International USA, and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, has demanded her immediate release, calling her detention “part of a broader erosion of democratic norms.” After a federal judge ordered the government to justify her continued detention, the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee filed a response on March 13 arguing that Rodríguez had overstayed a tourist visa and missed two scheduled check-ins, even though her attorneys have clearly documented that one appointment was cancelled due to a winter storm and ICE itself could not find the other in their system. A bond hearing is set for March 17, and a show-cause hearing for the following day.

Pentagon Bans Photographers From Iran War Briefings Over “Unflattering” Photos

The Defense Department barred press photographers from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s briefings on the U.S.-Israeli military conflict with Iran after staff deemed photos from a prior briefing “unflattering.” Only the Pentagon’s own staff photographers have been permitted in since. The ban came as scrutiny intensified over a U.S. strike on a girls’ elementary school in southern Iran that killed an estimated 175 people, including many schoolchildren. The National Press Club’s president called the ban “deeply troubling,” saying that “when the government decides which images the public is allowed to see, transparency is replaced by control.” The ban is the latest escalation in Hegseth’s broader campaign to restrict press access: most mainstream news organizations have left their Pentagon desks last October rather than accept restrictive rules prohibiting journalists from soliciting information the government did not authorize, being replaced by a largely right-wing press organizations who agreed to the new rules.

FCC Admits Equal Time Rule Applies to Radio — Then Refuses to Enforce It There

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s ongoing campaign to weaponize the “equal time” rule against liberal TV talk shows hit an awkward snag when critics pointed out the obvious: if the rule applies to The View and The Late Show, it also applies to conservative talk radio, where Republican candidates appear constantly. Carr acknowledged at an FCC meeting that the rule does indeed apply to radio — but said he didn’t see “any reason to similarly press radio stations.” This apparent selective enforcement points directly to what critics have argued since Carr’s campaign began: that his efforts are not about enforcing a neutral legal standard, but about using government authority to suppress critics of the administration while leaving its allies untouched. Carr also confirmed the FCC has opened an “enforcement action” against The View following a February appearance by Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico — the same week that CBS lawyers blocked Stephen Colbert from airing his Talarico interview on broadcast television.

DHS Ousts Privacy Officers Who Refused to Hide Surveillance Records

On March 10, WIRED reported that the Department of Homeland Security removed career Customs and Border Protection privacy officials – including the agency’s top privacy officer, a privacy branch chief, and the director of CBP’s FOIA office – from their roles after they objected to orders to mislabel records about surveillance technologies and block their release under the Freedom of Information Act. The officials had been directed to treat routine privacy compliance forms, known as Privacy Threshold Analyses, as legally privileged “drafts,” which could exempt them from FOIA disclosure, despite the federal government’s longstanding acknowledgement that these are ordinary agency records subject to public release. Internal emails show DHS’s deputy FOIA chief Catrina Pavlik-Keenan writing that the forms “are NOT supposed to be released at all.” The ACLU’s Nathan Wessler called the removals an effort to “evade public scrutiny of its expanding surveillance operations,” and the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s Jeramie Scott said the career officials “were right to protest such a blanket move towards secrecy.” Ultimately, this incident demonstrates the continuation of a chilling pattern in the Trump administration: when career civil servants at DHS push back against what they believe are unlawful directives, they lose their jobs.

Researchers Sue Over “Anti-Censorship” Visa Policy and Its “Chilling Effects”

On March 9, the Coalition for Independent Technology Research filed a lawsuit in D.C. federal court challenging the administration’s policy of denying visas to (or deporting) noncitizens who work in fields including fact-checking, content moderation, and disinformation research. Filed by Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute and Protect Democracy, the suit names Secretary of State Marco Rubio, AG Pam Bondi, and outgoing DHS Secretary Kristi Noem as defendants. The complaint documents the “chilling effects” already underway: a professor studying online harms to children has left the country; a content moderation expert has shifted to “politically neutral” research topics; another academic has stopped publishing op-eds and canceled public events. The lawsuit alleges the policy amounts to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination, arguing that the administration “is engaged in a brazen and far-reaching campaign of censorship while cynically and falsely claiming that censorship is what it’s fighting.”

DOJ Revives Vendetta Against Law Firms in 24-Hour Reversal

In one of the most chaotic legal episodes of the Trump presidency, the Justice Department on March 2 told a federal appeals court it would drop its defense of executive orders targeting four law firms — Perkins Coie, WilmerHale, Jenner & Block, and Susman Godfrey — only to reverse itself less than 24 hours later without explanation. The firms had been sanctioned by Trump for representing his political opponents or taking on cases he disliked, with orders stripping their lawyers of security clearances, canceling government contracts, and blocking access to federal buildings. For context, four different federal judges have struck down the orders as unconstitutional, finding violations of the First, Fourth, and Sixth Amendments.

FCC Approves Cable Mega-Merger With Anti-DEI Conditions

The Trump FCC rubber-stamped the merger of Charter Communications and Cox, creating the largest cable company in the United States. As a condition of approval, the merged entity committed to eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, with Charter pledging “new safeguards to protect against DEI discrimination” and promising to recruit, hire, and promote individuals based solely on “skills, qualifications, and experience.” The use of federal merger conditions to compel a corporation to dismantle programs acknowledging systemic inequality represents a new frontier, with the Trump administration now leveraging regulatory approval as a tool to enforce its ideological agenda on private companies.

Judge Invalidates Kari Lake’s Dismantling of Voice of America.

On March 8, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ruled that Kari Lake unlawfully served as acting CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) and that all actions she took during her tenure – including the mass layoffs of more than 1,000 journalists and staffers – are “void.” Lamberth, a Reagan appointee, found that Lake’s appointment violated both the Constitution’s Appointments Clause and the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, writing that it represented “an unlawful effort to transform Lake into the CEO of U.S. Agency for Global Media in all but name.” Under Lake’s leadership, Voice of America, which had broadcast in 49 languages and reached more than 360 million weekly listeners internationally, was reduced to broadcasting in just four languages. Lake also revoked funding from sister networks including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia. VOA journalists who brought the lawsuit said they felt “vindicated and deeply grateful,” while Reporters Without Borders celebrated the decision as proof that “fighting for press freedom matters.”

If it All Feels Like a Lot These Days… It is.

This week’s edition was a heavy one. We’re embroiled in a new war, have seen news about another detained journalist, found out that our own military’s investigation determined that it had bombed a school full of children, and all the while, we keep seeing an administration obsessively clawing for control of the images rather than accounting for its own actions.

If you made it to this part of this newsletter, you’re already doing something that matters: you’re paying attention when it would be far easier not to. That’s no small thing, and we’re very glad to have you here with us.

Take care of yourself this week. Talk to someone you love about something that has nothing to do with any of this. In the meantime, we’ll keep our eyes on what’s happening – and we’ll see you in our next edition.