Last Week(s) in Censorship: June 27 - July 17, 2026

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This edition covers three weeks of escalating repression, as the administration moved from intimidating critics to formally criminalizing them, deployed the FBI directly from the White House to hunt down journalists’ sources, and reached into the digital public record to erase information it found politically inconvenient.

US Ambassador Has Belgian Police Detain Journalists Who Questioned Him
Journalists Samuel Dempsey and Julius Fintelmann were physically removed by Brussels police after asking US Ambassador to Belgium Bill White about an email he’d sent threatening an activist who had urged the Zac Brown Band not to perform at the embassy’s “Freedom 250” celebration. Roughly eight plainclothes officers surrounded the reporters, confiscated their IDs, and told them Dempsey had been flagged as an “active threat” for asking a question. The Brussels mayor’s office confirmed police acted because White “did not feel safe” with reporters present, while Reporters Without Borders called it ludicrous that an ambassador would eject journalists from his own Fourth of July party for doing their jobs.

White House Directs FBI to Investigate New York Times Reporters
The White House personally directed FBI Director Kash Patel to oversee a leak investigation into Times reporting on security gaps in the Qatari-donated Air Force One, an unprecedented breach of the wall between the White House and criminal investigations. Patel ran the probe from the White House complex for roughly eight hours rather than FBI headquarters, and the Justice Department subsequently subpoenaed four Times journalists—Julian Barnes, Eric Lipton, Tyler Pager, and Eric Schmitt—to testify before a grand jury about their sources, with agents delivering some subpoenas directly to reporters’ homes. The Times called the subpoenas “abusive and improper” and moved to quash them, arguing they were “brought in bad faith to punish The Times for its coverage.”

Buried Rule Change Would Let DOJ Help Sue Scientists Over “Woke” Research
A little-noticed provision in a sweeping OMB proposal to rewrite federal grant rules would let the Justice Department join private lawsuits against researchers and universities accused of “woke” spending, by dramatically expanding the legal definition of fraud to cover any violation of grant terms and conditions. The broader rule, championed by OMB Director Russell Vought, would hand political appointees—rather than scientific peer reviewers—final say over which grants get funded, and would let reviewers weigh applicants’ outside advocacy and organizational affiliations. Nearly 300,000 public comments have been filed, with roughly 94% opposed; Rep. Zoe Lofgren called the proposal a “dystopian” escalation.

Texas Protesters Sentenced to Decades in Prison as Test Case for Criminalizing Dissent
Federal judges in Texas sentenced eight anti-ICE protesters to terms ranging from 30 to 100 years in prison on domestic terrorism charges, in what was widely seen as a test of whether the administration could successfully prosecute dissent as terrorism. The case stemmed from a July 2025 protest outside an ICE detention center in Alvarado, Texas, where activists set off fireworks and one person shot a police officer from the woods. But defendant Daniel Sanchez-Estrada, who wasn’t even present at the protest, received 30 years for moving a box of antifascist magazines. The Trump administration branded the loosely connected group—many of whom knew each other only through a local book club—an “antifa cell,” even though antifa is not a formal organization; the leader of the Proud Boys, by comparison, received 22 years for his role in helping carry out the January 6th insurrection.

Man Detained for Darth Vader Protest Music Wins Settlement
The District of Columbia reached a financial settlement with Sam O’Hara, a DC resident who was handcuffed and detained after a National Guard sergeant called police on him for following troops while playing “The Imperial March” from Star Wars on a Bluetooth speaker. O’Hara had been protesting the federal deployment of out-of-state Guard troops to Washington and was held for 15-20 minutes without being charged. The ACLU’s Scott Michelman called the episode proof of “the folly of Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to patrol D.C.”

DHS Agents Track Down Man Who Emailed Angry Criticism of ICE
Federal agents staked out a Rochester, New York man’s hotel as he returned from vacation, five months after he’d sent a furious but non-threatening email to then-ICE acting director Todd Lyons following the shooting deaths in Minnesota. FIRE has sued DHS on David Streever’s behalf, arguing the “WARNING NOTICE” agents left him is designed to chill protected speech even without any criminal charges. A Syracuse poll worker who criticized ICE was similarly confronted by federal agents at her polling place, despite a New York law barring immigration officers from voting sites.

Mahmoud Khalil Sues Trump Officials Under Reconstruction-Era KKK Act
Palestinian rights activist Mahmoud Khalil filed a federal lawsuit accusing senior administration officials—including Stephen Miller, Marco Rubio, and Kristi Noem—and three private advocacy groups of conspiring to detain and deport him in retaliation for his pro-Palestinian activism at Columbia. Brought under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, the suit alleges the Heritage Foundation authored a blueprint called “Project Esther” that relied on groups like Betar and Canary Mission to identify targets. Khalil spent roughly 104 days in detention and missed the birth of his first child.

Energy Department Deletes 6,000 Web Pages After Mayor’s Heatwave Advice Draws GOP Mockery
The US Department of Energy quietly deleted approximately 6,000 pages of energy-conservation guidance—including its longstanding recommendation to set thermostats to 75-78°F in summer—within days of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani offering New Yorkers identical advice during a dangerous heatwave. Conservative figures including Ted Cruz and Nikki Haley mocked Mamdani’s guidance as socialism, apparently unaware it mirrored the federal government’s own recommendation and that of Texas Governor Greg Abbott. No official reason was given for the deletions, which were caught by web-archiving projects before they vanished.

Anti-Abortion Officials Keep Targeting Online Reproductive Health Speech
Marking four years since the Dobbs decision, the Electronic Frontier Foundation documented an ongoing wave of proposed laws, cease-and-desist letters, lawsuits, and government investigations aimed at websites and organizations that share information about reproductive healthcare. The effort increasingly targets not just abortion providers themselves but any site that simply tells people what their legal options are, part of a broader campaign to control what Americans can read and how they communicate about reproductive care online.

Resistance and accountability persisted even as the crackdown intensified. Sam O’Hara’s ACLU-backed settlement shows that peaceful, satirical protest against federal overreach can still win in court. The New York Times is fighting its subpoenas head-on and seeking to have the sealed case unsealed for public scrutiny. Nearly 300,000 scientists and citizens flooded OMB with comments opposing the “woke research” rule change, with 94% in opposition. FIRE and the ACLU continue filing aggressive lawsuits on behalf of ordinary citizens targeted for criticizing ICE, and Mahmoud Khalil’s KKK Act lawsuit represents a novel and serious legal effort to hold the architects of his persecution accountable. Web-archiving projects preserved the Department of Energy’s deleted pages before they disappeared for good, ensuring the public record survives even when the government tries to erase it.