{
  "title": "Incidents: prior restraint in North America, national level",
  "canonical_url": "https://thewaronnews.com/incidents?continent=north-america&tactic=prior_restraint&level=national",
  "filters": {
    "continent": "north-america",
    "tactic": "prior_restraint",
    "level": "national"
  },
  "sort": "date",
  "count": 5,
  "page": 1,
  "pages": 1,
  "per_page": 50,
  "counts_caveat": "The number of entries reflects the depth of this record, not the severity of a country's conduct.",
  "facets": {
    "country": [
      {
        "value": "US",
        "label": "United States",
        "rsf": {
          "index": "RSF World Press Freedom Index",
          "year": 2026,
          "rank": 64,
          "of": 180,
          "label": "RSF 2026 rank: 64th of 180",
          "source_url": "https://rsf.org/en/index"
        }
      }
    ],
    "continent": [
      {
        "value": "north-america",
        "label": "North America"
      }
    ],
    "tactic": [
      {
        "value": "prior_restraint",
        "label": "Prior restraint",
        "count": 5
      },
      {
        "value": "access_ban",
        "label": "Access bans",
        "count": 2
      },
      {
        "value": "secrets_and_espionage_laws",
        "label": "Secrets and espionage laws",
        "count": 2
      },
      {
        "value": "credential_control",
        "label": "Credential control",
        "count": 1
      }
    ],
    "stage": [
      {
        "value": "restrict",
        "label": "Restrict",
        "count": 3
      },
      {
        "value": "pressure",
        "label": "Pressure",
        "count": 1
      },
      {
        "value": "silence",
        "label": "Silence",
        "count": 1
      }
    ],
    "level": [
      {
        "value": "national",
        "label": "National",
        "count": 5
      }
    ],
    "outcome": [
      {
        "value": "sustained",
        "label": "Sustained",
        "count": 2
      },
      {
        "value": "ongoing",
        "label": "Ongoing",
        "count": 1
      },
      {
        "value": "unknown",
        "label": "Unknown",
        "count": 1
      },
      {
        "value": "reversed",
        "label": "Reversed",
        "count": 1
      }
    ],
    "leader": [
      {
        "value": "donald-trump",
        "label": "Donald Trump"
      },
      {
        "value": "franklin-d-roosevelt",
        "label": "Franklin D. Roosevelt"
      },
      {
        "value": "george-w-bush",
        "label": "George W. Bush"
      },
      {
        "value": "richard-nixon",
        "label": "Richard Nixon"
      }
    ],
    "era": [
      {
        "value": "2020s",
        "label": "2020s",
        "count": 2
      },
      {
        "value": "2000s",
        "label": "2000s",
        "count": 1
      },
      {
        "value": "1970s",
        "label": "1970s",
        "count": 1
      },
      {
        "value": "1940s",
        "label": "1940s",
        "count": 1
      }
    ],
    "year": [
      {
        "value": "1941",
        "label": "1941",
        "count": 1
      },
      {
        "value": "1971",
        "label": "1971",
        "count": 1
      },
      {
        "value": "2003",
        "label": "2003",
        "count": 1
      },
      {
        "value": "2020",
        "label": "2020",
        "count": 1
      },
      {
        "value": "2025",
        "label": "2025",
        "count": 1
      }
    ],
    "has_case": [
      {
        "value": "0",
        "label": "without a court case",
        "count": 5
      }
    ]
  },
  "results": [
    {
      "slug": "2025-pentagon-issues-new-press-credentialing-rules",
      "title": "United States: Department of Defense press credential rules requiring approval before release of information, September 2025",
      "occurred_on": "2025-09-19",
      "occurred_on_precision": "day",
      "country": "US",
      "country_name": "United States",
      "continent": "north-america",
      "jurisdiction": "US",
      "level": "national",
      "tactic_primary": "credential_control",
      "tactics": [
        "access_ban",
        "credential_control",
        "prior_restraint"
      ],
      "leader_slug": "donald-trump",
      "leader_name": "Donald Trump",
      "issue_of_the_day": null,
      "outcome": "ongoing",
      "outcome_on": "2026-04-09",
      "outcome_note": "Judge Paul Friedman ruled against the credential-revocation provisions on 2026-03-20 and against the revised policy on 2026-04-09; the Department of Defense appealed.",
      "stage": "restrict",
      "ladder_note": null,
      "rsf": {
        "index": "RSF World Press Freedom Index",
        "year": 2026,
        "rank": 64,
        "of": 180,
        "label": "RSF 2026 rank: 64th of 180",
        "source_url": "https://rsf.org/en/index"
      },
      "era": "2020s",
      "granularity": "granular",
      "status": "in_effect",
      "case_count": 0,
      "summary": "On September 19, 2025, the United States Department of Defense, the federal department that provides the country's military forces, issued new credential rules for reporters at the Pentagon, its headquarters building, under the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth. The rules require that information be approved for public release by an authorizing official \"before it is released, even if it is unclassified,\" and require accredited reporters to pledge not to solicit or publish such information without approval or lose their badges. The Pentagon called the rules \"an important step in preventing leaks that damage operational security and national security.\" A federal judge ruled against the rules in March and April 2026, and the department has appealed (as of 2026-09-22).",
      "url": "https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2025-pentagon-issues-new-press-credentialing-rules"
    },
    {
      "slug": "2020-hhs-officials-alter-cdc-covid-guidance-before-publication",
      "title": "Political appointees alter CDC coronavirus guidance before public release",
      "occurred_on": "2020-09-12",
      "occurred_on_precision": "day",
      "country": "US",
      "country_name": "United States",
      "continent": "north-america",
      "jurisdiction": "US",
      "level": "national",
      "tactic_primary": "prior_restraint",
      "tactics": [
        "prior_restraint"
      ],
      "leader_slug": "donald-trump",
      "leader_name": "Donald Trump",
      "issue_of_the_day": "The reporting concerned the CDC's coronavirus testing guidance and its weekly Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report during the summer and fall of 2020, as the Trump administration sought to align public messaging with the president's own statements about the pandemic.",
      "outcome": "unknown",
      "outcome_on": null,
      "outcome_note": "No agency reversal of the practice was documented in the sources reviewed; a congressional investigation examined the interference without a public admission of wrongdoing.",
      "stage": "restrict",
      "ladder_note": null,
      "rsf": {
        "index": "RSF World Press Freedom Index",
        "year": 2026,
        "rank": 64,
        "of": 180,
        "label": "RSF 2026 rank: 64th of 180",
        "source_url": "https://rsf.org/en/index"
      },
      "era": "2020s",
      "granularity": "granular",
      "status": "in_effect",
      "case_count": 0,
      "summary": "Reporting in 2020 found that political appointees at the Department of Health and Human Services rewrote or edited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's public coronavirus guidance and its weekly scientific bulletin before release, bypassing the agency's normal scientific review.",
      "url": "https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2020-hhs-officials-alter-cdc-covid-guidance-before-publication"
    },
    {
      "slug": "2003-us-pentagon-embedding-rules-iraq",
      "title": "Pentagon sets ground rules for journalists embedded with United States forces in Iraq",
      "occurred_on": "2003-02-10",
      "occurred_on_precision": "day",
      "country": "US",
      "country_name": "United States",
      "continent": "north-america",
      "jurisdiction": "US",
      "level": "national",
      "tactic_primary": "access_ban",
      "tactics": [
        "access_ban",
        "prior_restraint"
      ],
      "leader_slug": "george-w-bush",
      "leader_name": "George W. Bush",
      "issue_of_the_day": "The buildup to and launch of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.",
      "outcome": "sustained",
      "outcome_on": "2003-04-14",
      "outcome_note": "The embedding program ran through the invasion and became the Pentagon's standard model for media access in later conflicts.",
      "stage": "restrict",
      "ladder_note": null,
      "rsf": {
        "index": "RSF World Press Freedom Index",
        "year": 2026,
        "rank": 64,
        "of": 180,
        "label": "RSF 2026 rank: 64th of 180",
        "source_url": "https://rsf.org/en/index"
      },
      "era": "2000s",
      "granularity": "anchor",
      "status": "historical",
      "case_count": 0,
      "summary": "Ahead of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon assigned about 600 journalists to travel with United States military units under written ground rules restricting what they could report about troop numbers, operations and casualties.",
      "url": "https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2003-us-pentagon-embedding-rules-iraq"
    },
    {
      "slug": "1971-us-pentagon-papers-injunction",
      "title": "United States government seeks an injunction to stop The New York Times publishing the Pentagon Papers",
      "occurred_on": "1971-06-15",
      "occurred_on_precision": "day",
      "country": "US",
      "country_name": "United States",
      "continent": "north-america",
      "jurisdiction": "US",
      "level": "national",
      "tactic_primary": "prior_restraint",
      "tactics": [
        "prior_restraint",
        "secrets_and_espionage_laws"
      ],
      "leader_slug": "richard-nixon",
      "leader_name": "Richard Nixon",
      "issue_of_the_day": "The Pentagon Papers documented decades of internal government decision-making on the Vietnam War that contradicted public statements by several administrations, and the Nixon administration sought to prevent further disclosure of the classified history.",
      "outcome": "reversed",
      "outcome_on": "1971-06-30",
      "outcome_note": "The Supreme Court ruled 6 to 3 that the government's request for an injunction against publication failed to overcome the heavy presumption against prior restraint.",
      "stage": "silence",
      "ladder_note": null,
      "rsf": {
        "index": "RSF World Press Freedom Index",
        "year": 2026,
        "rank": 64,
        "of": 180,
        "label": "RSF 2026 rank: 64th of 180",
        "source_url": "https://rsf.org/en/index"
      },
      "era": "1970s",
      "granularity": "anchor",
      "status": "historical",
      "case_count": 0,
      "summary": "After The New York Times began publishing a leaked secret history of the Vietnam War, the Nixon administration obtained a court order stopping further publication, the first such order against a major American newspaper. The Supreme Court lifted it two weeks later, ruling the government had not justified blocking publication in advance.",
      "url": "https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1971-us-pentagon-papers-injunction"
    },
    {
      "slug": "1941-us-office-of-censorship-wartime-press-code",
      "title": "United States creates an Office of Censorship and a wartime code for the press",
      "occurred_on": "1941-12-19",
      "occurred_on_precision": "day",
      "country": "US",
      "country_name": "United States",
      "continent": "north-america",
      "jurisdiction": "US",
      "level": "national",
      "tactic_primary": "prior_restraint",
      "tactics": [
        "prior_restraint",
        "secrets_and_espionage_laws"
      ],
      "leader_slug": "franklin-d-roosevelt",
      "leader_name": "Franklin D. Roosevelt",
      "issue_of_the_day": "The United States had just entered the Second World War after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, and the government wanted to prevent newspapers and broadcasters from unintentionally publishing information useful to enemy forces.",
      "outcome": "sustained",
      "outcome_on": "1945-09-28",
      "outcome_note": "The Office of Censorship operated on the press's voluntary compliance through the war and was abolished by executive order after Japan's surrender.",
      "stage": "pressure",
      "ladder_note": null,
      "rsf": {
        "index": "RSF World Press Freedom Index",
        "year": 2026,
        "rank": 64,
        "of": 180,
        "label": "RSF 2026 rank: 64th of 180",
        "source_url": "https://rsf.org/en/index"
      },
      "era": "1940s",
      "granularity": "anchor",
      "status": "historical",
      "case_count": 0,
      "summary": "Twelve days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt created the Office of Censorship. Its director, Byron Price, a former Associated Press editor, wrote a Code of Wartime Practices asking newspapers and broadcasters to withhold information such as troop movements, and most of the press followed it voluntarily.",
      "url": "https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1941-us-office-of-censorship-wartime-press-code"
    }
  ],
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  "license": {
    "name": "CC BY 4.0",
    "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
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}