The ruling sends the case back to a lower court, which must now weigh the First Amendment implications of the government’s request.
“Confidentiality of sources is the lifeblood of a free press,” Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit wrote in a unanimous decision released on Tuesday.
In a matter still enveloped in secrecy, Wilkinson determined that the government’s requests from President Donald Trump’s Justice Department (DOJ) were “substantially overbroad” when it sought from LinkedIn the disclosure of information about journalists targeted in an undisclosed national security leaks inquiry.
The judge concluded that the DOJ’s Disclosure and Secrecy Orders—approved by a district court under the Stored Communications Act (SCA)—impinged on the First Amendment rights of both LinkedIn and its users. The SCA bars digital service providers like LinkedIn from sharing users’ electronic communications with any person or government entity without a search warrant, court order, or subpoena.
The DOJ has been conducting a lengthy investigation into a national-security leak tied to an unnamed article published by an unidentified news outlet. The government contends that the outlet published a piece “purporting to describe a top-secret United States military operation in a foreign country” that revealed “classified information never before disclosed.” In pursuing the leak inquiry, the DOJ sought a “Disclosure Order” that would force LinkedIn to “produce the records of numerous journalists.” The Disclosure Order compelled LinkedIn to “assemble and disclose the targeted journalists’ metadata records” across an 18-month window, during which one journalist authored more than 1,000 articles unrelated to the probe.
As part of the investigation, Politico reported that the DOJ was “demanding details of roughly 1,900 LinkedIn interactions from six users.” The order also required LinkedIn to include the metadata records of every user with whom the targeted journalists interacted for any article in the 18-month span. Wilkinson noted that, had LinkedIn complied, the government would have acquired data on a broad swath of users—including confidential sources—with no plausible link to the leak investigation. The DOJ also “sought and obtained” a Secrecy Order prohibiting LinkedIn from disclosing the existence of the Disclosure Order to the targeted journalists, the News Outlet, or anyone else for a period of one year.
In November 2025, LinkedIn challenged the orders as overbroad under both the SCA and the First Amendment. The company pressed to narrow the Secrecy Order so that it could notify a single, pre-screened lawyer for the News Outlet about the Disclosure Order. LinkedIn would then coordinate with the government-approved attorney to explore ways to limit the scope of the Disclosure Order. The Trump administration contended that LinkedIn lacked standing to raise the claim and that the platform could not “represent the First Amendment interests” of the investigation’s targets.
The 4th Circuit rejected that view, determining that LinkedIn had “three distinct, concrete injuries in fact.” Wilkinson wrote that it should have been apparent that the Secrecy Order deprived the targeted journalists and the news outlet of the ability to press their First Amendment rights because it kept them “in the dark.” Without LinkedIn stepping in on their behalf, Wilkinson observed, the risk to their First Amendment rights was substantial.
In its ruling, the 4th Circuit noted that service providers such as LinkedIn have routinely been permitted to advocate for the rights of third parties when those parties seek “access to their market or function.”
The court reasoned that LinkedIn’s relationship with its users would suffer if journalists stopped using the platform to reach confidential sources due to the Disclosure Order. The 4th Circuit rejected the government’s argument that LinkedIn could not possibly maintain a sufficiently close relationship with its users to speak on their behalf, especially given the platform’s enormous membership.
While Wilkinson acknowledged that national-security concerns in the case were self-evident, he cautioned that a broad disclosure order does not entitle the government to obtain records that bear no connection to the investigation. The matter is remanded to the district court to assess the government’s need for the Disclosure Order, determine whether every requested record is relevant, or if the scope can be narrowed, and evaluate “any First Amendment and SCA standards implicated by the Disclosure Order.” The DOJ must justify why a narrowed disclosure would undermine its investigation; if it cannot, the court should adopt LinkedIn’s proposed narrowing of the Secrecy Order.
Today, forcing service providers such as Meta, Google, X, and LinkedIn to turn over user information to the government has sadly become routine. Across presidential administrations, there has been a troubling tendency to sidestep First Amendment protections when confrontations with them arise. In January 2023, Jack Smith, serving as special counsel, secured a search warrant for data and records tied to Trump’s X (formerly Twitter) account. Smith subsequently obtained a nondisclosure order prohibiting X from informing Trump about the warrant. In October 2024, the Supreme Court declined to hear X’s appeal, leaving the nondisclosure order intact.
During the second Trump administration, the DOJ conducted searches of reporters’ homes and seized their electronic devices in connection with leak investigations. The department also issued subpoenas to independent journalists who reported on military actions in North Korea. Additionally, investigators issued subpoenas to reporters at The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post for coverage of the Iran conflict. In July, Attorney General Todd Blanche authorized grand jury subpoenas directed at several New York Times reporters and their communications providers over stories about the Qatari-donated Air Force One.
Blanche has rejected claims that his department targets reporters. Instead, he has likened the Justice Department’s handling of reporters to treating them as “material witnesses to a car crash.” Yet the First Amendment guards the freedom of the press and its ability to report on topics the government might prefer to keep concealed.
As Wilkinson concluded, “Without confidentiality, the ability of journalists to report on events of major significance and on government actions that may raise questions of legality or integrity could be seriously hampered.”
