The New York Times Gift Article: “Journalists have long shaped history through scrutiny of the military. Now the Defense Department plans to cut off access for reporters who publish even unclassified information without official approval. These days, in covering traditional conflicts like the one in Ukraine, or the new battlefields of space and cyberspace, or the “shadow war” of sabotage, journalists find it almost impossible to report without running into a wall of sensitivity, secrecy and classification. That even includes attacks that strike at ordinary Americans, such as the Chinese “Salt Typhoon” campaign that pierced deep into American telecommunications systems. Getting to an approximation of the truth means dealing with a messy mix of unclassified, sensitive and, at times, classified data — some stamped “Top Secret” The government and the press have tangled over the publication of secret information for decades, of course, most famously in the publication of the Pentagon Papers, which led to a landmark court fight that reaffirmed press freedoms.

But the rules set out by the Pentagon under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth seek to establish new constraints on journalists that news organizations consider unconstitutional and at odds with democratic norms. To obtain or renew a Pentagon pass, a memo circulated on Friday declared, reporters must sign a commitment to publish only information “approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if it is unclassified.” Violators would lose their access to the Pentagon and all U.S. military facilities. Mr. Hegseth, writing on social media, said the move established that “the ‘press’ does not run the Pentagon — the people do.”