For years, journalists have written about the posts of the social media of government employees to reveal the functions, motivations and actions of civil servants.
But when a journalist recently trained the same lens on Elon Musk's new government efficiency program, the billionaire suggested that the report could be illegal and join other powerful figures related to the Trump administration that have made comparable claims in recent weeks .
According to them, the violation is Doxxing: Publishing private information about someone with malignant intention. The term refers to a revenge tactics, originally used by hackers, to bully people online, to fall or intimidate, and can encourage third parties to commit violence of violence.
Mr. Musk and others have expanded the definition this month and apply it to journalists and others who want to hold the government responsible by reporting on public information. An official from the Ministry of Justice appointed by President Trump, stated at the beginning of last week that he had found evidence that the rights are breaking of people who 'aimed' employees of Mr. Musk's Government Efficiency Program.
Although the civil servant did not mention names, Civil Liberty and Free Speech groups said that his comments seemed to refer to various journalists who recently discovered new details about Mr Musk's efforts, including identifying some of the people working for him . Those proponents say that the first amendment explicitly protects the type of work reporters and that government employees are by definition not protected against critical research.
Instead, they say that Mr. Musk and others try to intimidate and cool the media at a crucial moment.
“The term 'doxxing' has become invalid from its origin to mean that someone posted something on the internet that I would rather not see,” said Will Creeley, legal director of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a best known as fire . “But if you live in the US in 2025, you can expect a criminal investigation to criticize the government, we are all in trouble.”
Political law has increasingly increased an attack on regular journalists in recent weeks. Since his inauguration, Mr Trump has strengthened false claims that the government secretly funded newsgiennes, including polico, and called it 'the greatest scandal of all', while taking the time to name specific journalists and on to call to be fired.
The Federal Communications Commission has also opened an investigation into PBS and NPR, and investigates CBS News the handling of a “60 minutes” interview with former vice -president Kamala Harris last fall, that the subject of a lawsuit was filed by Mr Trump. The Trump administration also recently gave room in the Pentagon dedicated to various large media organizations, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, to the rightly leaning points such as Breitbart News and One America News Network.
The group of Mr Creeley and almost three dozen other organizations are now asking Ed Martin, the interim -American lawyer of the District of Columbia, who has issued the public threats to prosecute those who disturb the work of Mr. Musk, to get out Lay which laws are violated according to him. And who he is investigating. In a letter last week, the organizations said that all attempts to charge reporters or media in that context would be unethical and illegal and violate the Constitution.
Harrison Fields, a spokesperson for the White House, said that the administration and doge both had been very transparent.
Mr. Fields also said that there had been no internal discussions about the arresting of members of the press, but that “no one is above the law, including members of the media.”
Mr. Musk did not respond to an e -mail to ask for comments.
There is no federal anti-doxxant legislation, but more than a dozen states have adopted articles of association to protect people against doxxed. Some of those laws are tailored to certain officials, such as police officers, public health officials or judges.
Mr Martin's statements followed the new report on the so -called Ministry of Government Efficiency, or Doge, the group led by Mr. Musk accused of reforming the federal government.
The first of those reports, published on 2 February by Wired, mentioned six of the recent employees of the Department, whose identities had not previously been public.
The next day, Mr. Musk went to X, his social media platform, to answer an anonymous account that shared the names of those employees.
“You have committed a crime,” wrote Mr. Musk. The bill was then suspended, so that the pole disappears from the platform.
Charlie Kirk, a co-founder of the right-wing activist Group turning point, shortly thereafter immediately subsequently accused “Doxxing Doge employees” in a position to his 4.6 million followers on X. Hours thereafter Mr Martin posted a letter on a letterhead From the Ministry of Justice, tagging by Mr. Musk and explains: “We will not tolerate threats against doge employees or by breaking the law by the dissatisfied.”
Days later, Katherine Long, a reporter in the Wall Street Journal, wrote an article stating that Marko Elez, 25, had a DOGE employee who had access to the Payment System of the Treasury Department, in the past racist comments on social media Posted on a social media account. In response to Mrs Long's questions at the White House, Mr Elez resigned.
That led to a series of attacks by Mr. Musk on X, who claimed that the reporter was a “disgusting and cruel person” who “had to be fired immediately”, adding that her actions were “certainly inappropriate, possibly criminal”.
A few hours later, Mr Martin placed a second letter to Mr. Musk on X, and thanked him for “the reference of various individuals and networks that seem to steal government possession and/or threatening government employees.”
Wired said that the Ministry of Justice had not contacted it with regard to the issue. Katie Drummond, the global editorial director of the outlet, said in a statement that “our reporting is speaking for itself”, and added: “It is rigorously reported and actually checked.”
The Wall Street Journal did not respond to a request for comments.
Mrs Long has since become the target of an enormous attention of online abuse and criticism. A prominent hedge fund manager, Bill Ackman, called her a 'malignant, unethical liar' in a message with her contact details. Last year Mrs. Long reported in an article for Business Insider that the wife of Mr Ackman, Neri Oxman, seemed to have plagued parts of her dissertation.
In the weekend, a right-wing influencer from Great Britain wrote a critical article about Mrs. Long that described her as 'fanatic' and suggested that she could be an undercover federal agent because she was an internship of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs more than ten years ago Had and worked for the United States Agency for International Development in Tadjikistan in 2016.
Vice President JD Vance also suggested in a post on X that Mrs. Long tried to “destroy people” with her work.
Danielle Citron, a professor of law at the University of Virginia who specializes in issues surrounding online privacy, said it was ironic that Mrs. Long was subject to online intimidation by the same people who were wrong for her reporting.
“This is a case of” privacy for me, but not for you, “said Mrs. Citron.
They and others also said that, despite their recent indignation about what they called Doxxing, Mr. Musk and others were in line with the Trump government had a long history of public people with whom they disagree.
In October, for example, a group financed by the Heritage Foundation, the Trump-Uitdelvelvelte Non-profit behind Project 2025, the right-wing blueprint for a Republican government, published the names of 10 few well-known employees of the Department of Homeland Security, Hen “America's most subversive immigration bureaucrates. ” Last week it published the names of more than 50 other low-profile federal employees as part of what it calls a 'dei-watchllist'.
And at the end of November, Mr. Musk posted posts on X who called four federal employees who worked on climate change issues, so that at least one of them removed its social media accounts.
