Tag: journalists

California’s “Stop Nick Shirley Act” Would Penalize Journalism

California’s Assembly Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee voted 11-2 on April 7 to advance a bill that would let employees and volunteers at immigration service organizations demand the deletion of their images and personal information from the internet, backed by civil penalties starting at $4,000 and the threat of criminal charges.

AB 2624, authored by Assemblywoman Mia Bonta, is already being called the “Stop Nick Shirley Act.”

We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.

The bill arrives just weeks after investigative video creator Nick Shirley published a 40-minute video on alleged hospice fraud in California that racked up 42 million views on X.

Other investigations have found that a single program is causing the state to lose an alleged $6 billion in fraud annually. Shirley had already reported on over $110 million in Somali daycare fraud in Minnesota in December 2025, with empty facilities billing taxpayers while kids were nowhere to be found.

His California reporting uncovered an alleged $170 million in similar fraud in daycares and hospices, with ghost operations registered to empty lots and strip malls. Sacramento’s response to this flood of documented waste and abuse was not an audit, not an investigation into the programs themselves, but a bill to make it harder to film the people running them.

Under AB 2624, anyone affiliated with an organization providing “designated immigration support services” can send a written demand prohibiting the publication of their personal information or image online.

That demand remains effective for four years, even after the person leaves the organization. If the demand is ignored, the person can go to court for an injunction or declaratory relief.

Fines run up to three times the actual damages, with a floor of $4,000, meaning the minimum penalty triples to $12,000 in cases where a takedown demand is defied. If a journalist or anyone else is accused of posting information with the intent to incite harm, they face criminal charges and fines of $10,000.

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Harmeet Dhillon: DOJ ‘Will Explore Possibility of Federal Charges’ in Brutal Assault on TPUSA Journalist Savanah Hernandez

As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, conservative journalist and TPUSA Frontlines reporter Savanah Hernandez was viciously assaulted by a deranged far-left anti-ICE mob outside the Whipple ICE Facility in Minneapolis on Saturday during their unhinged “National F*ck ICE Day” meltdown.

United States Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Harmeet Dhillon, appeared on Newsmax and told host Carl Higbie that the DOJ will explore the possibility of federal charges in the attack on Hernandez.

Carl Higbie: United States Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Harmeet Dhillon. Great to have you back on, ma’am. This is incredible that we’re actually having to have this conversation.

AAG Dhillon: Yeah, I mean, it’s all too familiar for me. I’ve been fighting for journalists under this kind of attack for, you know, close to a decade now, representing journalist Andy Ngo several years ago in an Antifa attack in Portland, Oregon. And since then, we’ve seen countless incidents like this.

And, you know, very concerning what happened to this young lady, this reporter, and I’ve been in touch with her team. And, you know, we have an open investigation, so I can’t get into any details.

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What are They Hiding? — Radical California Democrats Pass ‘Stop Nick Shirley Act’ to Criminalize Investigative Journalism and Shield Massive Immigrant Services Fraud from Scrutiny

The radical Left in Sacramento has finally done it.

In a move straight out of a totalitarian playbook, the California Assembly Judiciary Committee voted 11-2 on Monday to advance AB 2624, the so-called “Stop Nick Shirley Act,” a disgusting Democrat power grab designed to make it illegal for brave citizen journalists like Nick Shirley to expose the rampant fraud bleeding American taxpayers dry in immigrant service centers.

This is nothing less than an all-out assault on the First Amendment by the radical left in the People’s Republic of California.

The bill, authored by far-left Assemblywoman Mia Bonta (wife of Attorney General Rob Bonta), would slap investigative reporters with massive civil sanctions starting at $4,000 minimum if a fraudster from one of these “immigrant service centers” decides they don’t want to be caught on camera committing their scams.

The crook can then run to court for an injunction banning the journalist from filming or exposing them on camera for up to four years.

And if the journalist refuses to take down the original video? Triple the damages, $12,000, just for telling the truth!

In the worst cases, if the journalist is accused of “doxxing” or creating an “imminent threat” by simply reporting the facts, they could face criminal charges and $10,000 fines.

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Journalist Who First Broke Missing Airman Scoop Steps Forward After Trump’s Jail Threat — Vows to ‘Protect Sources’

The identity of the journalist who first broke the sensitive story about a missing American airman has now been revealed.

An Israeli journalist has come out and admitted to being the first to drop the bombshell details on the second missing U.S. airman in Iran, the New York Post reported.

The Gateway Pundit previously reported on President Trump’s explosive White House comments slamming “somebody” for leaking sensitive details about the missing fighter pilot.

Trump made it crystal clear that reckless disclosure put hundreds of U.S. troops, including elite SEAL Team 6 operators, in mortal danger during the high-stakes rescue deep inside hostile Iranian territory.

The rescue of both airmen was nothing short of an Easter miracle. One pilot was recovered quickly.

The second, the weapons systems officer, evaded Iranian forces for days, surviving intense firefights before being extracted in a daring operation that showcased the unmatched bravery of America’s warfighters.

“As you probably know, we didn’t talk about the first one for an hour, and then somebody leaked something, which we’ll hopefully find that leaker; we’re looking very hard to find that leaker, and talked about there’s somebody missing,” Trump said to reporters on Monday.

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Trump Threatens to Jail Journalists Who Received Leak About US Pilot Downed in Iran

President Donald Trump vowed Monday to find the “leaker” who disclosed that US forces could not locate the second pilot stranded in Iran after their F-15 fighter jet was shot down, threatening to jail unnamed journalists who received the information if they do not reveal its source.

Trump claimed that Iranian authorities did not know that a second pilot of the downed two-seat warplane was missing until after the news report, which made the US rescue mission “much more difficult.”

“We’re looking very hard to find that leaker,” Trump said. “We think we’ll be able to find it out because we’re going to go to the media company that released it and we’re going to say: ‘National security – give it up or go to jail.’”

“The country, Iran, put out a major notice… offering a very big award for anybody that captures the pilot,” Trump continued. “We have to find that leaker, because that’s a sick person. Probably didn’t realize the extent of how bad it was.”

“We’re going to find out,” he added. “It’s national security, and the person that did the story will go to jail if he doesn’t say.”

While the president did not say which “media company” he was talking about, the first widely cited reporting about the missing second pilot was broadcast Friday by CNN, CBS News, and The New York Times.

Israel journalist Amit Segal – who has close high-level links to the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – claimed Monday on his Telegram channel that he was the first to publish information on the second pilot.

“We are about to see Trump’s promise to find and imprison whoever leaked the info about the second pilot vanish into the ether,” US investigative journalist Ryan Grim said on social media Monday in response to Segal’s post.

Both pilots were successfully rescued. Some critics mocked Trump for presuming that Iranians would not know that the two-seat F-15 is crewed by multiple pilots.

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Israel kills three journalists in south Lebanon after strike on press vehicle

The Israeli army killed veteran Al-Manar correspondent Ali Shoeib, Al-Mayadeen journalist Fatima Ftouni, and her brother, photojournalist Mohammad Ftouni, during a double-tap drone strike on a press vehicle in southern Lebanon on 28 March.

The Israeli attack wiped out the entire media team traveling together to deliver coverage of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon’s south. Media officials confirmed the team was inside a clearly marked “PRESS” vehicle when it was bombed.

Images show the car was moving along a forested road in the town of Jezzine with very little traffic due to the forced displacement of residents, confirming a deliberate targeted strike.

The area was then targeted again with a second strike after people attempted to provide aid. The Israeli military broadcast video of the attack, claiming that Shoeib was a “terrorist in the intelligence unit of Hezbollah’s Radwan Force.”

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SCOTUS Rejects Citizen Journalist’s Case Against Officials Who Arrested Her for Asking Police Questions

Priscilla Villarreal built a following in the way modern news often grows now. Not through printing presses or broadcast towers, but through a Facebook page that drew more than 200,000 people into its orbit.

In Laredo, Texas, under the name La Gordiloca, she reported quickly, conversationally, sometimes uncomfortably close to the raw edge of events.

In 2017, she texted a police officer to confirm the identities of two victims, one from a suicide, one from a car accident. She received answers. She published them.

Months later, she was arrested.

The law used against her had been sitting unused for 23 years. It makes it a felony to solicit nonpublic information from a government official “with intent to obtain a benefit.”

In Villarreal’s case, authorities argued that the benefit was popularity, more followers, more attention, more reach.

In other words, doing well at the job became the job’s alleged crime.

A state judge dismissed the charges, finding the statute too vague to stand. That might have sounded like a resolution, the system correcting itself in the end.

Instead, it became the beginning of a second act.

Villarreal filed a civil rights lawsuit against the officials involved in her arrest. The response was immediate and familiar within legal circles: “Qualified immunity.”

The doctrine protects government officials from liability unless there is already a court decision declaring nearly identical conduct unconstitutional.

No case had ever addressed the idea of arresting a journalist for asking a question over text.

A three-judge panel initially sided with Villarreal, stating, “If the First Amendment means anything, it surely means that a citizen journalist has the right to ask a public official a question, without fear of being imprisoned. Yet that is exactly what happened here: Priscilla Villarreal was put in jail for asking a police officer a question. If that is not an obvious violation of the Constitution, it’s hard to imagine what would be.”

The clarity of that statement did not last.

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Pentagon Wants It to Be Illegal for Reporters to Ask “Unauthorized” Questions

A judge last week struck down the Pentagon’s restrictions on journalists seeking “unauthorized” information, siding with the New York Times in its lawsuit against the government. In response, the Pentagon on Monday added some meaningless window dressing and essentially reissued the same restrictions. The administration pledged to “immediately” appeal the decision on the original policy, and on Tuesday, the Times filed a motion to compel the administration to comply with the judge’s order. 

As alarming as the Pentagon’s antics are, the Times’ lawsuit is not the only case about whether reporters have the right to ask questions. It’s not even the only one in the news this week. 

In 2017, police in Laredo, Texas, arrested citizen journalist Patricia Villarreal under an obscure and never previously used law making it a felony to ask government employees for nonpublic information for personal benefit. Her supposed crime was asking a police officer about two local tragedies — a suicide and a deadly car wreck.

Her arrest was widely ridiculed, and a judge quickly threw out the charges. When Villarreal sued over her arrest and mistreatment by officers, the legal question wasn’t whether the charges against her were permissible but whether they were so obviously bogus that she could overcome qualified immunity, the unjust and expansive legal shield that protects government employees from liability for all but the most blatant violations. That issue went to the Supreme Court twice, but on Monday, the Court declined to review a federal appellate court’s ruling that the officers were shielded from liability. 

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SHOCK! CBS News Reporter Lands Job With Left-Wing Activist Group Days After Firing

Former CBS News correspondent Scott MacFarlane has got himself a job at the left-wing MeidasTouch Network just nine days after being fired from the network.

MacFarlane announced Monday that he will join MeidasTouch as chief Washington correspondent and host a daily program titled Scott MacFarlane Reports.

The move comes after his departure from CBS News, where he covered Congress and the Justice Department, including cases related to January 6th and prosecutions of President Trump.

Despite joining a network known for its links to the Democratic Party, MacFarlane insisted he is not shifting into opinion journalism.

“I’m not an opinionist, not an editorialist,” MacFarlane said in a message posted on X.

“I’m far from a politician. I’m an enterprise reporter. Have been for a quarter century.”

“What I’ll do is bring this enterprise reporting to all the components of the MeidasTouch network, all the contributors of the MeidasTouch Network.”

“It’s important when we underscore how significant this moment is, this moment of unique political toxicity and unique political danger.

“MeidasTouch and I have long shared this same philosophy — you don’t platform lies. You don’t platform conspiracy theories. And you don’t allow for the whitewashing of history.”

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Western silence allows Israel to get away with killing journalists

On March 19, RT war correspondent Steve Sweeney and his cameraman Ali Rida Sbeity were injured by an Israeli strike meters from where they stood in southern Lebanon.

Sweeney was on camera reporting on recent Israeli attacks on southern Lebanese towns and infrastructure when he heard the sound of an incoming projectile. Ducking and running, he managed to escape the brunt of the impact.

According to the journalists, an Israeli aircraft fired a missile at their filming position near Al-Qasmiya Bridge, where Sweeney was reporting on, “the targeting of bridges and the forced displacement of one million people, an ethnic cleansing operation on a larger scale than the Nakba,” as he later stated, referencing the violent displacement of Palestinians which accompanied the creation of the Jewish State in the late 1940s.

The men were treated for shrapnel injuries. Sweeney said, adding “I’m amazed that we survived. We were incredibly lucky to come away with the injuries we did.”

Just a day prior, Sweeney had posted on X about the Israeli targeted airstrike on Lebanese journalist and Al-Manar TV presenter Mohammad Sherri and his wife. Both were killed. Sweeney reposted the news with the words, “Targeting journalists is a war crime.”

The next day, he himself was targeted.

This deliberate targeting of journalists wearing press vests is another Israeli war crime, in a long list of Israeli war crimes which include killing at least 261 Palestinian journalists in Gaza in the past two years alone, as well as previously killing Lebanese journalists and bombing Iranian media repeatedly.

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