On August 2, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University joined more than twenty other organizations in announcing the launch of the US Press Freedom Tracker.
Created by the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Freedom of the Press Foundation, the nonpartisan website aims to comprehensively document press-freedom violations in the United States committed by national, state, and local authorities, as well as by private individuals. These might include: journalist arrests, assaults, border stops, camera and equipment seizures, and surveillance orders.
The Knight First Amendment Institute, a nonprofit established by Columbia and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to defend freedom of speech and of the press in the digital age, serves on the site’s steering committee. The institute is led by Jameel Jaffer, a prominent civil-liberties lawyer.
