UPDATE: Legal Battle for Press Freedom Continues [April 10, 2023]
First, we’d like to say thank you to our great community for sticking with us through this drawn out legal battle. This struggle has grown into one concerning the fundamental protections needed to ensure a free press, and we couldn’t have mounted the defense we have up to this point without your support. With that, we have some updates concerning this case that we can now share with you.
In Dec. 2022, after nearly three months of waiting, Judge Klein denied Energy Transfer’s motion to compel Unicorn Riot to comply with their third-party subpoenas, but the court ordered UR to produce privilege logs. You can read the ruling in full here.
Seeing the process of producing a privilege log as not only burdensome, but an imposition on our First Amendment rights as an independent media outlet, we chose to fight that ruling and our attorney submitted a motion of relief from the order of producing a privilege log. A court hearing was held on March 31 over that motion and a ruling is expected in the coming months.
As we wait for that ruling, the fight is certain to continue, and further court hearings and filings are likely to occur over the next several months. This whole ordeal has been very expensive for our small nonprofit organization and we don’t know when the situation will be resolved.
We need your continued help and support to push us through this and ensure we can continue to do our work without draining our limited resources. Right now, our ability to keep reporting on the stories you care about is at risk due to interference from an oil corporation’s lawsuit against activists that we are not a party to. The appeal process is estimated to cost us $35,000. This brings our total legal fees fighting this issue to nearly $50,000. If you’re financially privileged or know someone who is, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to our legal fund. Thank you for helping us make this stand for a free and independent press!
Background: Unicorn Riot and journalist member Niko Georgiades were served subpoenas in March 2021 as part of Energy Transfer/DAPL's lawsuit (filed in North Dakota state court) against Greenpeace and Indigenous water protectors, claiming they protested the pipeline for financial gain and not due to the potential environmental damage/harm to treaty rights.
(See updates in the update tab and for more information see these two articles: Pipeline Company Issues Broad Subpoena to News Site that Covered Protests Against It and CPJ calls on Energy Transfer to drop subpoenas to Unicorn Riot, journalist Niko Georgiades.)