Anatomy of a censorship campaign: A tech exec's crusade to stifle journalism

Maury Blackman’s tactics against journalist Jack Poulson are a prime example of how the wealthy and powerful try to silence reporting, and how the First Amendment is often the only thing standing in their way.

Arrest report reported

Poulson is the executive director of the nonprofit Tech Inquiry and author of All-Source Intelligence, a Substack newsletter that focuses on links between technology companies and the defense and intelligence agencies. Blackman is the former CEO of Premise Data, a company that Poulson had written about repeatedly. He’s not the only one writing about the company and its ties to the national security state — The Wall Street Journal reported in 2021 that it pays app users to “unwittingly provid[e] basic intelligence to the U.S. military.”

Blackman’s censorship campaign started when Poulson published an article in 2023 about the executive’s 2021 arrest on suspicion of domestic violence and then linked to the disturbing arrest report. Blackman was never charged, and the victim recanted her statements in the report. A California court had sealed the arrest report in 2022. Poulson says he obtained it from a confidential source.

Since publication, Blackman or his apparent representatives have used a variety of methods to try to get the article and arrest report taken down. These tactics — from the misuse of copyright law to threats of penalties explicitly prohibited by the First Amendment and the abuse of the legal system — show how determined and well-resourced people can attack reporting they dislike.

It also shows what journalists can do to prepare.

Abusive DMCA takedown request

Shortly after the article was published, Poulson reported that someone claiming to represent Blackman emailed him to ask for the article to be taken down, and even suggested they would pay to have it removed.

When Poulson refused, a person using a very similar name sent a takedown request under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to the cloud service provider that was hosting an external copy of the arrest report. The cloud service provider took it down, forcing Poulson to host the report himself.

There’s nothing remotely copyright-infringing about the arrest report. It’s a government record, so it can’t be copyrighted in California. According to Poulson, the DMCA notice also used a fake phone number and address, and a fake digital signature claiming to be from Poulson himself.

If the cloud service provider had made even a cursory inspection of the takedown request, it would have rejected it. But even though the DMCA was intended to protect both copyright and free expression online, its notice-and-takedown scheme has become a target for abuse, just like in this case. Shady reputation management firms, among others, know that while news outlets may be willing to invest in a First Amendment battle, disinterested internet providers often are not.

Journalists must understand that the DMCA can be used as a weapon against their reporting, and respond to takedown notices with information refuting claims of copyright infringement.

Complaint made to other hosting providers

Blackman also complained about Poulson’s reporting to Substack and Amazon Web Services, in an attempt to have them remove the arrest report and other information under those sites’ internal policies.

Substack appears to have complied, at least in part. Poulson’s article about Blackman includes an editor’s note from June 2024 noting that Substack had “temporarily unpublished” the article twice, until Poulson removed the address where Blackman was arrested. Substack did not, apparently, require Poulson to remove the arrest report or details from it, as Blackman had demanded.

This further shows how journalists’ ability to publish their work can be subject to the whims of tech companies when they publish online through third-party services. Reporters should scrutinize the platforms where they publish to ensure they’ll stick up for First Amendment rights, even in the face of threats. (And, to Substack’s credit, it appears mostly to have done so.)

Blackman involves city attorney

In the fall of 2024, the San Francisco City Attorney’s office began writing to Poulson and Substack, at the behest of Blackman and his lawyers, demanding removal of the arrest report. The letters claim that the posting of the arrest report violates a California law that imposes a civil penalty for the publication of sealed arrest reports.

For some reason, the letters don’t mention all of the Supreme Court cases that say that journalists have a strong First Amendment right to publish lawfully obtained, truthful information on matters of public concern, and that state laws that say otherwise are unconstitutional.

The city attorney’s first letter to Substack also doesn’t mention Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which would clearly immunize Substack for liability based on Poulson’s posts. Substack, however, apparently pointed out the law to the city attorney in its response.

The government bolstering powerful tech executives’ efforts to silence critics is, unfortunately, becoming more and more commonplace. Everyone who cares about free speech must push back on officials who do other’s censorious bidding. And a city attorney, who presumably learned about prior restraints in law school, should certainly know better.

Attempts to unmask Poulson’s source

While all this was going on, Blackman was simultaneously trying to unmask Poulson’s source for the arrest report.

While Blackman was still CEO of Premise Data, the company filed a lawsuit against some former employees. According to discovery demands in that lawsuit, Premise Data demanded records of some people’s communications about the arrest report with Poulson or with the San Francisco Police Department. Premise Data’s lawyers also investigated who had filed public records requests for the arrest report.

It’s not clear if the discovery demands yielded information about Poulson’s source. But reporters working with confidential sources should keep in mind that sources can be unmasked in a variety of ways and always try to practice good digital security.

Executive files frivolous anonymous lawsuit

Apparently unsatisfied with these previous efforts, last month Blackman reportedly filed a lawsuit against Poulson, Tech Inquiry, AWS, and Substack, claiming $25 million in damages based on the publication of the arrest report.

Although he used a pseudonym to file the lawsuit, it’s been widely reported that Blackman is the plaintiff, and the allegations in the case match the facts described by Poulson in his newsletter (plus, Blackman admitted in court filings that the San Francisco Chronicle accurately identified him).

The lawsuit is frivolous for the same reasons as the city attorney’s letter. But, unfortunately, Blackman may not need to win his lawsuit for it to have a chilling effect on journalism. Strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs, punish journalists and others by making them spend time and money defending themselves — and they send a message to any other journalists out there who might be considering challenging the wealthy and powerful.

Fortunately, numerous states, including California, have anti-SLAPP laws that allow SLAPP victims to have cases dismissed against them early and to recoup their costs. Reporters should familiarize themselves with their state’s law and, if they live in a state without anti-SLAPP protection, urge lawmakers to pass one.

Blackman seeks emergency takedown order

Not only has Blackman filed a frivolous lawsuit but he’s also seeking an emergency order that would require the immediate takedown of Poulson’s article reporting on his arrest.

On Nov. 12, Blackman filed a motion for a temporary restraining order as part of his ongoing lawsuit against Poulson and the other defendants. At a Nov. 13 hearing, a judge put that motion on pause, ruling that Blackman first had to seek the court’s permission to litigate under a pseudonym. That should be tough — the cat’s already out of the bag, because Blackman’s lawyers created a public record of his identity by emailing city officials about Poulson’s article. But we’re told Blackman’s attorney said he plans to revive the censorship motion after dealing with the pseudonym issue.

Such an order would be an unconstitutional prior restraint — but emergency motions like Blackman’s are often used to get judges to censor journalists without having time to do their research first.

Journalists must be ready to respond quickly when a litigant seeks an order from a court requiring a takedown or prior restraint. Freelance journalists, especially, may want to think in advance about whether they will be able to find legal counsel if they’re ever in this position.

Thankfully, Poulson and Tech Inquiry are represented by counsel from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Intellectual Property, Arts, and Technology Clinic at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, who will appear on his behalf today.

Poulson’s fellow journalists should not be intimidated to show their solidarity and report on this disturbing censorship campaign. Blackman admitted in his declaration that since he sued Poulson, “the sealed report and its contents … have been spread and are spreading far more broadly than before.” It sounds like he’s already learning about the Streisand Effect — let’s make sure the next SLAPP-happy tech bro knows about it too.

Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to reflect the outcome of the Nov. 13 hearing.