SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Newly unsealed documents reveal that in seeking court approval to search a man’s cellphone records to uncover who leaked a confidential police report to him, investigators at the San Francisco Police Department didn’t tell a judge the man is a freelance journalist.
The documents were released Tuesday as part of a legal battle between police and Bryan Carmody, whose home and office was raided in May after the judge authorized the search.
Media organizations across the country criticized the raids as a violation of California’s shield law, which protects journalists from police searches.
The warrant shows that police identified Carmody as a “freelance videographer/communications manager” as provided in his LinkedIn profile. However, they omitted that Carmody was a freelance journalist with a press pass issued by the Police Department.
