The Daily Fuckup

A federal judge said Thursday that the Pentagon had not yet done what he ordered it to do in a fight over press access, finding the department still out of step with a ruling he issued two days earlier.

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman said the Defense Department’s revised approach did not bring it into compliance with his April 9 order restoring access for reporters affected by the new press restrictions. He directed the department to fully restore that access and to submit a sworn status report or declaration by April 16 describing what it had done to comply.

The dispute centers on a Pentagon policy that tied reporters’ credentials to limits on how they could gather and use information. Friedman previously ruled that the policy could not stand, and his latest order says the department’s follow-up changes did not cure the problem. The court’s view is that changing the label on the rules is not the same as undoing their effect.

The practical question now is simple: if the Pentagon says access has been restored, it will need to spell out exactly how. If it has not, the judge has already signaled that compliance is measured by what reporters can actually do, not by how the department describes the policy on paper.