(CNN Business) 纽约州法官周五命令《纽约时报》将内部文件归还给保守派激进组织 Project Veritas，该报称这一限制违反了几十年来第一修正案的保护措施。
在一项不同寻常的书面裁决中，威彻斯特县最高法院的法官查尔斯伍德指示《纽约时报》将 Veritas 的一名律师准备的法律备忘录的任何实体副本归还给 Project Veritas，并销毁电子版本。
伍德上个月对《纽约时报》下达了一项临时命令，引起了新闻自由倡导者的批评。
由詹姆斯·奥基夫 (James O'Keefe) 领导的 Veritas 项目使用了批评家认为具有误导性的策略，例如秘密录音，以揭露它所描述的自由媒体偏见。该组织是司法部调查的对象，调查其在窃取乔·拜登总统女儿阿什利的日记中可能扮演的角色，该日记的页面发布在右翼网站上。
Project Veritas 反对 11 月 11 日时报的一篇文章，该文章取材于法律备忘录，并声称要揭示该组织如何与其律师合作，以“在违反联邦法律之前衡量其欺骗性报道做法能走多远”。
伍德在周五的裁决中表示，Veritas 项目的法律备忘录不是公众关注的问题，该组织有权将其保密，这超过了对新闻自由的担忧。
伍德写道：“不能允许对保护第一修正案自由的坚定忠诚和警惕性废除律师-客户特权或基本隐私权的基本保护。”
《纽约时报》的出版商 A.G. Sulzberger 表示，该报将对裁决提出上诉。
Sulzberger 说，该决定禁止《纽约时报》发布在正常报道过程中合法获得的具有新闻价值的信息。
“除了施加这种违宪的事先限制外，法官还更进一步（并）下令我们归还这些材料，这是一项没有明显先例的裁决，如果允许其成立，可能会给暴露来源带来明显风险，”苏兹伯格说。
Project Veritas 的律师利比洛克在一份声明中表示，《纽约时报》的行为是“不正常的”，裁决确认了这一观点。
骆家辉说：“《纽约时报》早就忘记了它声称支持的新闻业的意义，而是成为起诉党派政治议程的工具。”
自去年以来，Project Veritas 一直在对《纽约时报》提起诽谤诉讼，当时该报发表了一篇文章，称该组织的工作具有“欺骗性”。
自 1971 年尼克松政府试图阻止五角大楼公布详细介绍美国军事介入越南的文件以来，《泰晤士报》从未受到任何事先限制。
Judge orders New York Times to return Project Veritas memos
(CNN Business)A New York state judge on Friday ordered the New York Times to return internal documents to the conservative activist group Project Veritas, a restriction the newspaper said violates decades of First Amendment protections.
In an unusual written ruling, Justice Charles Wood of the Westchester County Supreme Court directed the New York Times to return to Project Veritas any physical copies of legal memos prepared by one of the group's lawyers, and to destroy electronic versions.
Wood had entered a temporary order against the New York Times last month, drawing criticism from freedom of the press advocates.
Project Veritas, led by James O'Keefe, has used what critics view as misleading tactics like secret audio recording to expose what it describes as liberal media bias. The group is the subject of a Justice Department probe into its possible role in the theft of a diary from President Joe Biden's daughter, Ashley, pages of which were published on a right-wing website.
Project Veritas objected to a Nov. 11 Times article that drew from the legal memos and purported to reveal how the group worked with its lawyers to "gauge how far its deceptive reporting practices can go before running afoul of federal laws."
Wood said in Friday's ruling that the Project Veritas legal memos were not a matter of public concern and that the group has a right to keep them private that outweighs concerns about freedom of the press.
"Steadfast fidelity to, and vigilance in protecting First Amendment freedoms cannot be permitted to abrogate the fundamental protections of attorney-client privilege or the basic right to privacy," Wood wrote.
A.G. Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times, said the newspaper would appeal the ruling.
Sulzberger said the decision barred the Times from publishing newsworthy information that was obtained legally in the ordinary course of reporting.
"In addition to imposing this unconstitutional prior restraint, the judge has gone even further (and) ordered that we return this material, a ruling with no apparent precedent and one that could present obvious risks to exposing sources should it be allowed to stand," Sulzberger said.
Libby Locke, a lawyer for Project Veritas, said in a statement that the New York Times' behavior was "irregular," and that the ruling affirms that view.
"The New York Times has long forgotten the meaning of the journalism it claims to espouse, and has instead become a vehicle for the prosecution of a partisan political agenda," Locke said.
Project Veritas has been engaged in defamation litigation against the New York Times since last year, when the newspaper published a piece calling the group's work "deceptive."
The Times had not faced any prior restraint since 1971, when the Nixon administration unsuccessfully sought to block the publication of the Pentagon Papers detailing U.S. military involvement in Vietnam.
