In April 2017, [Priscilla] Villarreal, who reports near the U.S.-Mexico border, broke a story about a Border Patrol agent who committed suicide. A month later, she released the surname of a family involved in a fatal car accident. The agency that confirmed both pieces of information: the Laredo Police Department. The agency that would bring felony charges against her six months later for those acts of journalism: the Laredo Police Department.
At the core of Villarreal’s misfortune is a Texas law that allows the state to prosecute someone who obtains nonpublic information from a government official if he or she does so “with intent to obtain a benefit.” Villarreal operates her popular news-sharing operation on Facebook, where her page, Lagordiloca News, has amassed 200,000 followers as of this writing.
The US Paper War Tiger is Way Behind
The Ukraine and Russian forces have been building drones for less than three thousand dollars and the "Affordable Mass" efforts in the US had an original floor price of three hundred thousand dollars because that is the way the American "defense" acquisition system...