Incident Details
- Date of Incident
- October 3, 2024
- Location
- San Francisco, California
- Targets
- Jack Poulson (Independent)
A portion of an Oct. 3, 2024, letter from a San Francisco city attorney directing independent journalist Jack Poulson to remove details about a sealed arrest report from multiple articles and to “refrain” from publishing them further.
Tech CEO’s suit against journalist dismissed
Tech CEO Maury Blackman’s defamation lawsuit against independent journalist Jack Poulson was dismissed on Feb. 5, 2025. A San Francisco Superior Court judge ruled that the First Amendment entitled Poulson to report on the executive’s past arrest, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
In September 2023, Poulson published an article on Substack about Blackman’s arrest on suspicion of domestic violence in 2021. Poulson included a copy of the arrest report, which was sealed in 2022. Poulson later wrote about subsequent attempts to pressure him to take down the article and reveal his sources.
In September 2024, an attorney representing Blackman sent Poulson a letter threatening legal action unless the journalist deleted the report and the articles about it. Shortly thereafter, San Francisco Deputy City Attorney Jennifer Choi sent letters to Substack and to Poulson informing them that sharing information relating to a sealed arrest violated California law and instructing them to remove the arrest report from Substack.
Blackman then filed a $25 million defamation suit against Poulson, his nonprofit Tech Inquiry, Substack and Amazon Web Services.
But in February 2025, Judge Christine Van Aken dismissed the suit, ruling, “The character and trustworthiness of members of the business community have been held to be of public significance,” the Chronicle reported.
Susan Seager, an attorney for Tech Inquiry and Poulson, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that the dismissal was “a victory for the press and the public.”
“The public depends on reporters to inform us about the actions of police, the courts, and powerful individuals,” Seager said. “It is shocking that a judge decided it was a good idea to seal a police report of a tech executive’s domestic violence arrest. It is outrageous that the California Legislature passed Penal Code section 851.92 to allow arrestees like Mr. Blackman to sue journalists and news organizations for publishing lawfully obtained sealed arrest reports and any ‘information relating to a sealed arrest’ report.”
Meanwhile, in a December 2024 district court ruling, a judge granted two First Amendment advocacy groups a preliminary injunction prohibiting the state from using that section of the penal code to prevent the dissemination of publicly available arrest reports. The groups’ suit against San Francisco’s city attorney and the state attorney general challenging the constitutionality of the anti-dissemination statute, citing Poulson as an example, is ongoing.
A San Francisco city attorney, in a letter on Oct. 3, 2024, directed independent journalist Jack Poulson to remove details of a tech CEO’s sealed arrest report from multiple articles and to “refrain” from publishing the materials further. The journalist was later sued for $25 million by the tech executive, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
The Chronicle reported that the executive, Maury Blackman, was arrested on suspicion of domestic violence in 2021. He was not ultimately charged, and his arrest report was sealed from public view in 2022.
Poulson — who runs the nonprofit Tech Inquiry and publishes a newsletter on Substack — wrote an article about the arrest on Sept. 14, 2023, and posted a copy of the arrest report itself. He later wrote about subsequent attempts to pressure him to take down the article and “forensically unmask” his sources.
In September 2024, Poulson was sent a “demand for removal of sealed document and information related to sealed document” from David Marek, an attorney representing Blackman. The letter threatened legal action if the journalist didn’t delete the sealed report and the articles about it.
San Francisco Deputy City Attorney Jennifer Choi then sent letters first to Substack and later to Poulson informing them that under California law it is illegal to share information relating to a sealed arrest, punishable by a fine of $500 to $2,500.
“We expect that you will immediately remove the Incident Report and its contents from Substack and ensure that the index to postings no longer allows for the Incident Report to be viewed or downloaded,” Choi wrote. “Finally, please refrain from publishing this material in the future.”
Choi did not respond to a request for comment from the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
Freedom of the Press Foundation, of which the Tracker is a project, told the Chronicle that the Supreme Court has made it clear that the Constitution protects journalists from punishment for publishing legally obtained information.
“Journalists are entitled to publish documents that they lawfully obtained, specifically government documents,” FPF Advocacy Director Seth Stern said. “Unless the city wants to take the position that a sealed arrest report is more sensitive than national security or (identifying) victims of terrible crimes, I don’t think they are in good standing.”
The city has not taken legal action against Poulson, the Chronicle reported. But Marek filed a lawsuit against the journalist, Tech Inquiry, Substack and Amazon Web Services, believed to be on Blackman’s behalf. The suit alleges Poulson’s articles damaged the unnamed plaintiff’s employment prospects and reputation among family, friends and business associates.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker catalogues press freedom violations in the United States. Email tips to [email protected].
