U.S. News & World Report sues San Francisco CA over 'unconstitutional' subpoenas

U.S. News & World Report this week sued San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu seeking relief from subpoenas he issued that the news outlet deems "unconstitutional."

Chiu in June of last year took exception to the outlet's ranking of best hospitals and demanded that U.S. News provide its methodology. The suit claims that U.S. News responded within weeks, telling him that it publishes its methodology and overall largely rejecting his critiques.

"When U.S. News did not receive any further correspondence from the City Attorney for nearly six months, it reasonably assumed that the City Attorney’s misguided inquiry was at an end. It was not," the suit contended, before detailing that the city attorney in January issued two subpoenas without notice for documents related to the hospital rankings.

U.S. News deemed the subpoenas an "unconstitutional intrusion into [its] journalistic practices" and attributed the effort to Chiu's disapproval of their rankings.

"Simply put, the City Attorney believes his office has the power to second-guess and redirect the journalistic decision-making of U.S. News based on his own view of what factors should and should not be considered," U.S. News further contended. "This is the same power that governmental censors and licensors had claimed over the press until the Framers of the U.S. Constitution enshrined the First Amendment more than 200 years ago in order to abolish any such power."

"Because the City Attorney today is flouting the First Amendment’s protection of Freedom of Expression and the Freedom of the Press along with California’s Constitution, U.S. News is respectfully seeking injunctive and declaratory relief," the suit concluded.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter.