The Coalition for Independent Technology Research has joined nonprofit media, research, and advocacy organizations in filing an amicus brief in Media Matters for America v. Federal Trade Commission. The brief addresses a broader concern that extends beyond any single organization: the growing use of investigations in ways that risk undermining independent technology research and public-interest inquiry.
Why CITR joined this brief
This case raises urgent questions about whether independent research can be carried out without fear of retaliation. The research community cannot afford silence in this moment. Tactics that weaponise investigations to intimidate or exhaust researchers set a dangerous precedent for scientific inquiry as a whole, where critical, independent research across disciplines can be chilled through fear and resource depletion, making collective solidarity essential.
Independent technology research plays a vital public role. It helps the public understand how digital systems shape information, power, markets, and democracy itself. When retaliatory investigations are used against those who conduct critical inquiries to hold large tech power accountable, the loss is also to the public’s ability to understand the technologies that govern everyday life.
A troubling pattern of retaliatory investigations
The brief, authored by Coalition members Kendra Albert and Andy Sellars at Albert Sellars LLP, argues that the Federal Trade Commission’s investigation into Media Matters for America reflects a pattern at play across the federal government, where agencies are opening investigations, endlessly extending them, and deliberately avoiding final actions that would trigger judicial review. As the brief explains, this strategy allows regulators to extract concessions they could never lawfully obtain in court, and allows them to essentially use pressure to drain organizations and researchers of funds and capacity.
Damaging impact on nonprofits, small newsrooms and research organizations
For nonprofit organizations, small newsrooms and research organizations, the threat of prolonged investigation is particularly damaging. These organizations often lack the financial and institutional capacity to endure years-long, open-ended inquiries and their associated burdens. Once an organization discloses to funders and partners that it is under government investigation, it risks the loss of financial support and is forced to divert limited funding away from core research and reporting towards basic organizational survival.
Core demand: Early judicial intervention
Courts must be able to step in before a retaliatory investigation destroys an organization; not after the damage is irreversible.
Read the brief here.