Opinion: The secret gag orders must stop

Now we've learned that the Trump Justice Department exploited this feature as part of a secret effort to obtain emails in investigations of the media and Congress, two institutions where transparency is essential. With the expansion of cloud computing in every industry, the federal and state governments know they quickly can obtain data electronically from sources other than the target. Government prosecutors also ask courts to impose gag orders on companies such as ours that prevent us from letting people know that copies of their emails are now in the government's hands. As President Biden works to rebuild trust across the Atlantic, European leaders worry that a U.S. government that secretly goes to court to demand data from tech companies about its own reputable citizens will do the same thing to them as well. European governments increasingly are trying to keep their data out of data centers run by U.S. companies. Not necessarily because they distrust the companies, but because they distrust our government and secret court orders that can reach their data. We need changes in Justice Department policies to tighten the use of gag orders and probes of Congress and the news media.