Lawyers warn that threats to press freedom are mounting, while the cost of defending journalists rises sharply.

The New York Times reporter Julian E. Barnes was watching *The Sheep Detectives* with his family when two federal agents rang his doorbell. Days earlier, he had helped write pieces on security concerns surrounding a jet gifted to the United States by the Qatari government, now used as Air Force One. Standing on the landing, the agents served him a subpoena demanding he fulfill a witness duty before a federal grand jury.

As Barnes signed the papers, his wife, novelist Katherine Marsh, hurried to her laptop in the living room. Worried that the agents might seize the family’s electronic devices in pursuit of sensitive material, she wanted to confirm that her manuscripts were backed up. The devices were not taken.

Marsh had written a young‑adult novel about Soviet officers probing citizens’ homes for information, a finalist for the National Book Award. She told The Wall Street Journal it felt like her family was living a version of that story.