Online-Privacy Laws Come With a Downside

It was the kind of call a journalist dreams about. Last fall, a tipster contacted the Bucharest-based Rise Project to offer the investigative-journalism outfit a suitcase full of evidence that, the anonymous source assured, implicated a high-powered Romanian politician in a massive fraud. The reporters pounced.

In November, they published their initial findings on Rise’s Facebook page. The detailed report on an alleged scam involving Liviu Dragnea, then the president of Romania’s ruling Social Democratic Party, included photos, videos, screenshots of email exchanges, and other documents that Rise obtained through the clandestine suitcase exchange. Their report added to a swirl of allegations against Dragnea—whom Romania’s highest court ordered to prison last week in connection with a separate case—and further endangered his party’s grip on the country.

“The story went viral immediately,” recalled Raluca Radu, head of the journalism department at the University of Bucharest. Romania’s national media, which get for independence, initially stayed away from the explosive revelations. The Rise report forced their hand. In countries where press freedoms are under strain, some of the most aggressive investigative journalism has