The US Justice Department is cracking down on leaks of information to the news media, with Attorney General Pam Bondi saying prosecutors once again will have authority to use subpoenas, court orders and search warrants to hunt for government officials who make “unauthorized disclosures” to journalists.

New regulations announced by Bondi in a memo to staff, obtained Friday April 25 and published April 26 by The Associated Press, rescind a Biden administration policy that protected journalists from having their phone records secretly seized during leak investigations — a practice long decried by news organizations and press freedom groups.

The new regulations assert that news organizations must respond to subpoenas “when authorized at the appropriate level of the Department of Justice” and also allow for prosecutors to use court orders and search warrants to “compel production of information and testimony by and relating to the news media.”