The New York Times sued the Defence Department on Monday for the second time in five months, arguing that a requirement that journalists be escorted while on Pentagon grounds violates the First Amendment. The escort policy is "an unconstitutional attempt by the Pentagon to prevent independent reporting on military affairs," a Times spokesman, Charlie Stadtlander, said in an email to The Associated Press. "As we have said before: Americans deserve visibility into how their government is being run, and the actions the military is taking in their name and with their tax dollars." On X, Defence Department spokesperson Sean Parnell called the Times' latest lawsuit "nothing more than an attempt to remove the barriers to them getting their hands on classified information." Continuing tension between the administration and the media ------------------------------------------------------------------- The Times lawsuit is another salvo in what has become an escalating tension between the U