Attorney General Jeff Sessions is being too heavy-handed with his pledge to prosecute government whistleblowers who leak information to news reporters who are doing their jobs.

While President Trump has all but declared war on journalists, accusing them of peddling "fake news" to undermine his agenda, his administration has no right to nullify the First Amendment or to impose a gag order on government employees who strongly believe that the public should be more fully informed about matters such as waste, fraud and abuse within the government and private sector.

Such investigative reporting is needed now, more than ever, at all levels. It should be encouraged, not tamped down.

In return, journalists must be professionals. A free press doesn't excuse reporters and their editors who recklessly use information they gain from the inside, or leakers who recklessly share classified information that they've sworn to protect, especially in cases where people's lives may be put at risk or that affect national security.

Thus the government was right to go after Chelsea Elizabeth Manning, a former United States Army soldier who was convicted by court-martial in 2013 of violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses after disclosing to WikiLeaks nearly 750,000 classified, or unclassified but sensitive, military and diplomatic documents. She was sentenced to 35 years confinement before President Obama commuted her sentence.

Mr. Sessions said Friday that the Department of Justice was "reviewing policies affecting media subpoenas." He went on to say that the freedom of the press is not unlimited. He had "this message for the intelligence community: The Department of Justice (DOJ) is open for business."

The attorney general and his boss are forgetting that a free press is the cornerstone of democracy. But Mr. Trump is hardly the first president in recent years to suffer amnesia. President Obama also went after reporters, although the liberal press generally gave him a free pass.

According to the New York Times, which is hardly a fire-breathing conservative organ, the Obama administration over eight years prosecuted nine cases involving whistle-blowers and leakers, compared with only three by all previous administrations combined. It repeatedly used the Espionage Act, a relic of World War I-era red-baiting, not to prosecute spies but to go after government officials who talked to journalists.

"Under Mr. Obama, the Justice Department and the FBI have spied on reporters by monitoring their phone records, labeled one journalist an unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal case for simply doing reporting and issued subpoenas to other reporters to try to force them to reveal their sources and testify in criminal cases," the Times reported.

Many leaders of America's newsrooms, including the American Society of News Editors and the Associated Press Media Editors, are rightly dismayed by Mr. Sessions' tough-sounding statements about unauthorized disclosures of information.

"We are particularly concerned by the indication that the Department of Justice may review and revise the guidelines currently in place regarding the issuance of subpoenas to the media and the insinuation that reporters 'place lives at risk with impunity.' Revisions to these guidelines, which were updated in 2013 to increase the steps that must be taken before a reporter is subpoenaed by the department, would do more damage than good. Reporters who talk to confidential or nonconfidential sources take the utmost care to ensure that they only publish information and stories that serve the public interest while avoiding putting anyone in harm's way," the editors said in a prepared response.

Those are excellent points. The current guidelines regarding the issuance of subpoenas to the media appear to have been working, to the benefit of the government, news organizations and ultimately the public.

If it's not broken, Mr. Session has no reason to fix it.

The attorney general offered no compelling reason to roll back protections for reporters that were strengthened only after it was revealed that the Department of Justice had clandestinely subpoenaed the communications records of 20 Associated Press reporters from various telephone providers.

Reverting back to the bad old days threatens the important work that reporters do. Mr. Sessions' announcement is not just a threat to reporters and their sources, it's a threat to readers and to citizens who need information to hold their elected leaders accountable.

What Mr. Sessions is promoting could cause lasting damage.

Instead of threats, the attorney general should maintain, or strengthen, the guidelines currently in place for subpoenas to the media and to further engage news organizations and others to discuss any concerns he and other administration officials might have.

Finally, and most importantly, Congress should formally protect the free flow of information to the public by reintroducing and passing federal legislation that would allow journalists to protect their sources. We encourage Georgia's legislative delegation to lead the rest of Washington out away from the path of darkness and toward sunshine.