In January 2023, Tuomo Pietiläinen and Laura Halminen, two journalists from Helsingin Sanomat, Finland's highest-circulation daily newspaper, were convicted of disclosing state secrets in an article they had written at the end of 2017 concerning military intelligence. The judges ruled that they had quoted from old, classified documents, and although the content was no longer considered relevant for national security – a point on which even the court agreed – they were found guilty. Helsingin Sanomat insisted that all the information had already been publicly accessible, and the journalists argued that its publication was in the public interest since there was a debate at the time about giving the intelligence services extensive powers. The journalists have lodged an appeal.
