A US judge temporarily blocked federal prosecutors on Wednesday from reviewing material seized when the FBI raided a Washington Post reporter’s home.
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Hours earlier, the Post asked a federal court in Virginia to force the US government to return electronics belonging to Hannah Natanson.
US magistrate judge William Porter directed prosecutors not to examine any information seized at least until early February, when he has scheduled a hearing on the request.
This ruling would preserve the status quo, Porter said, until the Department of Justice has an opportunity to respond to the Post’s request.
Natanson, who has closely reported on the ways the Trump administration has reshaped the federal government, had two laptops, two phones, a Garmin watch and other devices seized last week as part of an investigation into a government contractor’s alleged retention of classified materials, an action that press freedom groups decried as highly unusual and wildly inappropriate.
“The outrageous seizure of our reporter’s confidential newsgathering materials chills speech, cripples reporting, and inflicts irreparable harm every day the government keeps its hands on these materials,” the Post said in a statement on Wednesday. “We have asked the court to order the immediate return of all seized materials and prevent their use. Anything less would license future newsroom raids and normalize censorship by search warrant.”
The Post filed two motions in US district court for the eastern district of Virginia. In addition to requesting the government return the materials, the newspaper also asked for an order instructing the government to keep copies of the material under seal – and not review them – until the matter is resolved.
“The Post and Natanson have an undeniable interest in, and need for, the seized data,” lawyers for the newspaper wrote. “Withholding this data would harm them irreparably, violate their constitutional rights, and constitute an unlawful prior restraint. Return is the only adequate remedy.”
The seizure related to a government contractor, Aurelio Perez-Lugones, who is currently in federal custody in Maryland after being charged with unlawfully retaining national defense information.
Last week, the group Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed a memo with the court urging the unsealing of all judicial records related to the raid of Natanson’s home, including the search warrant used, the application and the supporting affidavit.
Bruce D Brown, the organization’s president, said in a statement on Wednesday: “This is the first time in US history that the government has searched a reporter’s home in a national security media leak investigation, seizing potentially a vast amount of confidential data and information.
“The move imperils public interest reporting and will have ramifications far beyond this specific case. It is critical that the court blocks the government from searching through this material until it can address the profound threat to the first amendment posed by the raid.”
The Post said the devices seized by the government “contain years of information about past and current confidential sources and other unpublished newsgathering materials, including those she was using for current reporting” – and that very little of the seized material relates to the warrant issued in the case, which relates specifically to the government contractor at issue.
“The government cannot meet its heavy burden to justify this intrusion, and it has ignored narrower, lawful alternatives,” the Post’s lawyers wrote.
Because her work devices were seized, Natanson no longer has the ability to communicate with her sources, the Post argued. “Nor are Natanson’s confidential sources likely to work with her again, if the government is permitted to rummage through her files unchecked.”
Natanson has not published any stories since the raid. In late December, she published a first-person essay about her reporting process and interactions with anonymous government sources.
The attorney general, Pam Bondi, has defended the raid. “The first amendment is a bedrock principle, but this isn’t about that,” she said in an appearance on Fox News last week. “This is about classified material that could jeopardize lives.”
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