UPDATED: A judge has barred the U.S. government from reviewing materials seized from the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson until the court gives its authorization.
Magistrate Judge William Porter issued the order on Wednesday, hours after the Post, in a court filing, sought a court order demanding the return of Natanson’s electronic devices like laptops and a mobile phone.
Porter wrote that the Post had shown “good cause” to “maintain the status quo” until the government can respond to their filing and he can “more fully address” the issues.
The judge gave the government until Jan. 28 to respond, with oral argument scheduled for Feb. 6.
In their filing, the Post called the seizure of Natanson’s devices last week an “unconstitutional prior restraint.” Its attorneys wrote that the seizure “chills speech, cripples reporting, and inflicts irreparable harm every day the government keeps its hands on protected materials.”
“The government cannot meet its heavy burden to justify this intrusion, and it has ignored narrower, lawful alternatives,” the Post’s attorneys wrote. “The Court should order the immediate return of all seized materials. Anything less would license future newsroom raids and normalize censorship by search warrant.”
Natanson’s materials were seized as part of a government investigation of Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a system administrator who has a security clearance and is accused of retaining classified intelligence reports.
On Jan. 14, agents searched the reporter’s home and her devices and seized a phone, two laptops and a Garmin watch, according to the Post. One of the computers was issued to the reporter by the Post, the other was her personal laptop, the Post said.
Natanson has done extensive reporting on federal workers who have been targeted for firings and resignations by the Trump administration. She has chronicled how she had become the “federal government whisperer,” amassing hundreds of sources as workers inundated her with tips.
The Post’s attorneys wrote that the devices seized “contain years of information about past and current confidential sources and other unpublished newsgathering materials, including those she was using for current reporting. Almost none of the seized data is even potentially responsive to the warrant, which seeks only records received from or relating to a single government contractor. The seized data is core First Amendment-protected material, and some is protected by the attorney-client privilege.”
The Post’s attorneys wrote that the seizure “had the practical effect of suppressing The Post and Natanson’s current and future journalism, including because the seizure has prevented her from communicating with her more than 1,100 sources, who run the gamut of federal officials from more than 120 agencies or subagencies, and who overwhelmingly and self-evidently have nothing to do with the warrant. Nor are Natanson’s confidential sources likely to work with her again, if the government is permitted to rummage through her files unchecked.”
In a declaration, Natanson said that she had never communicated with Perez-Lugones “via any platform other than Signal or phone.” She said that in reporting, she would receive dozens to more than 100 tips from sources, but since the seizure, “that number has fallen to zero.”
According to the filing, Trump administration lawyers have so far refused any agreement on how to handle the seized materials, but stated that it “was still in the process of preserving data and had not yet started reviewing it,” according to the Post’s filing.
Bruce Brown, president of the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press, said in a statement, “This is the first time in U.S. 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.”
