WASHINGTON — The Washington Post asked a federal court on Wednesday for an order requiring federal authorities to return electronic devices that they seized from a Post reporter's Virginia home last week.
The newspaper argued that the federal government's search and seizures violated reporter Hannah Natanson's First Amendment free speech rights and legal safeguards for journalists.
Federal agents seized two phones, two laptops, a recorder, a portable hard drive and a Garmin smart watch when they searched Natanson's home last Wednesday as part of an investigation of a Pentagon contractor accused of illegally handling classified information, the Post reported.
''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.
The seized material spanned years of Natanson's reporting across hundreds of stories, including communications with confidential sources, the Post said. The newspaper asked a federal court in Virginia to order the immediate return of all seized materials and to bar the government from using any of it.
"Anything less would license future newsroom raids and normalize censorship by search warrant," the Post's court filing says.
A magistrate judge in Alexandria, Virginia, scheduled a Feb. 6 hearing on the newspaper's requests. In the meantime, the magistrate temporarily barred the government from reviewing any of the seized materials.
The Pentagon contractor, Aurelio Luis Perez-Lugones, was arrested earlier this month on a charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents. A warrant said the search of Natanson's home was related to the investigation of Perez-Lugones, the Post reported.
