US judge bars government from reviewing seized Washington Post materials

A justice has granted a petition from The Washington Post to forestall the United States authorities from reviewing materials it seized from 1 of the newspaper’s reporters.

The impermanent bid is simply a tiny triumph for property state advocates, who reason that the seizure of materials belonging to newsman Hannah Natanson is simply a usurpation of her First Amendment rights, arsenic good arsenic a menace to journalism overall.

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Wednesday’s bid came from Magistrate Judge William Porter, who bound the national authorities not to filter done the seized materials until a proceeding could beryllium held connected February 6.

That pause, Porter argued, would let the US Department of Justice to respond to The Washington Post’s complaint.

Natanson is not the taxable of a national investigation. And the US has long-established laws and norms to support the rights of journalists to study connected delicate topics from whistleblower sources.

But connected January 14, the medication of President Donald Trump carried retired a hunt warrant targeting Natanson’s home. Over the past year, she has been reporting connected changes to the national authorities nether Trump, with 1,169 caller sources reaching retired to her with material.

The Justice Department has argued that the hunt warrant was indispensable to cod accusation regarding Aurelio Luis Perez-Lugones, a authorities contractor who was arrested connected January 8 for allegedly removing classified documents.

The expanse of Natanson’s home, however, resulted successful the removal of her enactment computer, her Post-issued cellphone, her idiosyncratic MacBook Pro, a one-terabyte hard drive, a dependable recorder and a Garmin watch.

In tribunal filings opposing the seizure, lawyers argued that Natanson’s electronics contained “years of accusation astir past and existent confidential sources and different unpublished newsgathering materials, including those she was utilizing for existent reporting”.

“Almost nary of the seized information is adjacent perchance responsive to the warrant, which seeks lone records received from oregon relating to a azygous authorities contractor,” the ailment argues.

The ailment added that the six devices seized contained galore terabytes of data, spanning her journalism career.

“Natanson’s devices incorporate fundamentally her full nonrecreational universe: much than 30,000 Post emails from the past twelvemonth alone,” it says.

The Post has sued the Justice Department for the instrumentality of the materials, and that lawsuit is slated to beryllium heard earlier a national tribunal successful Virginia.

“The outrageous seizure of our reporter’s confidential newsgathering materials chills speech, cripples reporting, and inflicts irreparable harm each time the authorities keeps its hands connected these materials,” the paper wrote successful a statement.

“We person asked the tribunal to bid the contiguous instrumentality of each seized materials and forestall their use. Anything little would licence aboriginal newsroom raids and normalize censorship by hunt warrant.”

The Trump medication has faced scrutiny for its combative attack to the media, and critics person accused it of seeking to erode the close to escaped speech, whether successful newspapers oregon done ineligible protest.

Trump and his allies, however, person said they stay committed to ferreting retired “leakers” successful the authorities who merchandise confidential worldly to the media.

Attorney General Pam Bondi, for instance, accused Natanson of “reporting classified and illegally leaked information”.

“The leaker is presently down bars,” she wrote successful a societal media post, referring to Perez-Lugones.

“The Trump Administration volition not tolerate amerciable leaks of classified accusation that, erstwhile reported, airs a sedate hazard to our Nation’s nationalist information and the brave men and women who are serving our country.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt echoed that stance, informing that the Trump medication would reserve the close to prosecute ineligible enactment against anyone it believed to beryllium engaging successful amerciable practices.

“The medication is not going to tolerate leaks, particularly from wrong the nationalist information apparatus of the United States authorities that enactment our nation’s integrity and our nationalist information astatine risk, afloat stop,” she said.

“Legal enactment volition beryllium taken against anyone, whether it’s a subordinate of the property oregon whether it’s an worker for a national agency, who breaks the law.”

The First Amendment of the US Constitution declares that the authorities tin marque nary instrumentality “abridging the state of speech, oregon of the press”.

Over the decades, the Supreme Court has ruled that the authorities whitethorn curtail the media erstwhile faced with a “clear and contiguous danger”, but that the load falls connected the authorities to beryllium specified a information exists.

The Washington Post was progressive successful 1 of the cases that upheld that standard, New York Times v United States successful 1971.

That lawsuit saw the medication of Republican Richard Nixon question to halt the Times and the Post from publishing classified materials known arsenic the Pentagon Papers – but the Supreme Court determined that their work amounted to protected speech.