Hannah Natanson, the hard-charging, talented education reporter at The Washington Post, had her work compromised in a regrettable violation of journalistic ethics. The FBI had initially raided her home as part of a broader investigation into government contractor Aurelio Perez-Lugones. Now in federal custody in Maryland, Perez-Lugones is charged with willfully retaining national defense information. The criminal investigation that triggered this complaint resulted in the seizure of Natanson’s two laptops, two phones, a Garmin watch, as well as other devices. This disruption made it nearly impossible for her to reach many of her sources.
The attack occurred just days after Natanson wrote a powerful first-person essay. In it, she chronicled both her reporting process and her interactions with anonymous government sources back in late December. Since her home was raided, she’s not written a story. This silence leaves us with troubling, unanswered questions about the attack on press freedom and the protection of journalistic sources.
In light of this raid, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press responded. They then filed an amicus curiae memo urging the court to unseal all judicial records associated with the incident. This includes the final search warrant, application and supporting affidavit that the FBI used in carrying out the operation. It proved to be a key moment when a U.S. judge granted Natanson a temporary injunction barring federal prosecutors from examining the materials seized from Natanson’s Dover home. This ruling is meant to keep things the way they are. In the interim, the Department of Justice will have an opportunity to answer The Washington Post’s petition that seeks the return of the seized goods.
A hearing on this unusual request is scheduled for early February. As the legal team at The Washington Post pointed out, the administration has not made a substantial case for this extreme invasion of privacy, nor addressed other, narrower, legal options.
“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
Pam Bondi, a spokesperson, highlighted the tension between national security and First Amendment rights by stating, “The first amendment is a bedrock principle, but this isn’t about that. This is about classified material that could jeopardize lives.”
The Post’s legal team have made it clear that the seized materials must be returned. They hope this move will stop the establishment of a very dangerous precedent for future newsroom raids. They further claim that release of this data would result in irreparable harm to them. What’s more, it would be blatantly unconstitutional as applied to reporters and their sources.
“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’s lawyers
Bruce D. Brown, a longtime attorney with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, had talked about how serious this was. He pointed out that “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.”
As this case continues to play out, issues surrounding press freedom and journalists’ rights to not have to reveal their sources are of utmost importance. This raid means more than just the fate of Natanson. More fundamentally, it could send a harmful message about how federal agencies should interact with the media in future investigations.