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A federal judge in Virginia on Friday declined to immediately rule on the Washington Post’s request for the government to return devices seized from reporter Hannah Natanson in a January raid of her home.
But the judge, William B Porter of the eastern district of Virginia, acknowledged the enormity and significance of the seizure during the afternoon hearing. “Ms Natanson has basically been deprived of her life’s work,” he said.
In the latest development in a case that has worried first amendment advocates and put newsrooms around the country on high alert, the judge seemed disinclined to let the government rifle through the files and determine what is relevant to an investigation into a government contractor accused of possessing classified materials – and suggested that he understood the broader stakes of the case.
“It’s not crazy to think that public confidence might be lost if the government gets to look at information that is protected,” the judge said.
The judge had previously paused any government search of the devices taken from Natanson in the raid, which included two laptops, a phone and a Garmin watch. Lawyers representing the Post argued that it was extremely damaging – for Natanson’s journalism and for the freedom of the press – for the government to be in possession of her devices. Lawyers for the government argued that the material contained on the devices was necessary for its investigation into the contractor Aurelio Perez-Lugones, and that the judge should remove his pause on the government reviewing the files it had obtained.
A lawyer representing Natanson, Amy Jeffress, told the judge that her client has “suffered significant harm, both personally and professionally, as a result of the government’s actions”. “The shock of this unprecedented search has had lasting consequences,” she added.
Referring to the government raid, Jeffress said: “They’ve done something here that opens the door to a lot of reporters’ homes being searched without a very good reason.”
If the judge chooses not to order the government to return the devices, lawyers for the Post argued that they should be present for a review of Natanson’s materials – and that the task should not be left to a government “filter team”.
It is possible that the judge could choose for the court to undertake the document review process, an avenue the Post’s lawyer, Simon A Latcovich, said was preferable to the government handling the process – though he noted that Natanson “had court sources among her many sources”.
“The government commandeered the entirety of reporter Hannah Natanson’s professional life,” Latcovich said. “Today, more than 1,200 confidential sources are following this very proceeding to see if their identities will be exposed to the government.”
In a surprisingly combative moment, the judge expressed frustration with the government’s legal team for not informing him about a law protecting journalists – the Privacy Protection Act – when requesting that he sign a warrant for the raid. The judge acknowledged publicly that he had initially declined to sign the warrant.
“Did you not do it because you didn’t know, or because you decided not to tell me?” the judge asked government lawyer Christian Dibblee. “How could you think it doesn’t apply?”
The omission – and the judge’s response – was significant, according to Gabe Rottman of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
“The court was clearly frustrated by the government’s failure to disclose in the warrant application a federal law that is meant to severely restrict searches of journalists,” he said. “When given the chance to explain, prosecutors didn’t offer a credible response. Given what the court heard today, we hope that it will promptly return the seized devices and ensure that news gathering material is appropriately protected.”
While the judge did not issue any rulings on Friday, he said he had “a pretty good sense of what [he’s] going to do here”, and scheduled a follow-up hearing on 4 March.
The case comes at a challenging time for the Post, which is reeling from a historic round of layoffs earlier this month and the abrupt resignation of its embattled publisher, Will Lewis. Jeff D’Onofrio, who is serving as active publisher in Lewis’s place, was in attendance at the hearing, along with the Post’s executive editor, Matt Murray.
