REGULATORY · USA
US court takes control of search of seized Washington Post reporter devices
Change
A US magistrate judge rescinded DOJ authority to examine data seized from Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson and ordered a court-run search process instead, after finding prosecutors omitted key facts in the warrant application and rejecting DOJ’s proposed filter-team review.
Why it matters
The court found the warrant application failed to surface a 1980 law limiting searches and seizures of journalists’ work materials, undermining confidence in DOJ’s ability to self-limit the review. The judge left the devices in government custody for now but removed the warrant language authorizing the government to open/access/review the seized data. A court-led search will be used to isolate only materials that may aid the criminal case against an alleged leaker, rather than allowing review of the full work product. The order also rejects DOJ’s request to use its own filter team, citing both overbreadth (probable cause for only a small fraction) and DOJ press-search guidelines requiring minimization.
Implications
- • DOJ cannot directly review seized reporter data under the rescinded warrant authority
- • Evidence collection scope is narrowed to a court-supervised subset tied to the leak case
- • Government filter-team review was rejected, increasing judicial control over minimization
- • Warrant-application omissions can trigger post-seizure constraints on investigative access
Who is affected
- • Department of Justice and FBI leak-investigation teams
- • Journalists and news organizations facing device/work-product searches
- • Federal courts overseeing search-warrant execution and minimization protocols
- • Targets of leak investigations whose evidence may be on journalists’ devices
Source
Topics
World & Politics Policy & Regulation Law & Public Safety Court Rulings Data Privacy