RCFP statement on FBI’s newly unsealed justification for seizing reporter’s electronic devices

On Friday night, a federal court in Virginia unsealed a redacted version of the search warrant affidavit that provides the FBI’s sworn statement justifying its request to search the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson. In the search, the government seized two laptops, Natanson’s phone, a voice recorder, and other electronic devices. 

The material seized holds a vast amount of Natanson’s work and other sensitive newsgathering information, including material that could potentially identify confidential sources unconnected to the underlying investigation of Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a government contractor who has been charged with illegally transmitting and retaining national defense materials. Investigators reportedly told Natanson that she is not the target of the investigation.

The 35-page document was made public roughly two weeks after the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed an application asking the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to unseal all of the search warrant materials related to the raid so that the public could see the representations the government made to the court.

Gabe Rottman, vice president of policy for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, made the following statement: 

“In its affidavit, the government did not reference the federal law that prohibits, with few exceptions, raids targeting journalists or newsrooms to seize unpublished work. The government appears to have ignored a crucial press freedom guardrail in searching a journalist’s home and did not alert the magistrate judge to the law’s application in this case, let alone show how or if it had complied with the statute’s considerable protections.”

That federal law is the Privacy Protection Act of 1980, which created essential protections for journalists and newsrooms from government searches and seizures. Congress passed it out of concern that such raids could stanch the free flow of information to the public.

According to the affidavit, the government alleged that The Post published at least five news stories containing classified and national defense information that it says Natanson obtained from Perez-Lugones. 

The government stated in the affidavit that it believes that Perez-Lugones unlawfully transmitted the classified and national defense information to Natanson “exclusively via electronic means,” noting that the FBI did not observe any in-person meetings between the two during the government’s nearly month-long surveillance of the government contractor. The affidavit asked the court to authorize the seizure of Natanson’s electronic devices, claiming that they probably contain classified information that “is evidence of Perez-Lugones’s crimes and which, if disclosed, could harm national security.”

Related: In a friend-of-the-court brief in support of Natanson and The Post, the Reporters Committee is urging a federal court to order the government to return the reporter’s phone, laptops, and other devices, arguing that the seizures are unlawful.

Read the affidavit below. (The redactions in black were added by the Reporters Committee to conceal Natanson’s home address, phone number, and license plate number.)