By Jack Queen, Reuters.com, 2-24-26
A U.S. judge on Feb. 24 blocked federal prosecutors from searching devices seized from a Washington Post reporter as part of a leak investigation, saying he would review their contents for potential evidence.
The FBI searched reporter Hannah Natanson’s home in January as part of a national security investigation, a move that press advocates said threatened journalistic freedom….
U.S. Magistrate Judge William Porter in Virginia said in his ruling that a court-supervised review of Natanson’s devices was appropriate to balance U.S. legal protections for journalists with the government’s right to seek evidence in criminal investigations implicating national security.
“Accordingly, the court rejects the government’s request to conduct an unsupervised, wholesale search of all … seized data,” Porter said. » Read More