A federal courtroom in Alexandria turned tense as a judge demanded answers from the U.S. Department of Justice over how it secured a warrant to search the home of a reporter from The Washington Post.
At the center of the clash: a 1980 statute designed to shield journalists from intrusive searches — the Privacy Protection Act.
U.S. Magistrate Judge William Porter questioned why government lawyers failed to explicitly address the law when seeking authorization to search the Virginia residence of reporter Hannah Natanson. The search, carried out by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, resulted in the seizure of phones and laptops as part of a national security leak probe.
“How could you miss it?” the judge asked pointedly during the hearing, underscoring his frustration. Though Porter ultimately signed off on the warrant, he disclosed that earlier drafts had been rejected.
Government lawyers argued that the Privacy Protection Act did not apply because investigators believed the reporter may have been involved in criminal conduct — an exception they say removes the law’s protections. The probe focuses on the alleged leak of classified material by a government contractor. The newspaper has maintained that neither it nor Natanson is a target of the investigation.
The hearing unfolded against the broader backdrop of scrutiny facing the Justice Department during the administration of Donald Trump. In recent months, other courts have also raised concerns about the department’s legal approach in high-stakes matters.
Meanwhile, the Post and its reporter are fighting to recover the seized material. Their legal team described the search as an extraordinary intrusion into newsgathering — one that temporarily halted reporting work and potentially jeopardized more than 1,000 confidential sources.
For now, Judge Porter has barred investigators from examining the seized devices until the legal challenge is resolved.
Justice Department officials insist the search was necessary to trace the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive government information. They have said that a “filter team” of agents not involved in the core investigation would review the material to separate privileged or irrelevant content.
But the courtroom exchange signaled something larger than a procedural dispute — it spotlighted the uneasy balance between national security enforcement and press freedom, a fault line that remains sharply contested.
