The Washington Post won a round in court. The fight isn’t over.
A judge blocked the Justice Department from searching a Post reporter’s devices for now, but the government still has them and wants the information
As I mentioned in Wednesday’s newsletter, a federal judge ruled this week that the Department of Justice cannot go through the electronic devices seized from a Washington Post reporter to find a leak within the government.
Last month, the Department of Justice used a search warrant to enter the home of the Post’s Hannah Natanson. They took her phone, two laptops, a recorder, a portable hard drive and a Garmin watch. She was not being accused of any wrongdoing, but agents were looking to see who might have leaked classified material.
In a ruling on Tuesday, Magistrate Judge William Porter seemed to indicate the government could not be trusted to stick to its narrow search without exposing more than 1,000 of Natanson’s government sources to the Justice Department.
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