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WASHINGTON — <\/span>The Washington Post asked a federal court on Wednesday for an order requiring federal authorities to return electronic devices that they seized from a Post reporter’s Virginia home last week.<\/p>\n The newspaper argued<\/a> that the federal government’s search and seizures violated reporter Hannah Natanson’s First Amendment free speech rights and legal safeguards for journalists.<\/p>\n Federal agents seized two phones, two laptops, a recorder, a portable hard drive and a Garmin smart watch when they searched Natanson’s home last Wednesday as part of an investigation of a Pentagon contractor accused of illegally handling classified information, the Post reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe outrageous seizure of our reporter\u2019s confidential newsgathering materials chills speech, cripples reporting, and inflicts irreparable harm every day the government keeps its hands on these materials,” the Post said in a statement.<\/p>\n The seized material spanned years of Natanson’s reporting across hundreds of stories, including communications with confidential sources, the Post said. The newspaper asked a federal court in Virginia to order the immediate return of all seized materials and to bar the government from using any of it.<\/p>\n “Anything less would license future newsroom raids and normalize censorship by search warrant,” the Post’s court filing says.<\/p>\n The Pentagon contractor, Aurelio Luis Perez-Lugones, was arrested earlier this month on a charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents. A warrant said the search of Natanson\u2019s home was related to the investigation of Perez-Lugones, the Post reported.<\/p>\n Natanson has been covering Republican President Donald Trump\u2019s transformation of the federal government<\/a>, The Post recently published a piece<\/a> in which she described gaining hundreds of new sources from the federal workforce, leading one colleague to call her \u201cthe federal government whisperer.\u201d<\/p>\n Attorney General Pam Bondi said that the search was done at the request of the Defense Department and that the journalist was \u201cobtaining and reporting classified and illegally leaked information from a Pentagon contractor.\u201d<\/p>\n Perez-Lugones, a U.S. Navy veteran who resides in Laurel, Maryland, has not been charged with sharing classified information or accused in court papers of leaking.<\/p>\n The Justice Department has internal guidelines governing its response to news media leaks<\/a>. In April, Bondi issued new guidelines restoring prosecutors\u2019 authority to use subpoenas, court orders and search warrants to hunt for government officials who make \u201cunauthorized disclosures\u201d to journalists.<\/p>\n The new guidelines rescinded a policy from Democratic President Joe Biden\u2019s administration that protected journalists from having their phone records secretly seized during leak investigations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n