Public Knowledge, Free Press, RTDNA and Others Condemn Search of Journalist's Home
A group of press freedom and civil liberties groups, including several that commonly work on FCC matters, issued a joint statement Thursday condemning an FBI search of a Washington Post reporter’s home. Signatories included Free Press, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, the Radio Television Digital News Association, the Media and Democracy Project, the Newsguild sector of the Communications Workers of America, the American Civil Liberties Union and others. The FBI searched reporter Hannah Natanson’s home Wednesday in connection with an investigation into leaks of classified information.
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“Government invasion into a reporter’s home and the seizure of journalistic materials is exactly the kind of scenario our First Amendment was conceived to protect against,” the joint statement said. Natanson has led the Post’s coverage of federal workers and their treatment under the current White House. In December, she wrote a story mentioning that she had over 1,100 federal employee sources.
Her reporting "focused on exposing what is happening inside our federal government -- a topic of immense public interest," the groups' joint statement said. “Such coverage raises questions about the pretext for the FBI’s targeting and invasion of Natanson’s home as well as the seizure of her journalistic materials outside the bounds of the Privacy Protection Act.” They called on Congress to “exercise oversight of the Department of Justice by calling Attorney General [Pam] Bondi before Congress,” pass laws to protect journalists and whistleblowers, and introduce a resolution to confirm that recording the activities of law enforcement is a protected activity under the First Amendment.