A federal judge has barred the FBI from examining the electronic devices their agents seized last week from the Virginia home of a Washington Post reporter until he can review the controversial case.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government must preserve but must not review any of the materials that law enforcement seized pursuant to search warrants the Court issued,” U.S. Magistrate Judge William B. Porter wrote in a two-page ruling <\/a>filed Wednesday in the federal district court for the Eastern District of Virginia.<\/p>\n Porter was responding to a motion filed hours earlier by the Post and its reporter, Hannah Natanson, requesting that the FBI return her cellphone, as well as her work and personal laptops, a recorder, a portable hard drive, and a Garmin smartwatch.<\/p>\n Both the newspaper and Natanson “have demonstrated good cause in their filings to maintain the status quo until such time as the government can respond to the motions and the Court can more fully address them,” Porter wrote. <\/p>\n Porter has ordered the government to respond to newspaper’s filing by Jan. 28 and scheduled a hearing for early next month.<\/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,\u201d the Post said in a statement.<\/p>\n This marks the first time in U.S. history that the government has searched a reporter\u2019s home in a national security media leak investigation, seizing potentially a vast amount of confidential data and information, said Bruce D. Brown, president of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, in a statement. <\/p>\n “The move imperils public interest reporting and will have ramifications far beyond this specific case. It is critical that the court blocks the government from searching through this material until it can address the profound threat to the First Amendment posed by the raid,” Brown said.<\/p>\n The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday. <\/p>\n Natanson was home Jan. 14 when the FBI searched her house <\/a>as part of an investigation into a government contractor accused of illegally retaining classified materials.<\/p>\n \u201cInvestigators told Natanson that she is not the focus of the probe,\u201d the Post reported that day.<\/p>\n