SPJ: Phoenix, Arizona Chapter

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The FBI’s execution of a search warrant at the home of Hannah Natanson, a reporter for The Washington Post, is an extraordinary and dangerous escalation in the federal government’s recent treatment of journalists, the Society of Professional Journalists said in a Jan. 14 statement. 

“Federal agents searched Natanson’s home and seized both personal and work-issued devices even though she was told she is not the target of the investigation” the statement said. “This kind of aggressive law enforcement action against a journalist — particularly one engaged in reporting on the federal workforce — has a chilling effect not only on reporters, but on the sources who rely on them to expose wrongdoing and inform the public.”

SPJ cited The Privacy Protection Act of 1980, which sharply limits law enforcement searches of journalists’ homes or seizures of their work product, permitting them only under narrowly defined and extraordinary circumstances.

“The law exists to protect the public’s right to know — not to shield the government from embarrassment or scrutiny,” SPJ said.

The Society called upon the FBI and the Department of Justice to “explain how this action complies with both the letter and the spirit of the Privacy Protection Act — and why less intrusive alternatives were not exhausted before resorting to such an extreme measure.” SPJ also called on Congress to “exercise immediate oversight of the Department of Justice to reaffirm its commitment to press freedom and all public officials to remember a fundamental truth: When journalists are silenced, the public is left in the dark.”

View the entire statement here.