US failed to alert judge to press law in application to search reporter’s home

The Justice Department failed to tell a magistrate judge about a 1980 law protecting journalists in its application materials for a warrant to search a Washington Post reporter’s home last month as part of a leak investigation, an unsealed court filing shows.

Gabe Rottman, the vice president for policy at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which had asked the judge to unseal the materials, called that omission significant.

“By not alerting the judge to the existence of a federal law that is supposed to limit searches for reporting materials, it may have greased the skids for the judge agreeing to the warrant when otherwise the judge might have scrutinized it more carefully,” Mr. Rottman said.

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