> "So in this case the government is raiding the home of someone who did not commit any crime, in the hopes of getting at people who might have."

That's unequivocally a lawful basis for a court-ordered search warrant. They must have probable cause that the person being searched has evidence of a crime; not necessarily that the search target and the criminal suspect are one and the same. Search is investigative; not punitive.

The newsworthy part of this is it's a journalist they raided, and to go after their journalistic sources at that. It's previously been a DoJ policy not to go after the media for things related to their reporting work. But that policy wasn't a legal or constitutional requirement. It's merely something the DoJ voluntarily pledged to stop doing, after the public reaction to President Obama's wiretapping of journalists in 2013,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Department_of_Justice_inv... ("2013 Department of Justice investigations of reporters")

This is not a comment about if journalists homes should be more sacred than other people. Some countries do give journalists extra legal protection against this, but I do not know US law in this regard.

To my understanding, a US search warrant authorize law enforcement officers to search a particular location and seize specific items. The requirements are:

1# filled in good faith by a law enforcement officer 2# Have probable cause to search 3# issued by a neutral and detached magistrate 4# the warrant must state specifically the place to be searched and the items to be seized.

There is nothing about the owner of the location. It can be a car, a parking lot, a home, a work place, a container, a safe, a deposit box in a bank, and so on.

The significant question here is about probable cause. Why were those items interesting for the FBI to collect? Are they looking to secure evidence against the leaker, and if so, what was the specifics of the search warrant? The article states: "The statement gave no further details of the raid or investigation".

Probable cause should not be about preventing journalists access to documents they already got, as that would be like going after Barton Gellman.

>So in this case the government is raiding the home of someone who did not commit any crime, in the hopes of getting at people who might have.

I looked at a lot of search warrant affidavits in a previous job and there's really nothing all that unusual about this aspect (doing it to a member of the press or doing it on a pretext are separate issues that I'm not commenting on). Police execute search warrants at other locations all the time because the relevant question is whether there is probable cause to believe that there is evidence of the commission of the crime they are investigating at that location, not whether the person who lives or works there is guilty of that particular crime. Given that fact, of course, it's all the more reason that judicial officers should subject search warrant affidavits to careful scrutiny because when they come to look through your stuff they will just turn your house or business upside down and they don't get paid to help you clean up afterwards.

Sure, though the government routinely searches the personal property of innocent people if they think that search will yield information about a suspect.

The issue here is the American tradition of a free press and the legitimate role of leaks in a free country. The PBS article is a bit better on context:

> The Justice Department over the years has developed, and revised, internal guidelines governing how it will respond to news media leaks.

> In April, Attorney General Pam Bondi issued new guidelines saying prosecutors would again have the authority to use subpoenas, court orders and search warrants to hunt for government officials who make "unauthorized disclosures" to journalists.

> The moves rescinded a Biden administration policy that protected journalists from having their phone records secretly seized during leak investigations — a practice long decried by news organizations and press freedom groups.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fbi-searched-home-of-w...

My understanding is that searches of journalists still must be signed off on by the AG personally.

> Reporters are not federal employees and it’s not illegal for them to have or discuss classified materials. Most of what Snowden leaked was classified, and remains classified to this day, but you and I can read about it on Wikipedia.

CNN tells viewers its illegal to read Wikileaks emails (2016)

“Also interesting is—remember—it’s illegal to possess these stolen documents. It’s different for the media. So everything you learn about this, you’re learning from us.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRBppdC1h_Y

Thank you, this is really useful context!

Some added context for this raid. It allegedly is about a govt contractor

> The search came as part of an investigation into a government contractor accused of illegally retaining classified government materials.

Sending the FBI after journalists is not new. They did it in 2010 and 2013 on a much bigger scale.

> The government pursued Snowden because he was legally obligated to protect that info. They did not pursue Barton Gellman because he wasn’t.

Former administrations, to their credit, exhibited some degree of restraint that the current administration lacks. However, they indicted Julian Assange and plenty of people back then have warned precisely about the kind of things happening today.

- The Indictment of Julian Assange Is a Threat to Journalism https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19653012

- Traditional journalists may abandon WikiLeaks’ Assange at their own peril https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19639165

From the EFF back then:

> Make no mistake, this not just about Assange or Wikileaks—this is a threat to all journalism, and the public interest. The press stands in place of the public in holding the government accountable, and the Assange charges threaten that critical role.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/05/governments-indictment...

What if you had the hard copies of the classified files or the original USB drive used in exfiltrate the classified data, not a digital copy.

> To clarify why it’s aggressive: federal employees have a legal duty to secure classified information […]

Does that include (former) presidents as well?

* https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65775163

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_prosecution_of_Donald_...

(Asking for a friend.)

It's possible (and in fact the law) that the journalist against whom a search warrant is issued is suspected of aiding in the leak or committing a crime, though. I don't think we yet know that she's not in that category; only that she claims that she was told that she wasn't the focus of the probe and was not currently formally accused of a crime.

To my naive brain, the rules seem to be:

- it's okay when Side A goes after Assange (a journalist) for possessing classified material. Also, Side A encourages journalists in certain countries to do exactly what Assange did.

- it's not okay when Side B goes after journalists aligned with Side A

Yet others just invite journalists to signal groups accieentally and don't face any repercussions. Strange.

Explain why they pursued Julian Assange then.

Based on your own logic then Assange did not have any requirement to protect classified information yet he was Public Enemy number one.

I know people who personally sat on the Edward Snowden board and spent years of their life trying to create a case within the intelligence community against this guy

Didn’t they persecute (or tried to, I don’t remember anymore) Assange for the same reason though? Or is there some clear difference here?

How does this apply to Trump and mar-a-lago, then? Genuine question.

Not to belittle good framing, but we are /waaaaay/ past the ugly point of law and order.

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That's nothing, there was the time the FBI raided James O'Keefe's house to find Ashley Biden's diary. I feel weird writing any of that out, because its sounds batshit, but they did that. Some people may not like James for any given number of reasons (NPR did a hit peace saying he doesn't qualify for journalism protections - which to me is a matter of opinion not necessarily fact), but since when do federal agents raid peoples homes for diaries? Were there nuclear launch codes in there or something? I would imagine there's way more important things they could have been doing at the time.

While you do not have a legal duty to secure classified information it is illegal for you to possess it. It is illegal for a reporter to have and discuss classified information under strict interpretation of the espionage act, however the supreme court ruled that they can as long as they didn't participate in acquiring it or induce someone to acquire it. They will prosecute a reporter if they have a clear indication they participated in the theft of the classified information.

Regarding Gellman, he could have been prosecuted. Under strict interpretation he admitted to retaining classified information. The government is then in a catch 22 situation where they have to verify, publicly, the information he held creating a Snowden like situation where it is no longer secret. It is a very messy area of law and a zealous DOJ can exert tremendous pressure on individual journalists even though they are better shielded than non-journalists. Essentially, by prosecuting someone they have to prove it is national defense information and in so doing they will end up disclosing the information themselves making it dubious a jury would ever convict.

It is the same reason we can freely discuss Snowden-leaked information now. It is not a secret. Even if it is classified it has lost its legal protection.

In short, if this journalist even vaguely induced anyone to leak information to her she can be prosecuted and the precedent there is much less in her favor.

> So in this case the government is raiding the home of someone who did not commit any crime, in the hopes of getting at people who might have. I think it’s not hard to imagine how this concept could get ugly fast.

When you phrase it that way though, it doesn't actually sound that bad. If a crime was committed, and some uninvolved person possesses evidence about that crime, the authorities need to be able to access it.

To give another scenario: if someone gets shot in front of my parked car, but the bullet passes through them and gets lodged in my car, the police should have the power to compel me to hand over the bullet even if I don't want to (which is important evidence that only I have).

> Reporters are not federal employees and it’s not illegal for them to have or discuss classified materials. Most of what Snowden leaked was classified, and remains classified to this day, but you and I can read about it on Wikipedia. The government pursued Snowden because he was legally obligated to protect that info. They did not pursue Barton Gellman because he wasn’t.

But if Barton Gellman was the only person in possession of the full collection, and the police needed it to help find the perpetrator of the crime, it would be legitimate for them to compel Gellman to hand over a copy.

However, it wouldn't be legitimate for them to go after you or me if we download the information from some public website, because that would serve no legitimate investigative purpose.