A judge ordered federal agents Wednesday not to examine electronic devices they seized from a Washington Post reporter’s home last week in their criminal probe of a Pentagon contractor. The news outlet had filed a motion earlier Wednesday demanding that federal law enforcement officials return the devices and asked that their content not be used in the case against the contractor. The request, filed by the Post in the Eastern District of Virginia, asked the court to prevent federal investigators from reviewing the content on staff reporter Hannah Natanson’s devices, which the Post said “contain troves” of sensitive source material and notes protected by the First Amendment. “Without an immediate standstill order from the Court, the government will commence an unrestrained search of a journalist’s work product that violates the First Amendment and the attorney-client privilege, ignored federal statutory safeguards for journalists, and threatens the trust and confidentiality of sources,” the Post said in the motion, which was the newsroom’s first public filing in the matter. On Jan. 14, FBI agents executed a search warrant and seized Natanson’s work cellphone, work laptop, personal laptop, recorder, portable hard drive and a Garmin watch. The search was related to Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a systems engineer in Maryland who held a top-secret security clearance and is charged with unlawful retention of national defense information. “We have asked the court to order the immediate return of all seized materials and prevent their use,” The Washington Post said in a statement to MS NOW. “Anything less…
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