The FBI raided the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson this week and seized her electronic devices, part of a leak probe into a government contractor accused of mishandling classified government materials. Natanson has reported extensively on the Trump administration's changes to the federal bureaucracy, including mass layoffs of government workers. This comes amid a broader pattern of attacks on the media, including lawsuits, funding cuts, and increasing media and technology consolidation.
"It's hard not to see [the FBI raid] as an effort to intimidate not just journalists, but the sources that would communicate with them," says Jameel Jaffer, director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. "It's a terrible time for press freedom. … We need the press to inform the public about the government's actions and decisions and to help us hold government officials to account."
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