Entered residence on unrelated matter
Fed raiders seized reporter's notes
after expose of Homeland Security

A Washington newspaper vowed to file a lawsuit over the seizure by police and federal agents of a reporter's notes concerning a Homeland Security expose.

The Washington Times reports that the team raided the reporter's residence on what was said to be a mission to search for firearms linked to her husband.

Maryland state police and federal agents carted off journalistic records belonging to Audrey Hudson, a former investigative reporter for the Washington Times, the newspaper said. The award-winning newswoman had exposed problems in the Homeland Security Department’s Federal Air Marshal Service, the Times said.

Hudson told the Times that the raiders -- including an agent for Homeland’s Coast Guard service -- took her notes and government documents she had obtained under the Freedom of Information Act during a predawn raid of her residence on Aug. 6.

The files, some of which chronicled her sources and her work at the Times about problems inside the Homeland Security Department, were seized under a warrant to search for unregistered firearms and a “potato gun” suspected of belonging to her husband, Paul Flanagan, a Coast Guard employee, the newspaper said. Flanagan had not been charged with any wrongdoing since the raid, the Times said.

“While we appreciate law enforcement’s right to investigate legitimate concerns, there is no reason for agents to use an unrelated gun case to seize the First Amendment protected materials of a reporter,” Times Editor John Solomon said. “This violates the very premise of a free press, and it raises additional concerns when one of the seizing agencies was a frequent target of the reporter’s work."

Solomon added, “Homeland’s conduct in seizing privileged reporter's notes and Freedom of Information Act documents raises serious Fourth Amendment issues, and our lawyers are preparing an appropriate legal response.”

The seizure of Hudson's files comes in an atmosphere of heavy-handed measures against the press that have been a regular feature of the Obama administration.

Washington Times report
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/25/armed-agents-seize-records-reporter-washington-tim/