The Washington Post is demanding the immediate return of computers, phones and other devices seized by federal agents during a search of a reporter’s home.

The federal government’s seizure, which was in connection with an investigation into a government contractor accused of illegally retaining classified materials, “violates the Constitution’s protections for free speech and a free press and should not be allowed to stand,” lawyers for the newspaper wrote in court documents Wednesday.

The seizure — which appears to be the first federal raid of a journalist’s home in connection with a national security investigation — not only flouts First Amendment protections and federal safeguards for journalists but also “chills speech, cripples reporting, and inflicts irreparable harm every day the government keeps its hands on protected materials,” according to the newspaper’s attorneys.

A federal judge should order the immediate return of all the seized materials, and “anything less would license future newsroom raids and normalize censorship by search warrant,” lawyers wrote.

FBI agents executed a search warrant January 14 at the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson, an award-winning journalist who has emerged as the newspaper’s “federal government whisperer” collecting thousands of tips and stories from federal workers caught up in Donald Trump’s radical reshaping of government.

Lawyers for The Washington Post are demanding the FBI immediately return a reporter’s computers, phones and other devices seized by agents as part of an investigation into a government contractor who allegedly withheld classified materials (REUTERS)

The filing is the newspaper’s first response to the seizure in court.

Attorneys for the newspaper repeatedly conferred with federal officials about the seized materials, and the government agreed that it would not begin a “substantive review” of the data until the parties met against January 20.

But after that meeting, the government rejected a proposal to return Natanson’s materials, according to lawyers for the Post.

Agents had seized a “massive volume” of data containing years of information about past and current sources and other unpublished information, including material Natanson was actively using for her current reporting — and “almost none” of it had anything to do with the “single government contractor” at the center of the investigation, lawyers wrote.

“The government seized this proverbial haystack in an attempt to locate a needle,” they said.

That “wholesale seizure” suppresses the newspaper’s reporting as well as “Natanson’s current and future journalism,” unable to reach hundreds of sources “who overwhelmingly and self-evidently have nothing to do with the warrant,” lawyers added.

“Nor are Natanson’s confidential sources likely to work with her again, if the government is permitted to rummage through her files unchecked,” they wrote.

This is a developing story