No, this is absolutely not normal as the article clearly states. Reporters are very rarely raided in the US under circumstances like these.

The problem is that "classified materials" means whatever the government wants it to mean in this context. Is there a journalist you want to target for a particular reason? Just accuse them of handling classified information, which they don't ever have to produce to the public because it's "classified".

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chasd00 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Here’s a less sensational article. The journalist is not even a target of the investigation, the target is a contractor leaking documents.

“ Natanson was told that she is not a target of the investigation, a person familiar with the matter told CNN.

Instead, it appears to be related to an ongoing probe of a government contractor in Maryland.”

https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/14/media/fbi-hannah-natanson-was...

	▲	collinmcnulty 6 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Please don’t be so naive as to think that this administration is above creating a pretext for raiding the home of their real target while claiming it’s about something else. It’s the same thing (minus the raid, plus an indictment) they’re doing to Jerome Powell.
	▲	4 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		[deleted]
	▲	floatrock 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		oh you sweet summer child... to see the world with your simple star-spangled eyes...

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notyourwork 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Trump keeps that kind of stuff in their guest bathroom, cool. Reporter, raid and straight to jail. What a timeline to witness. Elected officials glut preventing them from doing their duty.

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NickC25 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Not only that, the word going around is some of the stuff found in the bathroom were far above top secret, including some Q-Clearance level stuff from the DoE.

As in, the US's full knowledge of the technical capacity of Israel's nuclear weapons program, including how we obtained that information. That's now in the hands of the Saudis, Iran, the Chinese, the Russians, etc. And it was found in a fucking bathroom.

Yet nobody seems to care that a Trump-appointed lackey magically (whose husband has credibly been linked to organized crime) found themselves on the case "by chance" and issued a whole bunch of bullshit non-appealable verbal rulings on how and why Donald Trump is innocent.

	▲	p_j_w 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Q clearance isn’t “far above top secret.” It’s TS plus Nuclear Weapons Information. The background investigation is exactly the same as TS and almost everyone that works at a DOE lab gets one: almost 100,000 people have access. It requires no polygraph like SCI and higher clearances.

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AlexandrB 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

In some ways this is just desserts after American journalists decided that Julian Assange was not worth defending[1]. Still disheartening to see, since we need robust journalism to keep companies/politicians honest.

[1] https://x.com/washingtonpost/status/1116371239705227265

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potato3732842 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>, this is absolutely not normal

On what grounds? Just repeating a BS assertion doesn't make it true.

The feds have been abusing journalists like this as long as I've been alive. It's not a lot, it's a trickle of them, maybe one a year or so in recent years. But one raid on one person isn't unprecedented or abnormal in any way. Now if you want to talk about frequency or the minimum size of thorn in side they'll go after it might be a different story. But nobody is saying that.

I might think the behavior is despicable and probably also unlawful, and their "they had classified info" excuse is flimsy BS, but it is unfortunately somewhat normal.

The problem is way, way, way worse, way longer running and way more institutionally entrenched than flabbergastingly moronic "these specific people right here right now did misdeeds" surface level assessment may comfortingly imply.

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rockskon 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Not all bad things are the same. Raiding a reporter's house is very much an abnormal act to have taken place.

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potato3732842 6 hours ago | parent [-]

>Not all bad things are the same.

Who said they were?

>Raiding a reporter's house is very much an abnormal act to have taken place.

Only by invoking the most numerical slight of hand sort of "a DV is abnormal because we hand out a thousand traffic tickets a day and make only one or two DV arrests" logic is it abnormal.

For the past 5+yr the FBI has raided the home of about one journalist per year. Every time the allegation has been about investigating the source of some leak.

They didn't do one in 2024/2025 I don't think. Time Burke and the Kanye thing, Project Veritas in 2022 and 2023 and the ABC news guy the year before are recent ones that come to mind. I'm not gonna say they get a pass, but this is "the normal amount" for them.

Once again, that doesn't make it right and I shouldn't have to say this but this comment should not be construed as an endorsement of the FBI or any specific activities they engage in.

	▲	lux-lux-lux 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Time Burke and the Kanye thing, Project Veritas in 2022 and 2023 and the ABC news guy the year before are recent ones that come to mind Those were for computer fraud, possession of stolen property, and possession of child pornography, respectively. The first amendment allows journalists to publish classified material, it does not give them free license to commit crimes.