Federal prosecutors on January 9 charged Aurelio Luis Perez-Lugones, an IT specialist for an unnamed government contractor, with “the offense of unlawful retention of national defense information,” according to an FBI affidavit. The case attracted national attention after federal agents investigating Perez-Lugones searched the home of a Washington Post reporter. But overlooked so far in the media coverage is the fact that a surprising surveillance tool pointed investigators toward Perez-Lugones: an office printer with a photographic memory.

News of the investigation broke when the Washington Post reported that investigators seized the work laptop, personal laptop, phone, and smartwatch of journalist Hannah Natanson, who has covered the Trump administration’s impact on the federal government and recently wrote about developing more than 1,000 government sources. A Justice Department official told the Post that Perez-Lugones had been messaging Natanson to discuss classified information. The affidavit does not allege that Perez-Lugones disseminated national defense information, only that he unlawfully........

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