A federal appeals court has blocked the Trump administration's effort to obtain a broad array of journalists' LinkedIn records as part of a national security leak investigation, ruling that the “overbroad” search would “deal a damaging blow to First Amendment freedoms” and expose confidential sources with no bearing on the probe.

Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson, a Reagan appointee, wrote the unanimous opinion for the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. “Confidentiality of sources is the lifeblood of a free press,” he declared. “Without confidentiality, the ability of journalists to report on events of large importance and governmental behavior of dubious legality and integrity could not help but be hampered,” he added, per Politico.

The decision forces a district court to impose much tighter limits on the records the Trump administration may access, balancing legitimate national security concerns against First Amendment protections — and how narrowly the court redraws those limits will determine what records the government ultimately receives. It also undercuts a Justice Department inquiry into a leak to an unidentified news organization that published an article on “a top-secret United States military operation in a foreign country,” including classified intelligence on “special operations” that did not appear in other public reports.

It is not immediately clear which outlet or piece of reporting set off the probe. The ruling arrives, however, as the Trump administration has been making an aggressive push for reporters' files in more than one leak case.

In this matter, prosecutors asked LinkedIn to produce an 18-month log of the journalists' private messages — enough to show whom they were talking to, but not what was said. U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Hanes of Newport News, Virginia, then issued an order preventing LinkedIn from notifying the journalists of the government's request.

LinkedIn took issue with the scope of Hanes' order in proceedings that began last year, arguing it would harm its customers and curtail its freedom of communication. The Richmond-based appeals court was mostly in accord. “While that order may catch sources relevant to the government's investigation, it will also inevitably sweep in every other confidential source with whom the targeted journalists spoke,” the judges wrote.

The panel noted that the journalists covered nearly 1,000 stories during the relevant period and pursued others that never saw print, many of them far removed from the article at issue. The episode underscores how such probes can map a reporter's source network through a third-party platform — with the journalists themselves never notified — even without investigators reading a single message.

Spokespeople for the Justice Department and the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Eastern District of Virginia did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In his ruling, Wilkinson offered a broader defense of the press, calling it a threat to “autocrats worldwide.” Reporting can expose what the government would rather keep hidden, whether to avoid embarrassment or scrutiny, he wrote. “This does not confer upon government the right to silence,” he added.