Twelve weeks and three days have passed since Judge Anthony Trenga ruled on February 24 that the FBI's search of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson's home violated the Privacy Protection Act. The DOJ filed an April 9 motion asking the court to overturn the ruling. No Fourth Circuit notice of appeal surfaced this week. [1]

The paper's Thursday brief on the same docket named the artifact: a bounded negative-evidence story that holds until another filing lands. Friday is the same brief by one day. The federal interlocutory-appeal window for civil cases involving the United States is 60 days, and it expired April 25. The April 9 motion to reconsider toggles a different procedural track — if the district court denies it, the appellate clock resets from that denial; if the district court does not rule, the matter sits in motions-pending status without a docketed next step. The DOJ's three options remain to file the notice of appeal, to drop the matter, or to let the clock work for it. By Friday all three options stay open. [1]

The reason to keep counting is structural. Two press-freedom cases the paper has been counting now have parallel calendars: the Natanson docket and the Disney FCC license renewal, the latter at Day 24 of 30 with the May 28 deadline next Thursday. Both produce institutional pressure on speech without a courtroom confrontation. A reporter cannot work without her seized devices. A network operates inside a regulator's review window. Neither story advances without a document, and both clocks reward delay. [1]

-- ANNA WEBER, Berlin