Investigative journalist’s Google accounts subject of sweeping federal warrant

Investigative journalist Tim Burke’s two Google accounts and the digital communications and records they contained were targeted by a search warrant obtained by federal investigators on May 5, 2023, in Tampa, Florida. Burke sued the government in 2026, after that warrant and another issued to the social platform X, then known as Twitter, became public.

According to court filings reviewed by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, an assistant U.S. attorney asked the court to issue the warrant in connection with an ongoing FBI investigation into Burke for alleged hacking and wiretapping.

Burke, who previously worked at Deadspin and The Daily Beast, made a career of capturing publicly available livestreams, as well as providing contract work, consulting and access to his 181,000-gigabyte video archive.

The investigation into Burke’s activities followed the leak of at least six behind-the-scenes clips in 2022 and 2023 of former Fox host Tucker Carlson interviewing Kanye West, in which the musician voiced conspiracy theories and antisemitic remarks. The broadcaster has asserted that it did not authorize the release of the footage and that its systems could have been hacked.

The warrant to Google identified two email accounts belonging to Burke and ordered the tech company to turn over all emails sent to and from the addresses, their source and destination addresses, and the size and length of each email.

It additionally commanded that Google turn over all records and information stored across the accounts dating back to Jan. 1, 2021 — well before Burke’s alleged hacking — including contacts, calendar entries, pictures, Google Drive contents and search history.

Google was ordered to turn over the materials by May 19, 2023. According to subsequent government filings in the case, the tech company appears to have complied.

Burke filed his lawsuit against the government on Sept. 22, 2026, alleging that the government violated the Privacy Protection Act, a law designed to shield journalists from government searches and seizures of their work.

The complaint argues that the government knew Burke was a journalist and that he possessed a “journalistic archive of work product materials and documentary materials,” but knowingly withheld that information from the courts when applying for warrants for not only his Google and Twitter accounts, but also his home and newsroom, which were also raided in May 2023.

“The Government has knowledge that the materials it holds includes work product materials and documentary materials protected by the PPA, and it continues to retain, control, and withhold those materials,” the suit states.

Freedom of the Press Foundation, of which the Tracker is a project, condemned the breadth of the warrants for Burke’s accounts and the failure to alert the court of the PPA when applying for the legal order.

“The PPA exists to make sure that the government cannot search and seize journalists’ materials except in rare circumstances,” wrote Caitlin Vogus, FPF’s senior advocacy adviser. “But that protection means little if prosecutors can decide unilaterally that the law does not apply and avoid judicial scrutiny simply by leaving the law out of their warrant applications.”