As you can imagine, I have several thoughts about the unlawful and unforgiveable raid that took place in Marion, KS at the Marion County Record – a weekly newspaper — a week ago.
To quickly summarize, the small-town police department led by a former Kansas City police officer who is now the small-town police chief, raided the newspaper office and the owner’s home on Friday, Aug. 11, under a search warrant signed by a county judge. Officers confiscated computers, cellphones, reporting materials and other items essential to the weekly paper’s operations.
The raid came about after the newspaper received a tip about a local businesswoman’s alleged drunk driving record. The newspaper received the tip, investigated it and even independently confirmed it; however, they did not publish a story at that time. It was only later when this woman – in a public meeting – criticized the newspaper for its investigation and accused the newspaper of illegally obtaining the information, that they wrote about it.
Reporters receive tips all the time and they check out that information and verify it. That’s exactly what the Marion County newspaper did, and they made a decision not to publish what they verified (I probably wouldn’t have made a different decision as editor, but they did what they thought was right at the time).
Receiving information from a source is not a crime. Receiving tips, checking them out and deciding what, if anything, to do with that information if it’s confirmed, is the daily work of news organizations. Even if the source who provided the information obtained it illegally, Supreme Court precedent holds that the paper cannot be held liable for receiving or publishing that information, unless it also participated in the illegal activity.
What the newspaper publisher did was alert the police department to the allegation for them to handle. They handled it all right – by conducting the raid on the newspaper.
Local authorities said they were investigating the newsroom for “identity theft,” according to the warrant.
They also raided the home of newspaper owner Eric Meyer and his 98-tear-old mother, Joan Meyer. She died the next day of a heart attack, which her son said was caused by the stress of the raid.
There are many holes in the logic here. First, there was no subpoena or court hearing, as prescribed by law. No affidavit for probable cause. A longtime colleague, Doug Anstaett, who just retired as president of the Kansas Press Association, wrote a good piece about how a Kansas Shield Law passed by the Kansas Legislature in 2010 should have prevented this from happening.
Several media law experts told NPR the raid appears to be a violation of federal law, which protects journalists from this type of action. The Privacy Protection Act of 1980 broadly prohibits law enforcement officials from searching for or seizing information from reporters.
Exceptions to the Privacy Protection Act are very limited. The Marion chief was using this “exception” very broadly, saying the journalists are being investigated for breaking laws in uncovering this information.
First Amendment experts, press advocates and even government officials have weighed in on this event, mostly denouncing it. The one authority who hasn’t completely denounced it is the Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, a conservative Republican who oversees the KBI, who said its “principal interest” remains the computer access allegations. He told reporters he didn’t understand the KBI’s role to include “an evaluation of constitutional claims about the raid.”
The KBI said it would continue its work without examining any evidence seized last Friday. Once the state investigators finish, Kobach said, the county attorney will decide whether to prosecute.
An update is that the newspaper eventually got their weekly paper out this past week without their computers. Their computers were returned to them, and they will conduct an audit on the equipment to make sure it wasn’t tampered with.
The media industry has been under constant attack for the last eight years, unfortunately primarily due to the vilification of the media by former President Donald Trump. Staunch supporters of the former president – including many who hold public offices across the country – see the press as the “enemy” and many legislatures have even tried to stifle press freedoms through new laws.
This story – as well as a recent story in McCurtain County in Oklahoma where a reporter caught public officials talking about attacking or killing reporters – among some other vile things – is becoming more commonplace.
It’s chilling, it frightening and it must be confronted and stopped in its tracks. This is not a conservative or liberal issue – it speaks to the core value we hold as Americans – that our government be transparent and accountable to the citizens.
Many may think small-town, rural publications like the Marion County newspaper can’t fight these situations because they have limited legal resources. That is certainly true, but you can bet that when egregious events like this take place, attorneys and press advocates across the country will come out full bore to help protect the First Amendment rights of even the smallest news organization.
That’s what is happening here, and what should happen is that anyone associated with this unlawful raid should lose their jobs and/or their positions. That includes the police chief, the judge, the prosecutor – all of them. And, the police department will definitely find itself in a slurry of lawsuits, and I hope the damages are substantial.
They might have thought their action would quash any investigations into the police department or persons associated with folks in power in little old Marion, KS. What will happen is exactly the opposite, and national news organizations will now be taking up the investigation and shining a spotlight into what could have possibly led the police chief and judge to make the horrendous decision to conduct this raid. It likely won’t be very complimentary of these officials.
I don’t care what side of the political aisle you subscribe to; you should be outraged. And, if you’re not, you are part of a growing problem that is threatening what we as Americans have always held sacred. We are not Russia or Communist China. We’re the United States of America, and we don’t allow this to happen in our country.
I have linked several articles and sources regarding this topic so you can dive more indepth into this situation.
Cindy Allen 