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The workplaces of the Marion County Report sit throughout from the Marion County Courthouse in Marion, Kan., on Sunday.
John Hanna/AP
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John Hanna/AP
The workplaces of the Marion County Report sit throughout from the Marion County Courthouse in Marion, Kan., on Sunday.
John Hanna/AP
Legislation enforcement officers in Kansas raided the workplace of a neighborhood newspaper and a journalist’s house on Friday, prompting outrage over what First Modification specialists are calling a possible violation of federal regulation.
The police division in Marion, Kansas — a city of about 2,000 — raided the Marion County Report beneath a search warrant signed by a county choose. Officers confiscated computer systems, cellphones, reporting supplies and different gadgets important to the weekly paper’s operations.
“It took them a number of hours,” Eric Meyer, the Marion County Report‘s co-owner and writer, instructed NPR. “They forbid our workers to return into the newspaper workplace throughout that point.”
Native authorities mentioned they have been investigating the newsroom for “identification theft,” in accordance with the warrant. The raid was linked to alleged violations of a neighborhood restaurant proprietor’s privateness, when journalists obtained details about her driving file.
Writer says raid contributed to his mom’s dying
Meyer’s mom, Joan Meyer, collapsed and died in the future after police raided her house, the Record reported in an replace. She was the newspaper’s co-owner.
Joan Meyer was 98 and was “in any other case in good well being for her age,” the newspaper mentioned. However, it added, she had been unable to eat or sleep after police entered her house Friday beneath a search warrant.
Joan Meyer “tearfully watched in the course of the raid as police not solely carted away her laptop and a router utilized by an Alexa good speaker but in addition dug by means of her son Eric’s private financial institution and investments statements to {photograph} them,” in accordance with the Report.
With out the gadgets, she was left unable to stream reveals onto her TV or use gadgets if she wanted assist, the newspaper mentioned. It additionally alleged that in the course of the police operation, officers seized quite a lot of gadgets that went past the search warrant’s scope and have been unrelated to their obvious investigation.
Officers got here to Meyer’s house across the similar time police seized computer systems, cellphones and different gear throughout a search of the Report’s workplaces.
One other damage occurred, the newspaper mentioned, when police chief Gideon Cody “forcibly grabbed” a cellphone from reporter Deb Gruver, alleging that the act injured Gruver’s finger that had beforehand been dislocated.
The raid seems to violate federal regulation
Newsroom raids are uncommon in america, mentioned Lynn Oberlander, a First Modification lawyer.
“It’s totally uncommon as a result of it is unlawful,” Oberlander mentioned. “It would not occur fairly often as a result of most organizations perceive that it is unlawful.”
A number of media regulation specialists instructed NPR the raid seems to be a violation of federal regulation, which protects journalists from this kind of motion. The Privateness Safety Act of 1980 broadly prohibits regulation enforcement officers from looking for or seizing data from reporters.
Oberlander mentioned exceptions to the Privateness Safety Act are “necessary however very restricted.”
One such exception permits authorities to raid a newsroom if the journalists themselves are suspected to be concerned within the crime at hand. In an announcement despatched to NPR, Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody cited this exception to justify his division’s raid of the Marion County Report.
“It’s true that normally, [the Privacy Protection Act] requires police to make use of subpoenas, moderately than search warrants, to go looking the premises of journalists until they themselves are suspects within the offense that’s the topic of the search,” Cody mentioned.
However Oberlander mentioned that exception would not apply when the alleged crime is linked to newsgathering — which seems to be the case in Marion.
“It raises concern for me,” Oberlander mentioned. “It normalizes one thing that should not be taking place — that Congress has mentioned shouldn’t occur, that the First Modification says shouldn’t occur.”
Ken White, a First Modification litigator, mentioned police raids of newsrooms was once extra widespread within the U.S., which led Congress to bolster federal protections in opposition to such searches.
White mentioned the police raid of the Marion County Report is also a violation of the Fourth Modification, which protects individuals from “unreasonable” searches and seizures by the federal government. The search warrant in Marion, signed by county Justice of the Peace choose Laura Viar on Friday morning, allowed officers to confiscate a variety of things, from computer systems and {hardware} to reporting paperwork.
“It is an abuse of energy by the police and it is a severe dereliction of responsibility by the choose who signed off on it,” White mentioned.
Viar couldn’t instantly be reached for remark.
Id theft allegations
Eric Meyer, the writer of the Marion County Report, is pictured on Sunday in Marion, Kan. Legislation enforcement officers seized the paper’s computer systems and cellphones.
John Hanna/AP
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John Hanna/AP
Eric Meyer, the writer of the Marion County Report, is pictured on Sunday in Marion, Kan. Legislation enforcement officers seized the paper’s computer systems and cellphones.
John Hanna/AP
Meyer, the Marion County Report‘s writer, mentioned native restaurateur Kari Newell accused the paper of illegally acquiring drunk-driving information about her.
However the paper, Meyer mentioned, acquired this details about Newell from a separate supply, independently verified it on the Kansas Division of Income’s Division of Autos web site — and determined to not publish it. The paper as a substitute opted to inform native police.
The search warrant, as revealed by the Kansas Reflector and verified by the police chief, particularly allowed officers to confiscate paperwork and information pertaining to “the identification theft of Kari Newell.” The warrant additionally ties the search to “illegal acts regarding computer systems” that have been used to entry the Kansas Division of Income information web site.
“We by no means tried to steal anybody’s identification,” Meyer mentioned.
Jeff Kosseff, a regulation professor at america Naval Academy who specializes within the First Modification, mentioned he was stunned the county choose discovered there was adequate possible trigger to log out on the search warrant. Kosseff mentioned there would have to be “an entire lot extra for this to be an accurate resolution.”
“I can not think about a state of affairs wherein all of those different protections could be overcome to permit a raid on a newsroom,” Kosseff mentioned, referencing the First Modification, the Fourth Modification and the Privateness Safety Act. “This raid has been extra than simply probably compromising sources. This has threatened the power of the newsroom to function altogether — and that is why we now have these protections.”
James Risen, former director of the Press Freedom Protection Fund, known as the raid an “outrageous abuse of energy by the native authorities.”
Risen mentioned all authorities concerned within the raid needs to be investigated for carrying it out.
“There’s a number of precedent for unhealthy conduct of native officers in opposition to the press,” Risen mentioned. “In every case, it needs to be known as out and stopped if we’ll defend the First Modification on this nation.”
Meyer mentioned the confiscation of the paper’s computer systems and telephones makes it tough to proceed operations — however the paper, which has 5 full-time staffers, nonetheless plans to publish its weekly version this Wednesday.
And, Meyer added, he is working with an lawyer to problem the police’s proper to examine the gadgets they confiscated.
“We can’t let this stand. They can’t put us out of enterprise over this,” Meyer mentioned. “That simply is just too unhealthy of a precedent to set for america, to permit something like that to occur.”
Emily Olson contributed reporting.
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