Police stage ‘chilling’ raid on Marion County newspaper
kansasreflector.com
kansasreflector.com
Wow, unreal that she could approve such a warrant. Even in the absence of a federal statute it seems like a crazy step to take.
> A confidential source contacted the newspaper, [with] evidence that Newell had been convicted of drunken driving and continued to [drive without a] license. [That] could jeopardize her efforts to obtain a liquor license[…].
> [The claim was confirmed but the paper] suspected the source was […] Newell’s husband, who had filed for divorce. [The reporter didn’t publish that and] alerted police to the situation.
> Police notified Newell, who then complained […] that the newspaper had illegally obtained and disseminated sensitive documents, which isn’t true.
Wow. No kidding it’s a small town. Restaurant owner acts poorly, pissed off future ex(?) leaks damaging info to the paper, she runs to the cops to say the paper did something illegal despite not publishing it, and the entire department raided the little paper?
Yeesh.
Your comment brought back memories of growing up in India.
The idea of a "Panchayat" was taught in schools as both an ancient form of local/self governance and a modern answer to effective governance in post partition India. Even Gandhi promoted it as a pillar of India's self-rule.
Basically, village "elders" land up passing judgement on disputes. Most of these people were "respected" but uneducated. Their world views were very narrow.
As can be expected, it wasn't uncommon for their biases to result in "justice" that would be totally unacceptable when viewed through a broader lens.
After decades in the US, to discover that something like this can happen in 21st century USA is really unsettling. I'm having trouble explaining (even to myself) the anguish I feel.
Federal >> state >> local
It seems plausible that the paper might report on things that relate to or impact neighboring states.
But like I said - even if the statute weren't there - what's wrong with calling them up and asking them to surrender whatever they're searching for under subpoena instead? Especially for the purported crime of "identity theft"?!
And last clause says Congress has three power to enforce this
And sadly this perhaps qualifies as "due process" in Marion County.
I'm not sure what isn't interstate commerce maybe your kids lemonade stand as long as it's more than 100 miles from the state line?
What law is that? I'm not familiar with such a law but can't imagine it would even be constitutional. Eg the law Jack Smith indicted trump with recently is about protecting federal/conditional rights.
Yes, the commerce clause is quite expansive and is interpreted expansively, but at the least this would be a first amendment issue and Congress can enforce that and does
That citation and the quoted bit limiting the law to interstate commerce is already in the first comment you replied to. I think you have misconstrued something.
The law we're all talking about prohibits a government employee from searching or seizing any product materials intended for use in production of communication materials that affect interstate commerce.
E.g. Wickard v. Filburn, held that a farmer harvesting a small quantity of his own wheat and eating it affected interstate commerce, because the farmer did not consume other wheat available in interstate commerce.
Just about anything commercial affects interstate commerce by this definition.
Melissa Underwood, communications director of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, replied by email to a question about whether the KBI was involved in the case.
“At the request of the Marion Police Department, on Tuesday, Aug. 8, we began an investigation into allegations of criminal wrongdoing in Marion, Kansas. The investigation is ongoing,” Underwood said.https://www.sccourts.org/summaryCourtBenchBook/HTML/GeneralB....
You don’t really want the bar to entry for the roll of magistrate to be too high.
The page you linked states a magistrate must be at least 21, have a Batchelor’s degree, undergo a training program within one year of commencing the roll, with restrictions on their abilities until that and other milestones are met.
This points to the idea that any reasonable adult, with a proven ability to pass at least a baccalaureate, ought be able to administer the law to at least a level of basic competency while they simultaneously commit to the career path by undergoing relevant training.
Magistrates who are licensed attorneys have fewer restrictions and can progress faster.
Is there some other set of rules you would prefer?
Should the average higher-education-qualify adult be prevented from participating in the judiciary?
That doesn’t seem like an argument a citizen of a democracy wound intentionally make.
They are rubber stamping warrant requests without any consideration of the Constitution, how is what I'm proposing anti-democratic?
This might be a bit spicy, but I don't think that a bachelors degree should count as higher education anymore. So, no, the average higher-education-qualify adult shouldn't be prevented from participating in the judiciary, but I think the bar for 'higher-education-qualify' should at least be a post-bachelors degree specific to the field.
0 - this is as close to absolute immunity as exists in the law. In fact, you could, with a straight face and clean conscience call it absolute immunity.
1 - no, seriously. They can, for instance order an underage girl to be sterilized in an ex-parte hearing and face no consequences. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stump_v._Sparkman
Stump v. Sparkman, 435 U.S. 349 (1978), is the leading United States Supreme Court decision on judicial immunity. It involved an Indiana judge who was sued by a young woman who had been sterilized without her knowledge as a minor in accordance with the judge's order. The Supreme Court held that the judge was immune from being sued for issuing the order because it was issued as a judicial function. The case has been called one of the most controversial in recent Supreme Court history.
The most controversial case in recent Supreme Court history being from 45 years ago speaks directly to how rare this level of controversy is.
Maybe you should be more riled up.
The point is it happened and there were no consequences or accountability for the judge involved.
If you think more minor “controversies” don’t happen every single day, enabled by this sort or legal reasoning, I cannot help you.
The 4th amendment isn’t worth anything if judges will sign off on everything that crosses their desk.
> From 1979 through 2012, the court overseeing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has rejected only 11 of the more than 33,900 surveillance applications by the government
> "The FISA system is broken. At the point that a FISA judge can compel the disclosure of millions of phone records of U.S. citizens engaged in only domestic communications, unrelated to the collection of foreign intelligence…there is no longer meaningful judicial review," Mr. Rotenberg said.
Story by the Wall Street Journal https://archive.ph/lafXz
When I tried to get records showing how often search warrants happen and what their details are, they give inconsistent amounts of records for identical time windows. First FOIA request gave 9k records, second was 11k, third was 18k. And colleagues were able to find more with requests for emails.
When I appealed to the IL AG office, they sided with CPD saying that a sufficient search was done, despite our proof showing that a marginally expanded search resulted in more records.
All made worse by the Judicial branch being un-FOIAable.
It's all pretty fucked.
If there was a statistically relevant problem, we wouldn’t hear about this sort of malfeasance in the news.
The fact that there is almost always one or another incident making the news only indicates that rare events occur frequently at sufficiently large scale.
The overwhelming majority of search and arrest warrants are authorised because they should be, and, well, like any job role, mistakes shouldn’t be dealt with by disciplinary action that results in the work being ground to a halt.
Where serious wrong doing occurs we should expect disciplinary action, and we do see that occasionally as it makes the news.
There’s definitely an argument to be made that maybe some police are too prone to abuse their powers, but the answer isn’t perfect law enforcement, the answer is how much malfeasance and corruption is tolerable, because we’ll never have none, and the only thing worse than corruption is perfect law enforcement.
The judiciary and law enforcement absolutely must be held to a higher standard which does not accept mistakes. They are not 'any job role' -- these people have the authority to take away your livelihood, if not your life. The standard they must be held to should be perfection and nothing less. Any deviation from such should be treated as harshly as the worst criminals are.
> Where serious wrong doing occurs we should expect disciplinary action
_Any_ wrongdoing by law enforcement is serious.
> the answer is how much malfeasance and corruption is tolerable, because we’ll never have none
Just because we won't ever end up at 'none' doesn't mean we need to be accepting of anything less. Zero malfeasance, zero corruption. Anything but those should be burned out as a cancer, even if that burning out needs to be literal.
What the Marion County Record is doing is incredibly vital for their community. I just went to their web page. They currently don't have a fundraiser yet, but I hope they'll start one.
So... way to stay on brand, Florida.
It'll never happen probably, but it should.
Two things occur to me about this story, exposed in this quote, that I often think when seeing stories of this nature:
1. Many businesses that rely on computers don't have a disaster recovery plan, and thus, can't spin up again for a while, sometimes at all.
2. Good security (i.e. enough to frustrate aggressive criminal gangs, like the police) is often not in place, for a number of understandable reasons, but they also tend to include less understandable ones (as in (1)).
People like our good selves, the readers of HN, might think about how we can offer our services a bit more widely to help some of the smaller fish out there stand up to bullying and attacks.
https://www.uschamber.com/co/run/technology/3-2-1-backup-rul...
Does a small-town newspaper expect to be raided by law enforcement and build a disaster recovery plan around that, or a tornado?
They don't call it "The Long Arm of the Law" for no reason.
Preserving some things (without hiding anything) is better than nothing.
I'm wondering about the (not necessarily financial) ROI. I don't know many small businesses that could afford it and I think the the load on the tech volunteers would be too large.
Happy to be proved wrong, though.
http://marionrecord.com/dispatch/police_raid_newspaper_offic...
Previously she had accused the newspaper of obtaining the information illegally.
http://marionrecord.com/dispatch/restaurateur_accuses_paper_...
There's also a headline from their last week's issue, "Media ejected from open forum" that seems likely to be related. Google's cache of the article is at: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3... so I'll give a relevant quote for when that expires:
> Two representatives of the news media were ordered by Marion police chief Gideon Cody to leave a public reception Tuesday for U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner.
> Cody’s directions came at the behest of Kari Newell, proprietor of Chef’s Plate in Marion’s Historic Elgin Hotel and its coffee shop across the street, Kari’s Kitchen, where the event was taking place.
> Cody said that Newell asked that Record publisher Eric Meyer and Record reporter Phyllis Zorn be evicted before LaTurner arrived.
> Moments before Cody ordered Meyer and Zorn to leave, Newell had told Zorn: “I will not have members of the media in my establishment. You have to leave.”
The person owning the Doughnuts, owns the Police. /s
The Marion Kansas Police Department has has several inquiries regarding an ongoing investigation.
As much as I would like to give everyone details on a criminal investigation I cannot. I believe when the rest of the story is available to the public, the judicial system that is being questioned will be vindicated.
I appreciate all the assistance from all the State and Local investigators along with the entire judicial process thus far.
Speaking in generalities, the federal Privacy Protection Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000aa-2000aa-12, does protect journalists from most searches of newsrooms by federal and state law enforcement officials. It is true that in most cases, it requires police to use subpoenas, rather than search warrants, to search the premises of journalists unless they themselves are suspects in the offense that is the subject of the search.
The Act requires criminal investigators to get a subpoena instead of a search warrant when seeking “work product materials” and “documentary materials” from the press, except in circumstances, including: (1) when there is reason to believe the journalist is taking part in the underlying wrongdoing.
The Marion Kansas Police Department believes it is the fundamental duty of the police is to ensure the safety, security, and well-being of all members of the public. This commitment must remain steadfast and unbiased, unaffected by political or media influences, in order to uphold the principles of justice, equal protection, and the rule of law for everyone in the community. The victim asks that we do all the law allows to ensure justice is served. The Marion Kansas Police Department will nothing less.
https://www.facebook.com/marionpoliceks/posts/pfbid0cch8ULTS...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shield_laws_in_the_United_Stat...
"There is no federal shield law and state shield laws vary in scope."
https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1241/shield-law...
"There is no federal shield law"
Not even former or sitting presidents are protected.
The thing is the article didn’t say anything about shield laws, which is what the comment I was responding to was talking about.
>The search warrant, signed by Marion County District Court Magistrate Judge Laura Viar, appears to violate federal law that provides protections against searching and seizing materials from journalists. The law requires law enforcement to subpoena materials instead.
This isn't true. It is legal to search and seize journalists, if the journalist are suspected of committing a crime.
Either the author doesn't know the law, or is being misleading, because the same article also says the local and state cops are investigating the local journalist.
The statement from the state police is a lot more vague than that:
> “At the request of the Marion Police Department, on Tuesday, Aug. 8, we began an investigation into allegations of criminal wrongdoing in Marion, Kansas. The investigation is ongoing”
And even the warrant only uses passive language indicating that crimes have been committed without identifying a suspect:
> Having evidence under oath before me from which I find there is probable cause to believe that an offense against the laws of the State of Kansas, including but not limited to violations of K.S.A. 21-6107 - Identity theft and K.S.A. 21-5839 - Unlawful acts concerning computers, has been committed
but the warrant does at least identify that it is believed computers at the paper were "involved in the identity theft". However, no person at the paper has yet been named as suspected of committing a crime.
This isn't a case study, or an example from a textbook, its an ongoing situation. Conclusively saying that the raid was illegal isn't a fact, its just an opinion, and not even a credited one - it reads like the journalist's opinion.
So its one thing to report on a police raid, its another thing to offer a legal opinion and present it as fact without conditionals, or whose opinion it is.
What if they're wrong?
https://www.rcfp.org/privilege-compendium/kansas/#:~:text=Th....
> The search warrant, signed by Marion County District Court Magistrate Judge Laura Viar, appears to violate federal law* that provides protections against searching and seizing materials from journalists. The law requires law enforcement to subpoena materials instead. Viar didn’t respond to a request to comment for this story or explain why she would authorize a potentially illegal raid.
In practice, no.
Just look at marijuana and abortion laws for two different prime examples of how supposed federal law superseding "lower" law can play out in ways that circumvent the nature of that power structure.
The reality is law is reactionary. Just because a law exists doesn't mean there is actually anything tangible preventing you from performing an action, and if the courts are acting in ways counter to federal law AND/OR federal law isn't asserting/executing authority that it has to supercede local law, then it's implicitly allowing it to continue and perhaps even setting precedent or groundwork to dismantle that particular paradigm.
Remember, this is America. States Rights advocates aren't just numerous, but hold significant power in state and federal legislature and courts. While the Federal law should reign supreme, the reality on the ground is that even when it does, it's often playing catch up, so there's still a gulf between how things work in theory, and in reality, if for nothing else just due to the slow operation of federal government and law.
Neither of these are good examples.
Marijuana is because the Feds choose not to act; the DEA could raid every dispensary tomorrow if they wanted.
Abortion never got meaningfully protected at the Federal level. The Dems had sort of a chance at it, but chose the ACA to spend that political capital on instead.
> (a) Right of action
> A person aggrieved by a search for or seizure of materials in violation of this chapter shall have a civil cause of action for damages for such search or seizure—
> (1) against the United States, against a State which has waived its sovereign immunity under the Constitution to a claim for damages resulting from a violation of this chapter, or against any other governmental unit, all of which shall be liable for violations of this chapter by their officers or employees while acting within the scope or under color of their office or employment; and [...]
And https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2000aa-7
> (c) “Any other governmental unit”, as used in this chapter, includes the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, any territory or possession of the United States, and any local government, unit of local government, or any unit of State government.
It can appear as a can of tomatoes being consumed by Andy Warhol himself. It doesn't change the fact there are no shield laws in Kansas or the US for journalists.
>...it shall be unlawful for a government officer or employee, in connection with the investigation or prosecution of a criminal offense, to search for or seize any work product materials possessed by a person reasonably believed to have a purpose to disseminate to the public a newspaper, book, broadcast, or other similar form of public communication
... followed by a bunch of caveats about cases in which it is acceptable to seize documents. I'm not a lawyer, but that sounds to me like a federal law protecting journalists. Whether or not it was violated in this case remains to be seen.
>this provision shall not impair or affect the ability of any government officer or employee, pursuant to otherwise applicable law, to search for or seize such materials, if— (1)there is probable cause to believe that the person possessing such materials has committed or is committing the criminal offense to which the materials relate
This is obviously relevant as the police allege the journalist committed a crime, specifically identify theft.
Or it could be a trumped up accusation and an unconstitutional warrant.
We simply don't have the information. An honest an intelligent article would have articulated this question as the Crux of the matter, opposed to obfuscating it and claiming the warrant was unconstitutional.
I'm personally very opposed to a police corruption and overreach, but also hate skewed articles that mislead. Real reform needs to come from a place of accuracy opposed to hype and misinformation.
This makes it hard for me to see this as anything other than a retaliatory overreach, especially given the context of the paper's track record of critical reporting on local government and law enforcement.
It's also worth noting that the article mentions a lawful source for the information in question (a tip from Newell's husband).
This is an incomplete summary of the laws
> may not search for or seize such materials under the provisions of this paragraph if the offense to which the materials relate consists of the receipt, possession, communication, or withholding of such materials or the information contained therein
(followed by exceptions for national defense and child pornography)
It seems unlikely that the police presented evidence the journalists were perpetrating identity theft, or evidence that the journalists obtained their information through computer hacking rather than receiving it from their confidential source. If the suspect for those crimes was the confidential source rather than the journalists, then the journalists and their work products would be protected by this law.
> possessed by a person reasonably believed to have a purpose to disseminate to the public a newspaper, book, broadcast, or other similar form of public communication, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce;
"Journalist" is merely an informal summary of what the law actually states.
If everybody is a journalist, then there's no ambiguity. But if the law says that some people are journalists and some people aren't, now there are two classes of citizen and it isn't even clear which is which.
[0]: https://www.propublica.org/article/these-judges-can-have-les...
Still, I suppose there was all the stuff about Jeff Adachi and what the cops did to the journalists there, so I suppose your point is sound.
Lord, what fools these morons be.
Throwaway to protect my sibling's identity (very very small town).
> Doesn't affect the legality of this raid, of course.
Do you see how the second statement undermines the first? "Yeah, but some people don't like the paper" isn't really an opposing side to the story, just sour grapes.
The raid might be legal or illegal. The people running the paper might be behaving unethically/illegally or ethically/legally. And if the people running the paper are committing crimes, that IS relevant to the legality of the raid. Not just sour grapes.
And perhaps those of us that live nearby have more information and perspective than random commenters on HN?
Can't you see how a article that waxes poetic about freedom of the press and ignores potential illegal/immoral behavior of the specific reporters might result in internet outrage that doesn't address the scope of the community's issues?
Instead, you wrote, "And perhaps those of us that live nearby have more information and perspective than random commenters on HN?" That statement is nearly an appeal to authority, like a cable news-watching boomer saying, "Trust me, kid, I know what I'm talking about."
Doesn't seem likely, given what you've posted so far. Do you have anything of substance to contribute aside from the completely unsurprising information that the paper has enemies? Perhaps you could link to any of the unethical hit pieces you say the paper makes a habit of publishing. Or provide a plausible hypothesis for how identity theft and computer hacking could be crimes the paper's involved in committing. Because so far, it's pretty hard to construe this affair as the journalists being the bad guys and the cops being in the right, even if we account for the journalists in question being muckrakers.
I have no motivation to provide evidence to the internet so they can test my sibling's claims - I just wanted to share that the one sided outrage may potentially be unfounded.
Much of HN values hearing from those personally involved in our stories. In this instance, I'm somewhat involved, so I shared some context. I don't know anything beyond what I've shared.
Yes, of course an established newspaper is more credible than an anonymous online user.
But it's also not just about who gets the benefit of the doubt. The facts available so far do not fit easily into a plausible story that would justify the police actions: we would need explanations for why the paper would be committing identity theft and computer hacking crimes to report on matters of public record, why the paper would claim to have reached out to police rather than publish damaging information, why the paper was raided but nobody was arrested or charged with any crimes.
On the other hand, the available facts do fit easily into a plausible story of cronyism and incompetence. It's a lot easier to believe that the local officials were being overzealous in pursuit of someone they perceived to be trying to damage the reputation of someone politically connected. The unanswered questions here are more about which plausible explanation is correct: are the police trying to build a case against the paper, or against the paper's confidential source?
Journalists are not above all criminal investigation, so it heavily depends on the alleged crimes.
Searching journalists is completely legal depending on the reason