A central Kansas police chief was not solely on legally shaky floor when he ordered the raid of a weekly newspaper, specialists stated, however it could have been a legal violation of civil rights, a former federal prosecutor added, saying: “I’d probably have the FBI starting to look.”
Some authorized specialists imagine the Aug. 11 raid on the Marion County Record’s workplaces and the house of its writer violated a federal privateness legislation that protects journalists from having their newsrooms searched. Some imagine it violated a Kansas legislation that makes it tougher to power reporters and editors to reveal their sources or unpublished materials.
Part of the talk facilities round Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody’s causes for the raid. A warrant steered that police had been in search of proof that the Record’s employees broke state legal guidelines in opposition to identification theft and pc crimes whereas verifying details about a neighborhood restaurant proprietor. But the police additionally seized the pc tower and private cellphone belonging to a reporter who had investigated Cody’s background.
The raid introduced worldwide consideration to the newspaper and the small city of 1,900 — foisted to the middle of a debate over press freedoms. Recent occasions have uncovered roiling divisions over native politics and the newspaper’s aggressive protection. But it additionally targeted an intense highlight on Cody in solely his third month on the job.
The investigation into whether or not the newspaper broke state legal guidelines continues, now led by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. State Attorney General Kris Kobach has stated he does not see the KBI’s position as investigating the police’s conduct, and that prompted some to query whether or not the federal authorities would become involved. Spokespersons for the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice declined to remark.
Stephen McAllister, a U.S. lawyer for Kansas throughout former President Donald Trump’s administration, stated the raid opened Cody, town and others to lawsuits for alleged civil proper violations. And, he added, “We also have some exposure to federal criminal prosecution.”
“I would be surprised if they are not looking at this, if they haven’t already been asked by various interests to look at it, and I would think they would take it seriously,” McAllister, a University of Kansas legislation professor who additionally served because the state’s solicitor normal, stated of federal officers.
Cody didn’t reply to an e mail looking for remark Friday, as he has not responded to different emails. But he did defend the raid in a Facebook submit afterward, saying the federal legislation shielding journalists from newsroom searches makes an exception particularly for “when there is reason to believe the journalist is taking part in the underlying wrongdoing.”
Police seized computer systems, private cellphones and a router from the newspaper. All gadgets had been launched Wednesday to a pc forensics auditing agency employed by the newspaper’s lawyer, after the native prosecutor concluded the proof did not justify their seizure. The agency is inspecting whether or not information had been accessed or copied.
The Record is thought for its aggressive protection of native politics and its neighborhood about 150 miles (161 kilometers) southwest of Kansas City, Missouri. It acquired an outpouring of assist from different information organizations and media teams after the raid, and Editor and Publisher Eric Meyer stated Friday that it had picked up 4,000 extra subscribers, which is double its regular press run.
But the raids did have some backers on the town. Jared Smith blames the newspaper’s protection for the demise of his spouse’s day spa enterprise and believes the newspaper is simply too unfavourable.
“I would love to see the paper go down,” he stated.
And Kari Newell, whose allegations that the newspaper violated her privateness have been cited as causes for the raid, stated of the paper, “They do twist and contort — misquote individuals in our community — all the time.”
Meyer rejects criticism of his newspaper’s reporting and said critics are upset because it’s attempting to hold local officials accountable. And he blames the stress from the raid for the Aug. 12 death of his 98-year-old mother, Joan Meyer, the paper’s co-owner.
Meyer said that after the mayor offered Cody the police chief’s job in late April, the newspaper received anonymous tips on “a variety of tales” about why Cody gave up a Kansas City position paying $115,848 a year to take a job paying $60,000, according to a sister paper. Meyer said the newspaper could not verify the tips to its satisfaction.
Days before Cody was sworn in as chief on May 30, Meyer said that he asked Cody directly about the tips he received and Cody told him: “If you print that, I’ll sue you.”
“We get confidential things from people all the time and we check them out,” stated Doug Anstaett, a retired Kansas Press Association government director. “And sometimes we know they’re silly, but most of the time we get a tip, we check it out. And that’s exactly what they’re doing.”
Anstaett said he believes the state’s shield law for journalists, enacted in 2010 by the Republican-controlled Legislature, should have protected the paper. It allows law enforcement agencies to seek subpoenas to obtain confidential information from news organizations, but it requires them to show that they have a compelling interest and can’t obtain it in another way.
Former Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt, a Republican who helped write the shield law as a state senator, said the law doesn’t contemplate law enforcement using a search warrant to get information without going to court to get a subpoena. Still, he said, “The spirit of the law is that it should be broadly applied.”
Jeffrey Jackson, interim dean of the law school at Washburn University in Topeka, said he recently wrapped up a summer constitutional law course that dealt with press freedoms and the federal privacy law and told his students — before the Marion raid — that a police search of a newspaper “really just never happens.”
Jackson said whether the raid violated the state’s shield law would depend on Cody’s motives, whether he was trying to identify sources. But even if Cody was searching for evidence of a crime by newspaper staff, Jackson believes he likely violated the federal privacy law because it, like the state law, contemplates a law enforcement agency getting a subpoena.
“Either they violated the shield law or they probably violated the federal law,” Jackson said. “Either way, it’s a mess.”
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Hollingsworth reported from Mission, Kansas.
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