Lee Heidhues 8.12.2023
I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read this story in The Guardian.
American cops, acting in the worst Police State manner, have raided a newspaper office in Marion, Kansas. Confiscating computers, cellphones and reporting materials.
The cops even expanded this questionable search and seizure to raid the homes of the publication’s publisher and reporters.
This kind of abhorrent behavior is something I expect to be happening in Putin’s Russia.
The Judge who signed this search warrant needs to take a look at the First Amendment to The US Constitution and study the Law. She’s wrong.
Excerpted from The Guardian 8.12.2023
Local police in Marion, Kansas, conducted a raid on the offices of a local newspaper on Friday as well as the homes of the publication’s publishers and reporters.
Eric Meyer, the owner and publisher of the Marion County Record, told the Kansas Reflector that the city’s entire five-officer police force and two sheriff’s deputies conducted the raid, which included the seizure of computers, cellphones and reporting materials.
Sam Bailey/Kansas Reflector
Meyer said the raid and seizure stemmed from a confidential source leaking sensitive documents to the newspaper. He criticized the seizure, comparing it to seizures conducted by repressive government regimes.
The Kansas Reflector reported: “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.”
The Marion police chief, Gideon Cody, did not respond to a request for comment.
Press advocates have condemned the raid as an infringement on the freedom of the press.
“An attack on a newspaper office through an illegal search is not just an infringement on the rights of journalists but an assault on the very foundation of democracy and the public’s right to know,” said Emily Bradbury, executive director of the Kansas Press Association, in a statement to the Kansas Reflector. “This cannot be allowed to stand.”
The chairperson of the National Newspaper Association, John Galer, added in a statement on Facebook: “Newsroom raids in this country receded into history 50 years ago. Today, law enforcement agencies by and large understand that gathering information from newsrooms is a last resort and then done only with subpoenas that protect the rights of all involved.
“For a newspaper to be intimidated by an unannounced search and seizure is unthinkable in an America that respects its first amendment rights.”
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