Newspaper raid should chill all Americans
Marion County, Kansas, is located in the middle of the state, almost three hours west of Kansas City, Kan., and is really not the kind of place anyone would really expect to ever hear anything about.
It has a population of about 11,000 people, and its weekly newspaper, the Marion County Record, has a circulation of about 4,000. It reports on the kinds of things that would be fairly typical for a community of its size – trash rates, tax sales of homes, the 50th anniversary of a local heating and air-conditioning business and obituaries.
It also reports on what local officials are up to, and that seemingly caused it to run afoul of some of them. A week ago, the Marion County Record itself became the story when local law enforcement officials raided the newspaper’s office, as well as the home of its co-owner, spiriting away cellphones, computers and documents. They claimed they were investigating identity theft, but did not produce a probable-cause affidavit for the search. Perhaps realizing the error of their ways and the bad publicity that has erupted, officials returned all the items and said their investigation would continue without them.
What could have prompted such a heavy-handed response by police and sheriff’s deputies? Well, it turns out the newspaper was digging into whether the new police chief left his job in Kansas City, Mo., because of sexual misconduct allegations, and a reporter looked into whether a local restaurant owner applying for a liquor license had a DUI record. For the latter, all the reporter did was look at a public online database.
At first, this might seem like a tempest in a small-town teapot. But video images of burly officers suddenly arriving at a newspaper office and gathering up computers, phones and documents should send a chill up the spine of every American. This is not the kind of thing that should happen in this country.
Journalists are protected by the First Amendment, and they also are protected by the Privacy Protection Act of 1980, which protects reporters from searches and seizures by law enforcement, unless the reporter is believed to be involved in or is about to commit a serious crime. Kansas also has a shield law protecting journalists. The raid could well have violated state and federal laws, and the widespread umbrage about it is more than justified.
Rather than being just an isolated incident, it is part of a larger and disturbing pattern of small-d democratic institutions coming under attack. That list would include a onetime occupant of the White House calling the media “the enemy of the people,” the attempt to overturn the 2020 election, district attorneys being impeached over policy differences, library books being banned and officials breathing down the necks of teachers. Some of it is happening simply to score political points, but some of it also simple bullying, an attempt to cow opponents and critics into submission.
If any other public officials were taking notes about what happened at the Marion County Record and were thinking about trying a similar stunt, we shouldn’t let them get away with it.