OT Police stage ‘chilling’ raid on Marion County newspaper, seizing computers, records and cellphones

MARION — In an unprecedented raid Friday, local law enforcement seized computers, cellphones and reporting materials from the Marion County Record office, the newspaper’s reporters, and the publisher’s home.


Eric Meyer, owner and publisher of the newspaper, said police were motivated by a confidential source who leaked sensitive documents to the newspaper, and the message was clear: “Mind your own business or we’re going to step on you.”


The city’s entire five-officer police force and two sheriff’s deputies took “everything we have,” Meyer said, and it wasn’t clear how the newspaper staff would take the weekly publication to press Tuesday night.


The raid followed news stories about a restaurant owner who kicked reporters out of a meeting last week with U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner, and revelations about the restaurant owner’s lack of a driver’s license and conviction for drunken driving.


Meyer said he had never heard of police raiding a newspaper office during his 20 years at the Milwaukee Journal or 26 years teaching journalism at the University of Illinois.


“It’s going to have a chilling effect on us even tackling issues,” Meyer said, as well as “a chilling effect on people giving us information.”


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.


Emily Bradbury, executive director of the Kansas Press Association, said the police raid is unprecedented in Kansas.


“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,” Bradbury said. “This cannot be allowed to stand.”


Meyer reported last week that Marion restaurant owner Kari Newell had kicked newspaper staff out of a public forum with LaTurner, whose staff was apologetic. Newell responded to Meyer’s reporting with hostile comments on her personal Facebook page.



A confidential source contacted the newspaper, Meyer said, and provided evidence that Newell had been convicted of drunken driving and continued to use her vehicle without a driver’s license. The criminal record could jeopardize her efforts to obtain a liquor license for her catering business.


A reporter with the Marion Record used a state website to verify the information provided by the source. But Meyer suspected the source was relaying information from Newell’s husband, who had filed for divorce. Meyer decided not to publish a story about the information, and he alerted police to the situation.


“We thought we were being set up,” Meyer said.


Police notified Newell, who then complained at a city council meeting that the newspaper had illegally obtained and disseminated sensitive documents, which isn’t true. Her public comments prompted the newspaper to set the record straight in a story published Thursday.



Marion County District Court Magistrate Judge Laura Viar signed a search warrant authorizing the police raid of the newspaper office. (Sam Bailey/Kansas Reflector)

Sometime before 11 a.m. Friday, officers showed up simultaneously at Meyer’s home and the newspaper office. They presented a search warrant that alleges identity theft and unlawful use of a computer.


The search warrant identifies two pages worth of items that law enforcement officers were allowed to seize, including computer software and hardware, digital communications, cellular networks, servers and hard drives, items with passwords, utility records, and all documents and records pertaining to Newell.


Officers injured a reporter’s finger by grabbing her cellphone out of her hand, Meyer said. Officers at his home took photos of his bank account information.


He said officers told him the computers, cellphones and other devices would be sent to a lab.


“I don’t know when they’ll get it back to us,” Meyer said. “They won’t tell us.”



The seized computers, server and backup hard drive include advertisements and legal notices that were supposed to appear in the next edition of the newspaper.


“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” he said. “We will publish something.”


Newell, writing Friday under a changed name on her personal Facebook account, said she “foolishly” received a DUI in 2008 and “knowingly operated a vehicle without a license out of necessity.”


“Journalists have become the dirty politicians of today, twisting narrative for bias agendas, full of muddied half-truths,” Newell wrote. “We rarely get facts that aren’t baited with misleading insinuations.”


She said the “entire debacle was brought forth in an attempt to smear my name, jeopardize my licensing through ABC (state Alcoholic Beverage Control Division), harm my business, seek retaliation, and for personal leverage in an ongoing domestic court battle.”


At the law enforcement center in Marion, a staff member said only Police Chief Gideon Cody could answer questions for this story, and that Cody had gone home for the day and could not be reached by phone.


Meyer, whose father worked at the newspaper from 1948 until he retired, bought the Marion County Record in 1998, preventing a sale to a corporate newspaper chain.


As a journalism professor in Illinois, Meyer said, he had graduate students from Egypt who talked about how people would come into the newspaper office and seize everything so they couldn’t publish. Those students presented a scholarly paper at a conference in Toronto about what it has done to journalism there.


“That’s basically what they’re trying to do here,” Meyer said. “The intervention is just like that repressive government of Egypt. I didn’t think it could happen in America.”

https://www.kake.com/story/49404486...aper-seizing-computers-records-and-cellphones

 

Kansas Newspaper Says Its Co-Owner Has Died After Being Traumatized by Police Raid

A Kansas newspaper whose offices were raided by an entire police department on Friday says its 98-year-old co-owner has now died after she was left “stressed beyond her limits.”

Joan Meyer “collapsed Saturday afternoon and died at her home,” the Marion County Record reported, noting that she had been “in good health for her age.” The newspaper’s publisher and co-owner, Eric Meyer, told The Daily Beast that the tragic death came after a raid that lasted several hours—and included a visit from the Marion Police Department chief.

“She made a point last night to say the officers were polite. But it was just annoying to have them there,” he said, adding that his mother was overwhelmed by the ordeal and could not eat after the raid.

The raid at the 98-year-old’s home was one of several the Marion Police Department, which includes five officers and two sheriff’s deputies, conducted on Friday in an ongoing investigation. Police also hit Marion County Record’s office, Meyer’s home, and the home of one of its reporters—resulting in the seizure of vital reporting materials.

“All the raids appeared to be simultaneous,” Meyer said, adding that police “wouldn’t complete them until the police chief himself was there. The chief went to the newspaper offices first and officers were just standing at my mother’s house for two, three hours before the chief showed up.”

“They showed up like the Gestapo.”

He added that during the raid at the Marion County Record’s office, his business manager was left standing outside for hours.

Meyer revealed in the Record’s article about the raid that the newspaper, which has been in operation for decades, now does not have the reporting and publishing materials necessary to print its next edition. He told The Daily Beast that among the items seized were three personal cellphones, a backup hard drive, a router, and at least six computers.

“We are going to publish, somehow,” Meyer said. “We have resurrected an old Windows XP. But it’s the nitty gritty stuff nobody can help us with. Like where is the ad log? Where is our nameplate?”

The publisher also revealed that the outlet has plans to file a federal lawsuit against the City of Marion and those involved in the search. The raid was first reported by the Kansas Reflector.

According to Meyer, a retired University of Illinois journalism professor, the raid came after a confidential source leaked sensitive documents to the newspaper about local restaurateur Kari Newell. The source, Meyer said, provided evidence that Newell had been convicted of DUI and was driving without a license—a fact that could spell trouble for her liquor license and catering business.

Meyer, however, said he ultimately decided not to publish the story about Newell after questioning the motivations of the source. Instead, he said, he alerted the police about the information.

“We thought we were being set up,” Meyer said about the confidential information.

The raid immediately sparked outrage online, calling into question why an entire police force was involved in a raid that could have violated federal law and could escalate the ongoing anti-press rhetoric that is dangerous for journalists simply doing their jobs.

“The raid was chilling and unprecedented, like a scene out of 1945 Nazi Germany,” Danny Karon, an adjunct professor at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law, told The Daily Beast.

According to the search warrant for the Marion County Record Office obtained by the Reflector, officers allege the raid stems from an investigation into unlawful acts concerning a computer and identity theft.

The two-page warrant also states officers were allowed to seize a host of material, including digital communications, servers, computer software, items containing passwords or access codes, and all correspondence and documents “pertaining to Kari Newell.” During the raid, according to the Marion County Record’s article, police also took Meyer’s mother’s Alexa smart speaker, a move that left the 98-year-old in tears.

Meyer told The Daily Beast that police did not say much on Friday when they were executing the raids, but that he immediately knew it was about Newell because of the undetailed search warrant. He said that since the raids, he and his attorney have filed several requests to see the probable cause affidavit that was used to apply for the search warrant—but have yet to receive a copy of the document.

The Reflector reported the raid also came just after the Record published an article about Newell, who responded by kicking reporters out of a meeting last week with Rep. Jake LaTurner. She also alleged that the newspaper had illegally obtained and circulated sensitive documents, which the outlet responded to in its Thursday article. (Turner and Newell did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

Meyer told The Daily Beast that he has spoken to Newell since the raid, who he said admitted to him that she previously had a drunk driving conviction and that she had been driving without a license. He added that she did not apologize about the raid and that she said her lawyers were pursuing criminal charges.

“For a criminal case, you have to prove there was criminal intent. There has to be an attempt to do something wrong. We had no intent to do anything that was illegal,” Meyer said.

Marion Police Department Chief Gideon Cody declined to provide details of the incident, but hinted to The Daily Beast that it is a “criminal investigation” that may have more to it than is currently being reported.

The chief said that the federal Privacy Protection Act “does protect journalists from most searches of newsrooms”—and requires police to use a subpoena rather than a search warrant—unless the journalists “themselves are suspects in the offense that is the subject of the search.” He added that investigators must obtain a subpoena when seeking “work product materials” and “documentary materials” from the press, except in certain circumstances, including “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,” he added. “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,” he added. “I believe when the rest of the story is available to the public, the judicial system that is being questioned will be vindicated.”

A spokesperson for the Kansas Bureau of Investigation said that at the request of the Marion Police Department on Aug. 8, the agency began “an investigation into allegations of criminal wrongdoing” in the town an hour outside of Wichita.

But several experts and advocates consulted by The Daily Beast believe that the situation is a little more complicated and would have a chilling effect on local journalists reporting on public figures.

Others are also calling into question whether the search warrant signed by Marion County District Court Magistrate Judge Laura Viar adhered to the federal law protecting journalists from searches and seizures.

“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,” Emily Bradbury, executive director of the Kansas Press Association, said in a statement. “This cannot be allowed to stand.”

Steven J. Hyman, a trial lawyer and former President of the Board of Directors of the New York Civil Liberties Union, noted that the “search seems so broad, using as an excuse some privacy violation with regard to an alleged DUI, that its purpose was more to silence the newspaper than get legitimate evidence of a crime.”

“Under such circumstances, an argument certainly can be made that it goes well beyond the permitted use of a search warrant… and therefore has serious first amendment implications,” he added.

Meyer added that in his nearly five decades of teaching and practicing journalism, he has never heard of a police department raiding a newspaper.

“This is my first rodeo of anyone coming into a newspaper office and searching it,” Meyer said. “I’m sitting here waiting to see what other shoe is going to drop.”

https://news.yahoo.com/kansas-newspaper-slams-gestapo-tactics-204214886.html