A small town in Kansas has become a battleground over the First Amendment, after the local police force and county sheriff’s deputies raided the office of the Marion County Record. From The New York Times
Raids of news organizations are exceedingly rare in the United States, with its long history of legal protections for journalists. At the Record, a family-owned paper with a circulation of about 4,000, police seized computers, servers and cellphones of reporters and editors. They also searched the home of the publication’s owner and semiretired editor as well as the home of a member of the City Council.
“I believe when the rest of the story is available to the public, the judicial system that is being questioned will be vindicated,” Cody said. He declined to discuss the investigation in detail. In 1998, his family bought the newspaper and two others nearby — the Hillsboro Star-Journal and Peabody Gazette-Bulletin — from the previous publisher, the Hoch family, who had owned them for 124 years.The dispute over the government record that led to the raid might not have become an issue except for a tip that came after a meet-and-greet held Aug. 2 for local Rep. Jake LaTurner at Kari’s Kitchen, an establishment owned by Kari Newell, a local restaurateur.
Last Monday, Newell appeared at a City Council meeting seeking approval to operate a liquor-serving establishment. She accused the newspaper at the meeting of illegally obtaining the letter and giving it to Ruth Herbel, who is on the City Council. Herbel, whose home was also searched Friday, did not respond to a request for comment.
Although news organizations are sometimes the targets of legal actions by government officials, including subpoenas seeking interview notes and other records, the search and seizure of tools to produce journalism are rare. Cody, who started in the job this spring, and Newell argued that journalists are subject to search if they themselves are suspects in the offense being investigated. Newell said that someone had unlawfully used her identity to obtain private information about her online.
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