It sounds like a tragic and suspicious situation, and what I'm most curious about (since this is HN) is whether the federal government will step in, and figure out what's going on.
Btw, from what I got by glancing past the comments in the original post, whoever runs this newspaper is a total rat. What started all this is the newspaper snitching on a self-employed woman who lost her driver's license 15 years ago, and telling the police she's still using it for her job. This doesn't excuse the raid, but god I hate petty small town people.
The Marion Record was in the process of investigating the Marion police chief. He used to work for the Kansas City (MO) PD. Allegedly, he was demoted for "sexual misconduct" before he quit and came to work for Marion.
This reveal comes in an interview of the Marion Record's publisher. It's an interesting read and he's an interesting guy. One of the old school reporters, in a very good way.
https://thehandbasket.substack.com/p/a-conversation-with-the...
The other new development is the Kansas Bureau of Investigation revealed they were part of building the case against the newspaper. KBI didn't participate in the raid, but were otherwise working with the Marion police.
https://kansasreflector.com/2023/08/13/kbi-director-on-mario...
> When the newspaper asked for a copy of the probable cause affidavit required by law to issue a search warrant, the district court issued a signed statement saying no such affidavit was on file, the Record reported.
Not a lawyer and I know it takes quite a lot for a judge to be disciplined but that would seem to be something a judicial conduct board would want to look at.
https://apnews.com/article/marion-kansas-newspaper-raid-aca0...
https://www.mcguirewoods.com/news-resources/publications/med...
[1] https://www.wypr.org/2023-01-23/whats-with-those-the-greates...
I assume you've read or watched "We Own This City"? I'd be curious about your take on it.
Side note but I remember when they first rolled out that Baltimore bench slogan... I vaguely remember some explanations that the previous slogan ("The City that Reads") was also rather "aspirational", given the illiteracy rate.
But I don't think that's what's happening here at all. I have seen this story all over the place in national news. And what I think is that the mere fact that any of us living nowhere near this little town are aware this happened means that the people responsible for it are in deep sh*t. I think they'll be made an example of. I think the state and federal justice systems will be racing each other to make an example of them.
And if I'm right about that, it's not an upsetting indictment of the system, it's an affirmation of its success.
The choice is in your hands to continue to attribute credibility to institutions that may no longer merit it.
They consider independent reporting (eg YouTubers) to be the main threat, thus why we don't really see them making national headlines out of their suppression and why they even go out of their way to exclude them from their definition of press.
If you publish some awful stuff, other people are allowed to point out that you said awful stuff and there are consequences for that, and that's how it's supposed to work.
You're talking about the American First Amendment specifically, not freedom of the press generally. The World Press Freedom Index includes sociocultural context and safety; if journalists are being attacked by mobs of angry citizens that is obviously a problem for the freedom of the press. To assert otherwise is ludicrous.
Which the government would never ruin the facade of freedom so they follow through at unofficial capacities
But good luck with a definition of freedom of the press that doesn't include when white mobs would break into black newspapers, break the presses, and burn the building down. Does freedom of the press give the government an obligation to prosecute, or nah?
You can make "freedom to publish without retribution" possible only by qualifying the kind of publishing and/or the kind of retribution.
You have to prosecute and pursue justice after the crime/s, not before. Justice is rarely a fast event. It's identical to someone walking into a convenience store and robbing it. You can't literally stop that from happening, you have to have a justice system that will prosecute crime. There are of course no precogs yet (Minority Report [0]).
What happens next is far more important than that it happened.
> If this is allowed to pass without the people ordering the raid fired, I am not optimistic about what the future holds.
Given the scale of the US, that's overly dramatic for sure. All sorts of bad things - far worse than this - happen on a small level in the US across the states, that have practically no impact on the wider nation.
Given that the KBI (Kansas Bureau of Investigation) was in on it, and given that a Kansas district judge signed a search warrant in the absence of an affidavit (which I'm sure this judge was well-aware was needed, but it seems this judge simply didn't care about the rule of law), one can say that multiple organs of the Kansas state acted in cohort to violate the First Amendment.
OP wrote:
> If this is allowed to pass without the people ordering the raid fired, I am not optimistic about what the future holds
If the state of Kansas doesn't hold the people who did this to account (especially, at the very least by impeaching this judge), we absolutely need the federal government to step in, and hopefully both prosecute & imprison the individuals involved in this egregious rights violation. IANAL, but 18 U.S. Code § 242 "Deprivation of rights under color of law" (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/242) seems applicable here.
If both Kansas and especially the federal government fail to prosecute the hold the people who ordered this raid into account, I'm not particularly optimistic about the future of the U.S. either.
But you seem to be commenting as if the U.S. federal government has already failed to uphold this duty. But that makes no sense because this just happened. Now that this is widespread national news, there is very little chance that these criminals get to walk away from this. These people are all going down, whether on state or federal charges (or both). But it will take months or years, because that's how long it takes.
There is almost certainly a story here about how it requires widespread news attention to get something like this sorted out, but once there is widespread news attention, the jig is up.
Where there is no consequence to the police departments go after the press who are investigating them?
I don’t know that we see that all the time! In fact, that’s why this story is news!
While I'm sympathetic to your comment in isolation, do you think there is any chance that after the slow wheels of justice do turn, these violent thugs and their facilitators are actually going to end up in prison for armed assault, robbery, kidnapping, criminal conspiracy, etc? This is the breakdown in the rule of law that people are outraged about, regardless of the somewhat unreasonable desire that justice should happen quicker. If justice were merely slow but still dependable, people wouldn't be nearly as outraged.
Also if there were a consistent pattern of rogue law enforcement employees getting designated as having acted outside of their state-granted authority, prosecuted as regular criminals, and going to prison, this particular incident would have been less likely to happen in the first place. So given the larger context it's a bit specious to say we just need to give the situation time, when time mostly serves to make the widespread attention fade.
This is not a demonstration of the breakdown of the rule of law, until the law actually fails to act on it. And I think that's incredibly unlikely at this point. But maybe the justice system will indeed fail to act on this, and then we should have this conversation and you'll probably find I agree with you.
But it's impossible for the justice system to have acted on this yet.
It's good to be outraged; our outrage is why this will be acted upon, so we must maintain that. But it's, frankly, dumb, to jump to this "the entire system is broken because these people are still walking free after a non-zero number of days!". That's just not how it works!
First you say it's really important to prosecute all crime because justice is about the response to crime.
Then you say it's silly to be worried that a bunch of "small crime" (furthermore, there's nothing to indicate in this case that this is a small crime) goes unpunished all the time.
Which one is it? Do we care about crime or don't we? I'd say it's actually the little crimes going unpunished that worry me the most... car theft, shoplifting, etc. These signal to participants that it's okay to behave in a way that is not in line with the stated laws of the land. Building this safe space for petty crime is far more dangerous than having a one-off corrupt asshole who committed a more "serious" crime run free on a legal technicality, because the safe-space normalizes bad behavior and desensitizes society to crime.
In the short term, there is and will be overreach by law enforcement and prosecution.
In the intermediate/long term, we should recognize these incidents and ensure redress is made and justice is brought.
Which seems a pretty reasonable position:
- People need flexibility to do their jobs
- We should have robust oversight to review actions taken
- We should consider irreversible actions extremely seriously (or prevent them outright)
It asks for "your" information to find the record, but based on the allowed uses you can definitely get records for other people. I would say a journalist accessing DUI records would fall under permitted use case M. That accessing this is identity theft is a farcical claim.
Pretending to _be_ someone, _stealing their identity_, is identity theft. Absolutely nothing in this story sounds like that, and it sounds like the warrant is entirely farcical.
"They're afraid. They're really afraid that the police power is unchecked, and that they can be punished like this."
In both cases he says that they are investigating allegations. In fact, at one point it is said, they turned over information to the police because they thought it might be related to a civil matter (somebody's divorce). They don't feel they have enough information to make the allegations public.
Something never change but the semantics, police are trying to find the leak, IMHO.
> Newell said she believes the newspaper violated the law to get her personal information as it checked on the status of her driver’s license after a 2008 drunken driving conviction and other driving violations.
> The newspaper countered that it received that information unsolicited, which it verified through public online records. It eventually decided to not run a story because it wasn’t sure the source who supplied it had obtained it legally. But the newspaper did run a story on the city council meeting, in which Newell confirmed that she’d had a DUI conviction and that she had continued to drive even after her license was suspended.
However, I'm not sure "verifying a rumor via public records" is what the various "using a computer to do crimes" laws are about, especially because my understanding of various public records and registry searches are precisely to allow the public to verify these kinds of rumors.
Reading between the lines, it seems that they were most interested in unmasking the identities of these anonymous sources and sending a message to the newspaper.
[1] https://kansasreflector.com/2023/08/11/police-stage-chilling...
[2] https://kiowacountypress.net/content/opinion-powerful-voices...
Just, Devil's Advocate.
Or, I guess, "Founder's Advocate"?
But isn't that what we're supposed to do here in the US?
I mean, you know, Constitutionally speaking?
Presumably the restaurant owner accusing the newspaper editor of identity theft gives good cover for the police chief to get a warrant and search for anything else (ie information about investigations into himself). That does give a veneer of legality to the raid.
I would have agreed, if it hadn't been for the County Attorney (who according to their website is "the chief law enforcement officer in Marion County."[0]) putting his foot in his mouth, and the paper exposing the relationship between him and the restaurant owner. It makes it pretty clear what actually is going on here.
> A Record reporter later requested a copy of the probable cause affidavit necessary for issuance of the search warrant.
> District court, where such items are supposed to be filed, issued a signed statement saying no affidavit was on file.
> County attorney Joel Ensey, whose brother owns the hotel where Newell operates her restaurant, was asked for it but said he would not release it because it was “not a public document.”
---
[0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20230215034526/https://www.mario...
I honestly can't see how anyone with a law degree would have even touched this situation under the same circumstances. Journalists? Preexisting business relationships that are documented and freely available to the public.
Jeez, at least hide stuff in holding companies or trusts or something. What were these guys doing?
Looking it up, the county only has a population of ~11.8k[0], and the town only has 1.9k residents[1]. Which is on the verge of "doesn't exist" usually for news.
Also editing the original comment, because apparently he's also their chief of police.[2]
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_County,_Kansas
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion,_Kansas
[2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20230215034526/https://www.mario...
> The County Attorney is the chief law enforcement officer in Marion County.
My entirely unevidenced belief is that this happens _all the time_ and recent events are only notable because they didn't just go away. With local news in freefall if anything I imagine this is happening more and more.
Most likely yes, and he isn't wrong to believe that. This is genuinely how small towns & rural areas function even still. The sheriff, judge, police chief, school principal, county commissioner, and the most significant business owners and landlords will all be part of the same segregation-era country club or masonic lodge or some other thing and they'll make decisions and ask favors together over there.
Usually the local newspaper owner would also be part of this clique, and I guess the county attorney misjudged the ramifications of that. But this sort of local corruption is rampant and the people doing it can count on the fact that it almost never gets picked up as a national news item.
I mean who is going to do anything about it? They are in charge of who gets indicted and who doesn’t.
> County attorney Joel Ensey, whose brother owns the hotel where Newell operates her restaurant
[1] https://peabodykansas.com/direct/restaurateur_accuses_paper_...
What was originally intended to be a show of intent, a brassy display of the sort of wheeling-and-dealing political life that has always existed in small rural towns has detonated with a spectacle not seen since the Beirut explosion. This is the sort of scandal that disbands police departments under consent-decree and sends your entire small town leadership from the city council up to the mayor out the door.
If the point was to ensure a coverup, you couldnt have done worse. constitutional transgressions like this have the ability to dissolve the Marion entirely.
[1] https://marionrecord.com/credit/subscription:MARION+COUNTY+R...
Is that wrong?
I am asking here about the actual interpretation of the law, not the "ideal world" scenario...
This is the best case I could find:
The police can and will do all kinds of illegal things, regardless of the law. It's up to the courts and DoJ, etc, to sort that out after the fact, there's not much anyone can do before it happens.
<Edit>
Need to explain reference.
There is a video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1_RKu-ESCY
It kind of glorifies small town justice/vigilantism. Like, the rest of the country is falling apart, but the small town wouldn't let that happen (wink, wink).
https://www.npr.org/2023/07/20/1188966935/jason-aldean-try-t...
But then the original post, story about small town sheriff raiding a newspaper kind of shows indications of small town corruption.
So the point is about the dichotomy of 'small towns' being pure and glorifying taking "American Justice" into their own hands, and also how they can corrupt those same values.
The original post is a counter story about how things can go wrong there too. You can have small town 'justice' also take the form of actions that go against American Values like freedom of speech.
Remember, hanging negros for looking at women is what would happen in a small town in america.
From the website it states the following.
"It is a snapshot of the media freedom situation based on an evaluation of pluralism, independence of the media, quality of legislative framework and safety of journalists in each country and region."
Is there an different list to compare against?
@Kapura since your country is big: would it be better to compare each state individually?
Traumatizing a 98yo woman to death also doesn't help the police's image.
https://boingboing.net/2023/08/14/cops-raided-a-smalltown-ne...
So will the Stasis be charged for manslaughter? Oh right this government is totally corrupt.
https://www.fbi.gov/about/faqs/does-the-fbi-investigate-graf...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobbs_Act
Really goes to show you how wide interstate commerce clause goes.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/16/fbi-entrapment...
https://theintercept.com/2015/07/13/another-terror-arrest-an...
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a47390/alabama-isis-pe...
https://thefreethoughtproject.com/the-state/fbi-frames-menta...
https://www.democracynow.org/2015/3/19/how_the_fbi_created_a...
The only reason to favor the insurance scheme over, you know, actual justice, is if you stand to profit from it.
The police officers, individually can have qualified immunity. The governments that employ them do not.
What a good system.
Pointing out hypocrisy is giving "them control over you"? TFA is posted on npr.org.
