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Police raid of a Kansas newsroom raises alarms about violations of press freedom

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Re: Police raid of a Kansas newsroom raises alarms about violations of press freedom

#101

Post by eesmith »

mcpackieh wrote: post #75
empath-nirvana wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom of the press is not freedom to publish "without retribution", and never has been. It is freedom to publish without _government_ retribution. 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.

> Freedom of the press is not freedom to publish "without retribution", and never has been. It is freedom to publish without _government_ retribution. 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…

"attacked by mobs of angry citizens" is not the only form of retribution, nor the only negative consequences facing a newspaper.

If, due to publishing an article, everyone decides to stop buying the newspaper or a subscription to the newspaper, and to stop placing ads, then that's a form of retribution/negative consequences.

Freedom of the press does not mean that people must not exercise their right of free association.

Re: Police raid of a Kansas newsroom raises alarms about violations of press freedom

#102

Post by Melting_Harps »

gotoeleven wrote: post #67
xadhominemx wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that a raid on a tiny kanas newspaper is a major national story is a sign that the press is pretty interested in protecting the press.

They are very interested in stories like this because this gives them the chance to work themselves into high dudgeon about a shitty little paper no one cares about. This way they have something to point to when they pull their "50 intelligence officials said this is russian disinfo" bullshit. "We're not unprincipled, self-serving, corrupt morons look how huffy we got about this tiny paper in kansas!"

> They are very interested in stories like this because this gives them the chance to work themselves into high dudgeon about a shitty little paper no one cares about. This way they have something to point to when they pull their "50 intelligence officials said this is russian disinfo" bullshit. "We're not unprincipled, self-serving, corrupt morons look how huffy we got about this tiny paper in kansas!"

Furthermore, the stifling of not just Assange or Snowden no withstanding, there has also been direct vilification of people who stand up for the first Amendment; people seem to have glossed over that James Larkin (of Backpage infamy) who commited suicide while under extreme duress for his trail is actually a newpaper owner.

He had been committed to standing up to power in a litany of documented stories, and even got settlements from them to keep operations going, it's sad, but I don't think the US mainstream news is worth anything but a coaxed form of derision, fear and a perverse 'infotainment.'

Being from SoCal in the 90s I saw how the paprazzi made everything about celebrity a cult-like mania, and car chases, I still remember the OJ case being played where cartoons once stood; in the 2000s I saw it go to chasing on reality TV and socialites and just tuned out. It's also why I saw social media for what it was: it was a eye-ball grabbing solution to fill the vacumm in order to cash in on people's need to doomscrool and engage in pointless online fighting--most of us who grew up on the internet at the time had been in enough flamewars to know what this was.

Honestly, I wish I could say I was entirely immune to it by only following a few sources and journalists, but I did follow the riots during COVID and saw the Blueleaks thing unfold and saw this captures people's attention.

Elon destroying what little credibility he has since taking over Twitter/X and desperately holding on to his cult of personality the Market may have bestowed him by taking credit for his worker's efforts with reality TV like antics (celebrity fighting?) has been amusing but his comeupance raises a valid point: there is no trusted news source since its been so monetized.

I feel that because British disinformation and Soviet/Russian propaganda tactics have been so pervasive and effective with these mediums that no one really knows what is going on at all. And that may be intended.

I'm reminded about this clip from Newswipe of Bitter Lake [0] at least every 6 months, and seeing how more relevant it becomes with every passing year.

0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOY4Ka-GBus

Re: Police raid of a Kansas newsroom raises alarms about violations of press freedom

#103

Post by mcpackieh »

jjk166 wrote: post #100
mcpackieh wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Freedom of the press is not freedom to publish "without retribution", and never has been. It is freedom to publish without _government_ retribution. 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…

Well we already have laws against mobs violently attacking people. Freedom of the press means you suffer no legal consequences from publishing, which would include refusal of the government to enforce its laws to protect people from violence because of what they had published. But if people don't like what you're publishing, they must be free for exactly the same reason to express their opinions and act as they see f…

> Well we already have laws against mobs violently attacking people.

And violation of those laws is a threat to the freedom of the press.

Let's consider a hypothetical but plausible example: A billionaire named Elon Bezos is tired of journalists exposing his illegal schemes so he hires the Pinkertons to stalk and harass journalists, dox them and post their personal information on 4chan with claims of those journalists working for the pizzagate illuminati, and threaten their friends and family with life ruination and murder. In this hypothetical everything done is illegal and none of it was done by the government; would you therefore earnestly conclude that none of it constitutes a threat to the freedom of the press? Ludicrous.

You need to stop conflating the First Amendment with freedom of the press. The First Amendment is one law that aims to protect the freedom of the press from one specific kind of threat; threats coming from the government. It does not preclude the existence of other kinds of threats to freedom of the press.

Re: Police raid of a Kansas newsroom raises alarms about violations of press freedom

#104

Post by hiatus »

pessimizer wrote: post #96
arunharidas wrote: post #90

NPR cheered when conservative media got targeted and when they came after them they're crying violation of freedom of press. You can't have the cake and eat it too.

Who cares what NPR thinks? You're like one of those people who chooses their positions based on the opposite of what Trump said. How can you recognize NPR as illegitimate, yet give them control over you?

> How can you recognize NPR as illegitimate, yet give them control over you?

Pointing out hypocrisy is giving "them control over you"? TFA is posted on npr.org.

Re: Police raid of a Kansas newsroom raises alarms about violations of press freedom

#105

Post by myself248 »

jjk166 wrote: post #46

For reference this is the form for requesting motor vehicle records in Kansas [0] 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. [0] https://www.kansas.gov/ssrv-mvr-ltd/

Exactly. Obtaining information about someone is not identity theft. It might be stalking, it might be journalism, it might be credit-reporting, but it is not identity theft.

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.

Re: Police raid of a Kansas newsroom raises alarms about violations of press freedom

#107

Post by LatteLazy »

empath-nirvana wrote: post #66
LatteLazy wrote: post #42

As I understood it, the first amendment has been hedged to protect what papers can publish. But it does not protect how or where they get the information. The result is that courts and the police both can and will raid offices, seize materials etc. The only protections against this are (a) getting it published before you're raided and (b) whatever respect for the spirit of the constitution you can inspire in judges o…

> The result is that courts and the police both can and will raid offices, seize materials etc. 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.

As far as I can tell, nothing here was illegal. That's sort of the problem...

Re: Police raid of a Kansas newsroom raises alarms about violations of press freedom

#108

Post by jjk166 »

dmatech wrote: post #89
jjk166 wrote: post #46

For reference this is the form for requesting motor vehicle records in Kansas [0] 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. [0] https://www.kansas.gov/ssrv-mvr-ltd/

I'm not saying this happened here, but if a journalist engaged in hacking or fraud to obtain material to publish, that would be "journalism", but it would also be a crime (the research, not the publication). Obviously, the freedom of the press doesn't include the ability to do anything they want in pursuit of a story.

No one is arguing that journalists are not bound by laws, the issue here is that not only is there no proof they broke any laws here, but even the idea that they might have is laughable, given that this was a public database they had permission to access. It's like accusing someone walking out of a public library with a book is a thief who stole the book.

Re: Police raid of a Kansas newsroom raises alarms about violations of press freedom

#109

Post by mrguyorama »

mcpackieh wrote: post #75
empath-nirvana wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom of the press is not freedom to publish "without retribution", and never has been. It is freedom to publish without _government_ retribution. 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.

> Freedom of the press is not freedom to publish "without retribution", and never has been. It is freedom to publish without _government_ retribution. 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…

ANY "freedom of speech" that curtails the speech of people responding, using their own free speech, to someone saying something, is not freedom of speech, but rather an attempt to silence critics.

If you believe in "Freedom to publish without retribution", you believe in "might makes right".

Re: Police raid of a Kansas newsroom raises alarms about violations of press freedom

#110

Post by mrguyorama »

mcpackieh wrote: post #103
jjk166 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well we already have laws against mobs violently attacking people. Freedom of the press means you suffer no legal consequences from publishing, which would include refusal of the government to enforce its laws to protect people from violence because of what they had published. But if people don't like what you're publishing, they must be free for exactly the same reason to express their opinions and act as they see f…

> Well we already have laws against mobs violently attacking people. And violation of those laws is a threat to the freedom of the press. Let's consider a hypothetical but plausible example: A billionaire named Elon Bezos is tired of journalists exposing his illegal schemes so he hires the Pinkertons to stalk and harass journalists, dox them and post their personal information on 4chan with claims of those journalist…

That is a crime of harrassment and other "You're being an ass to someone" crimes. A private person cannot violate the freedom of the press because a private person has almost zero restrictions on their speech. THAT IS FREEDOM OF SPEECH, and any attempt to curtail that response is an attempt to stifle their speech!
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