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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

#141

Post by [deleted] »

gettodachoppa wrote: post #134
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every one of these turns into a flamewar of cynical "America bad, corruption is the norm, there is no free press, etc." comments.

As a foreigner, if I could, I'd downvote it if only because it's local news being blown up all over HN, presumably because it's a slow news week. I just don't care. This isn't speaking to some trend in America. It's a hamlet's local drama. Do we really need 2 posts a day? 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 n…

[deleted]

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

#142

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

xadhominemx wrote: post #70
dotnet00 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. All it shows is that national media outlets don't see the tiny newspaper as a threat. 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.

Social media algorithmic recommendation engines has also been a major story. Or are you talking about a US law enforcement raid on some YouTuber that was successfully covered up by Google?

> some YouTuber

They're saying that a YouTuber is most often not seen as a valid journalist in the eyes of the government despite Freedom of The Press being a supposed "unalienable right". Once they've been disclaimed as a journalist ("go out of their way to exclude them from their definition of press"), suddenly they're performing espionage if they report information that someone in the government didn't want to be revealed.

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

#143

Post by 6510 »

gettodachoppa wrote: post #134
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every one of these turns into a flamewar of cynical "America bad, corruption is the norm, there is no free press, etc." comments.

As a foreigner, if I could, I'd downvote it if only because it's local news being blown up all over HN, presumably because it's a slow news week. I just don't care. This isn't speaking to some trend in America. It's a hamlet's local drama. Do we really need 2 posts a day? 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 n…

And then they killed his mum.

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

#144

Post by janeerie »

indymike wrote: post #68

This article: https://thehandbasket.substack.com/p/a-conversation-with-the... contains a detailed interview with editor of the raided newsroom. When asked about pulbic support, the publisher said he had a lot of support from out of town, but the locals... well: "They're afraid. They're really afraid that the police power is unchecked, and that they can be punished like this."

My brother lives in this county, and all he's told me is that there's a lot of shenanigans going on there.

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

#145

Post by xadhominemx »

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #142
xadhominemx wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social media algorithmic recommendation engines has also been a major story. Or are you talking about a US law enforcement raid on some YouTuber that was successfully covered up by Google?

> some YouTuber They're saying that a YouTuber is most often not seen as a valid journalist in the eyes of the government despite Freedom of The Press being a supposed "unalienable right". Once they've been disclaimed as a journalist ("go out of their way to exclude them from their definition of press"), suddenly they're performing espionage if they report information that someone in the government didn't want to be…

Who fits this description?

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

#146

Post by mindslight »

sanderjd wrote: post #136
mindslight wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, in this specific case nothing has happened yet that implies the rule of law has entirely broken down. The real problem driving the national outrage is the long pattern of the justice system not sufficiently binding government employees to the law. If this violent gang was not also employed as police officers, then we'd expect arrests and charges within a week or so. So that's around when we can say that the jus…

Ok but it's ridiculous that most of the comments here are like "this just goes to show that this country is corrupt!" and like, no, it doesn't! Fine, you want to have a broader discussion, that's your prerogative. But it's just not true that the current facts of this case are evidence for anything going wrong in US society. That doesn't mean nothing is! I'm honestly not interested in having that broader nuanced discu…

On reconsideration, I think the facts of this case might actually lead to some prison sentences. Although not nearly as many as there should be - really anyone involved in this including the judge that fabricated paperwork based off dubious details, other law enforcement agencies that blessed it, etc should be charged as part of the criminal conspiracy, which they can then explain away in court, as is routinely done to suspects who aren't government employees.

I think the root of the distrust is there are many other similar cases which seemingly go completely unpunished (eg Afroman). So the details being much worse here is causing proportionally more outrage, when the reality is that those details being more severe means we might actually end up seeing some semblance of justice for at least some of the perps on this one.

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

#147

Post by the_optimist »

xadhominemx wrote: post #72
gotoeleven wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!"

So it seems you agree with me that the press is in fact inclined to protect the press?

This is a motte-and-bailey. The initial response has answered directly already.

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

#148

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

xadhominemx wrote: post #145
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> some YouTuber They're saying that a YouTuber is most often not seen as a valid journalist in the eyes of the government despite Freedom of The Press being a supposed "unalienable right". Once they've been disclaimed as a journalist ("go out of their way to exclude them from their definition of press"), suddenly they're performing espionage if they report information that someone in the government didn't want to be…

Who fits this description?

The description of people who are excluded “from their definition of press”: Julian Assange.

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

#149

Post by sanderjd »

dfxm12 wrote: post #140
sanderjd wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This just happened! The punishment is not a "was", it is a "will be"! Do you think this is a story about something that happened last year? This happened on Friday and started receiving attention two days later, which was yesterday. This is the third day since this happened. It will take months to investigate this kind of thing, and the actual punishment, after that investigation and trials, will be years from now. I…

So it's not an example of an example of law enforcement going unpunished, as you said? If this gets buried and nobody deigns to prosecute it... Is this one is the last straw, then?

I don't understand your first question.

To your second question, no, it's not a last straw situation. I've been outraged by specific things in the past, and I'm sure I will be again in the future. But I'm not outraged by this specific thing, in the present, because all signs point to these people being brought to justice in due time.

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

#150

Post by tinus_hn »

bb88 wrote: post #91
thinkcontext wrote: post #49

On top of the judge signing off on the warrant when this likely contradicted federal law, we have this: > 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 b…

US federal law says a search warrant can't be issued against journalists to anything that remotely looks like reporting. Instead police must subpoena a journalist instead to show up with the materials requested. The journalist can then get a lawyer and quash the subpoena in court. https://www.mcguirewoods.com/news-resources/publications/med...

And then when the police violate the law, what happens? They are forced to not do it again? At worst they get to pay a fine with someone else’s money.
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