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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

#71

Post by newZWhoDis »

nimbius wrote: post #65

most of the stories im seeing so far are pretty one-sided, with Marion decidedly very quiet on the issue entirely for very good reason. 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 d…

True, only the feds get to violate our rights like this. They will swoop in and prosecute anyone who steps on their turf.

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

#72

Post by xadhominemx »

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!"

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

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

#74

Post by andsoitis »

dfxm12 wrote: post #64
adventured wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a really big country and there's very little that can stop something like this from happening upfront. A corrupt person is always going to make it some distance before they're stopped, before the corrupt action gets enough sunlight on it. Said corrupt person isn't going to always make it easy to spot/stop, or easy to prosecute. You have to prosecute and pursue justice after the crime/s, not before. Justice is r…

We can't pretend this is the first time something like this has happened. The problem is we see this abuse of power all the time and no one pays the consequences. The problem is qualified immunity is baked in to our legal system, so it is all too easy for those responsible to evade justice.

> we see this abuse of power all the time and no one pays the consequences

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!

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

#75

Post by mcpackieh »

empath-nirvana wrote: post #62
hanniabu wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit naive to think there's freedom of press in this country (freedom to publish without retribution)

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 freedom of the press. To assert otherwise is ludicrous.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Press_Freedom_Index

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

#76

Post by millzlane »

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…

In my probable cause affidavit in Baltimore fabricated by the GTTF, They said they found white powedery residue in my garbage, but noone in the household consumes any while powedery drugs certainly not enough for there to be a garabge bag full of evidence to get a warrant. But somehow it happened in Baltimore too, "The greatest city in America!"[1]

[1] https://www.wypr.org/2023-01-23/whats-with-those-the-greates...

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

#77

Post by dcow »

adventured wrote: post #57
Kapura wrote: post #48

This is really, really upsetting to be happening in my country. I know it is a very big country, and Kansas isn't exactly proximate, but we are either a country that protects the press, or we are a country where the press protects those who have power. If this is allowed to pass without the people ordering the raid fired, I am not optimistic about what the future holds.

It is a really big country and there's very little that can stop something like this from happening upfront. A corrupt person is always going to make it some distance before they're stopped, before the corrupt action gets enough sunlight on it. Said corrupt person isn't going to always make it easy to spot/stop, or easy to prosecute. You have to prosecute and pursue justice after the crime/s, not before. Justice is r…

Your comment is slightly self-contradictory.

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.

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

#78

Post by winter_blue »

adventured wrote: post #57
Kapura wrote: post #48

This is really, really upsetting to be happening in my country. I know it is a very big country, and Kansas isn't exactly proximate, but we are either a country that protects the press, or we are a country where the press protects those who have power. If this is allowed to pass without the people ordering the raid fired, I am not optimistic about what the future holds.

It is a really big country and there's very little that can stop something like this from happening upfront. A corrupt person is always going to make it some distance before they're stopped, before the corrupt action gets enough sunlight on it. Said corrupt person isn't going to always make it easy to spot/stop, or easy to prosecute. You have to prosecute and pursue justice after the crime/s, not before. Justice is r…

There is a duty/obligation on the U.S. federal government to protect freedom of the press, especially if the organs of a state government act to violate it.

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.

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

#79

Post by tehwebguy »

bilbo0s wrote: post #30
flutas wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

Slightly off topic, but how do you get to be a county attorney, and still be this oblivious to propriety? Did he believe nothing would come of this and it would all just go away? 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 hid…

> Slightly off topic, but how do you get to be a county attorney, and still be this oblivious to propriety?

I mean who is going to do anything about it? They are in charge of who gets indicted and who doesn’t.

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

#80

Post by staplers »

mkovach wrote: post #50

Seems to me this might be plain old intimidation. The folks involved, which includes the Police Chef, see that somebody is leaking information to the press and a trying very hard to find they leak(s). Since they can't figure out who, and the press isn't publishing anything they are cranking up the heat. In both cases he says that they are investigating allegations. In fact, at one point it is said, they turned over i…

Gotta imagine they're onto a big, long thread if they're trying this hard to cover it up.
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