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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

#81

Post by ROTMetro »

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.

And ironically, the courts and DOJ tend to not do anything unless publishers shine a spotlight on it. Luckily the internet has done away with most local news making everyone in the chain's life easier.

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

#82

Post by ROTMetro »

plagiarist wrote: post #9
sixothree wrote: post #5

Checks and balances are needed.

I fear this will be another egregious violation of the Constitution ignored under qualified immunity. Prosecuting egregious violations of the Constitution instead of allowing police to do whatever they like would be a good check/balance.

There needs to be a requirement that Police are insured. The city/county shouldn't pay the bill for poor personal behavior of police with a side of accountability in the form of keeping insurable.

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

#83

Post by anigbrowl »

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…

This is all true, but gives the feeling of tiptoeing around an elephant taking up most of the space in a room. Core federal political institutions are in a dire state due to a poisonous combination of rhetoric and corruption. I think the reason that reaction to this particular story in Kansas has been so strong is not because it's precedential by because it's symptomatic and so perfectly epitomizes the increasing disconnect between ideals and outcomes.

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

#84

Post by m_0x »

newZWhoDis wrote: post #71
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.

Who watches the watchmen?

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

#85

Post by hanniabu »

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.

> It is freedom to publish without _government_ retribution

Which the government would never ruin the facade of freedom so they follow through at unofficial capacities

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

#86

Post by petsfed »

andsoitis wrote: post #74
dfxm12 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

A quick search revealed at least 10 distinct incidents in the US over the last 4 years (mainly in summer 2020) of reporters identifying themselves as such, and then being attacked by police. I haven't done the work to see how often there were repercussions for those attacks, but I'm willing to be its pretty rare.

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

#87

Post by bratgpttamer »

CatWChainsaw wrote: post #51

The Streisand Effect is a real bitch, ain't it... Traumatizing a 98yo woman to death also doesn't help the police's image.

"Cops raided a smalltown newspaper so no-one would ever find out about police chief Gideon Cody's alleged sexual misconduct or Kari Newell's DUI conviction"

https://boingboing.net/2023/08/14/cops-raided-a-smalltown-ne...

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

#88

Post by ethbr1 »

dcow wrote: post #77
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…

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 c…

I understood parent to be making an observation about timescales.

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)

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

#89

Post by dmatech »

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.
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