By JOHN HANNA (Associated Press)
MARION, Kan. (AP) — The preliminary on-line search of a state web site that led a central Kansas police chief to raid a neighborhood weekly newspaper was authorized, a spokesperson for the company that maintains the positioning stated Monday, because the newspaper stays below investigation.
Earlier this month, after a neighborhood restaurant proprietor accused the Marion County Record of illegally accessing details about her, the Marion police chief obtained warrants to look the newspaper’s workplaces and the house of its writer, in addition to the house of a City Council member who had a few of the similar data because the newspaper.
The police chief led the Aug. 11 raids and stated in the affidavits used to acquire the warrants that he had possible trigger to consider that the newspaper and the City Council member had violated state legal guidelines in opposition to id theft or pc crimes.
Both City Council member Ruth Herbel and the newspaper have stated they acquired a replica of a doc concerning the standing of the restaurant proprietor’s license with out soliciting it. The doc disclosed the restaurant’s license quantity and her date of delivery, data required to verify the standing of an individual’s license on-line and achieve entry to a extra full driving report. The police chief maintains they broke state legal guidelines to try this, whereas the newspaper and Herbel’s attorneys say they didn’t.
The raid on the Record put it and its hometown of about 1,900 residents within the middle of a debate about press freedoms protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Kansas’ Bill of Rights. It additionally uncovered divisions within the city over native politics and the newspaper’s protection of the group and put an intense highlight on Police Chief Gideon Cody.
Department of Revenue spokesperson Zack Denney stated it’s authorized to entry the motive force’s license database on-line utilizing data obtained independently. The division’s Division of Vehicles points licenses.
“That’s legal,” he stated. “The website is public facing, and anyone can use it.”
The Kansas Bureau of Investigation continues to probe the newspaper’s actions. The KBI stories to state Attorney General Kris Kobach, a Republican, whereas the Department of Revenue is below Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s authority.
The City Council in Marion, about 150 miles (241 kilometers) southwest of Kansas City, Missouri, was scheduled Monday afternoon to have its first common assembly for the reason that raids. Herbel, the member whose residence was raided, was elected in 2019 and is the town’s vice mayor.
Police seized computer systems, private cellphones and a router from the newspaper and the writer’s residence and a laptop computer and iPhone from Herbel. Eric Meyer, the paper’s editor and writer, lived together with his 98-year-old mom, Joan Meyer, and blames the stress of the raid for her demise the day after the raids.
As of Monday, cellphones belonging to the newspaper’s workers, two reporters’ pc towers and the newspaper’s essential server have been again in its workplaces, whereas it was nonetheless ready for the return of 4 computer systems, two detachable exhausting drives and a router. Those gadgets remained with a pc forensics audit agency employed by the newspaper’s lawyer.
The auditing agency was checking the tools for indicators that supplies have been accessed or copied. Meyer stated the paper believes police began to repeat the exhausting drive of 1 pc within the newspaper’s workplaces however stopped and seized the tools when that proved too gradual.
The Record additionally posted video from surveillance digital camera at Meyer’s residence. In it, Joan Meyer angrily declares, “This is my home!”
The Department of Revenue web site permits an individual to view an individual’s driving report, obtain paperwork or purchase a driving report for $16.70 a replica. Downloading or shopping for data additionally requires an individual’s driver’s license quantity and date of delivery, and it asks for a reputation, handle and cellphone quantity. Meyer stated Monday that reporter Phyllis Zorn didn’t obtain or buy any paperwork.
“If they thought they were intimidating us, they were wrong,” Meyer stated.
He added: “Are we going to sue? Yes, we will.”
The affidavit to look the newspaper’s workplaces famous that when an individual submits an internet request for somebody’s driving report, it lists 13 circumstances by which it’s authorized to acquire it. They embrace an individual is in search of their very own report or a enterprise in search of it to confirm private data to assist acquire a debt.
The final merchandise says: “I will use the information requested in a manner that is specifically authorized by Kansas law and is related to the operation of a motor vehicle or public safety.”
Legal consultants consider the police raid on the newspaper violated a federal privateness legislation or a state legislation shielding journalists from having to establish sources or flip over unpublished materials to legislation enforcement. Meyer has famous that among the many gadgets seized have been a pc tower and private cellphone of a reporter who was uninvolved within the dispute with the native restaurant proprietor — however who had been investigating why Cody left a Kansas City, Missouri, police captain’s job in April earlier than turning into Marion police chief.
“This isn’t going to go away. And it shouldn’t,” stated Genelle Belmas, an affiliate journalism professor on the University of Kansas. “There should be repercussions to this sort of wanton trampling of two very important laws, one state, one fed.”
Newell accused the newspaper on the council’s final assembly Aug. 7 of violating her privateness and illegally disseminating private details about her, and she or he additionally disclosed a drunken driving offense in her previous. According to the affidavits, she advised Cody that she didn’t authorize anybody to entry her data.
Newell additionally accused the newspaper of giving Herbel non-public details about her. Herbel stated that was a “blatant lie.” Meyer advised the council that the newspaper didn’t give data to Herbel and famous it didn’t publish the data it obtained.
Herbel handed alongside a replica of the doc she acquired about Newell to City Administrator Brogan Jones three days earlier than the Council’s Aug. 7 vote to approve Newell’s liquor license in an effort to forestall her from getting one, based on the affidavit for the search on Herbel’s residence.
Herbel’s lawyer, Drew Goodwin, stated Herbel was attending to her official duties. He referred to as the raid on her residence “an egregious breach of the public trust.”
“I realize a lot of the focus is on journalists’ privileges here, and that’s, of course, appropriate because that’s at the heart of the First Amendment,” Goodwin stated. “But the fact that my client — an elected official — got swept up in this constitutional violation and had her own rights violated in the process, it’s beyond the pale.”
___
Associated Press writers Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas, and Jim Salter in O’Fallon, Missouri, contributed to this report.
___
Follow John Hanna on Twitter: https://twitter.com/apjdhanna
___
The Associated Press receives help from a number of non-public foundations to boost its explanatory protection of elections and democracy. See extra about AP’s democracy initiative right here. The AP is solely chargeable for all content material.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”