Police stage 'chilling' raid on Marion County newspaper, seizing computers, records and cellphones - Kansas Reflector

That's a helluva chain of events: a local newspaper (established 1869, so an actual, real, respectable, local, completely independent and not corporately-owned paper) shows up to a restaurant where the local Congresscritter is holding an open forum. The owner of the restaurant kicks the reporters out (sounds like there's backstory there, but this article doesn't cover it). The reporters write a story about why they didn't cover the event. Enraged by the article, the restaurant owner attacks the newspaper owner on Facebook.

At this point, a person unknown (but suspected to be the restaurant owner's husband, who had filed for divorce) sent in evidence that the restaurant owner had a DUI conviction and had been driving without a license. If this information becomes public, it will endanger the restaurant owner's ability to get a liquor license.

The newspaper verifies the story is true but suspects they're being set up so they don't publish the story but tell the cops instead. The cops tell the restaurant owner, who publicly bitches about this in an open city council meeting, but gets the facts wrong. The newspaper prints a story correcting the facts.

The very next day, the entire police department and two sheriff's deputies show up with a search warrant - except federal law mandates that you can't use a search warrant on a newspaper, you have to use a subpoena. And the search warrant claims the crime is "identity theft", which is not what happened here. So the local judge signed off on an illegal search warrant, and the local cops used it to seize every electronic in the newspapers offices, every electronic in the newspaper owner's home, and the reporters' cellphones.

This illegal raid is covered by other news outlets. The restaurant owner then goes on Facebook again, admits to the DUI, admits to knowingly driving without a license "out of necessity", and says

"Journalists have become the dirty politicians of today, twisting narrative for bias agendas, full of muddied half-truths. [...] We rarely get facts that aren’t baited with misleading insinuations. [...] [The] entire debacle was brought forth in an attempt to smear my name, jeopardize my licensing through ABC [...], harm my business, seek retaliation, and for personal leverage in an ongoing domestic court battle."

Which, y'know, may or may not be true but completely ignores the fact that the newspaper didn't print the original 'revoked license' story in the first place, and that this entire chain of events could've been avoided if she hadn't: (1) driven drunk, (2) repeatedly driven without a license, (3) kicked the reporters out of the public meeting at her restaurant, (4) bitched about the unpublished story in an open city council meeting, and (5) lied to the local authorities about non-existent "identity theft" in order to get an illegal search warrant. Oh, and dragged the local newspaper into her family's divorce proceedings, despite them trying to stay out of it.

Oh, and since the cops seized all the newspapers' electronics, they don't know how they're going to publish the next edition. :(

This is the important bit: https://thehandbasket.substack.com/p/a-conversation-with-the-newspaper

EM: So the backstory that we haven't told, because we don't wanna get in trouble, is that we've been investigating the police chief [Gideon Cody]. When he was named Chief just two months ago, we got an outpouring of calls from his former co-workers making a wide array of allegations against him saying that he was about to be demoted at his previous job and that he retired to avoid demotion and punishment over sexual misconduct charges and other things.

We had half a dozen or more different anonymous sources calling in about that. Well, we never ran that because we never could get any of them to go on the record, and we never could get his personnel file. But the allegations—including the identities of who made the allegations—were on one of the computers that got seized. I may be paranoid that this has anything to do with it, but when people come and seize your computer, you tend to be a little paranoid.

A confidential source contacted the newspaper, Meyer said, and provided evidence that Newell had been convicted of drunken driving and continued to use her vehicle without a driver’s license. The criminal record could jeopardize her efforts to obtain a liquor license for her catering business.

A reporter with the Marion Record used a state website to verify the information provided by the source. But Meyer suspected the source was relaying information from Newell’s husband, who had filed for divorce. Meyer decided not to publish a story about the information, and he alerted police to the situation.

Ignoring all the obvious issues with the legality of a search in general, this was all triggered by the newspaper using discretion and not publishing the story?

How the fuck do you think that's going to serve your needs?

I wonder how many lawyers have already offered to work the case pro bono.

Quick! Get this to the Supreme Court so they can rule it constitutional!

Restaurant owner Kari Newell, Marion County District Court Magistrate Judge Laura Viar, and Police Chief Gideon Cody are behaving like fascists in Marion Country, Kansas.

Shit's getting so bad in the USA that I'm genuinely scared for the future.

Never forget that cops exist only to protect private property and the interests of the wealthy. The sooner we stop bringing anything to the cops, the better. Using their "services" legitimizes and lends more power to them.

Do not be friends with cops

Do not fuck cops

Do not wave to cops in your neighborhood

Do not acknowledge cops in public

Never forget that they, day after day, choose to be cops and they love it. The second amendment is our only option at this point with cops. An unarmed population will be stupidly easy to control by the overly armed police force. Make sure you get something that can pierce through plates.

Curious as to what motivated the judge to sign such a warrant. Bribery? Blackmail? Manipulation? Just dumb?

Edit: It’s come out that the judge has several hidden DUI’s of her own.