Kansas raid shines light on press freedom issues

Last Friday’s illegal raid of the Marion County Record and its owners drew widespread condemnation from journalists and advocates alike. The night of the raid, we called it “the latest example of American law enforcement officers treating the press in a manner previously associated with authoritarian regimes.” That was before we learned that the Record’s 98-year-old co-owner, Joan Meyer, died shortly after police ransacked her home. 

Just five days later, authorities withdrew the warrant and said they’d return the seized items, admitting that there was never any legitimate connection between the raid and whatever purported “crime” the Record allegedly committed by using public records to verify a news tip. While that’s good news, authorities can’t undo the harm they’ve done or give Joan Meyer her life back. We wrote that they “deserve zero credit for coming to their senses only after an intense backlash from the local and national media and an aggressive letter from the Record’s lawyer.”

The raid was outrageous and its aftermath tragic. The one good thing that came out of it, though, is that press freedom was at the center of the national and international news cycle. Let’s hope it stays there. Journalists are often hesitant to make themselves the story, but press freedom isn’t just about journalists, it’s about the public’s right to know. And the interest in the news from Marion shows that the public values that right and wants to hear when it’s infringed. 

Raid underscores need for newsroom encryption

Video of the raid in Marion shows (at around 2:44) a police officer, while seizing multiple devices, commenting, “I don’t believe that this is encrypted so I think we’re OK.” 

As we wrote on our blog, many journalists, especially at smaller outlets like the Record, may not give much thought to the prospect of police ransacking their newsrooms and homes over routine efforts to verify news tips using public records. That's understandable, given that their newsgathering is protected by both federal and state law and the Constitution. 

Yet here we are, and newsrooms of all sizes need to adapt to current realities by ensuring their devices are encrypted. Marion-like raids are unusual but, as our U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documents, smaller-scale seizures of journalists’ equipment happen all the time. 

Our Digital Security team responded to the raid with an article on how newsrooms can encrypt their equipment and the importance of doing so. “When seizing a device,” our Principal Researcher Martin Shelton wrote, “law enforcement officials hope yours is unencrypted because an encrypted device is significantly more time-consuming to examine without your permission.” That means cops are far less likely to recover confidential source communications and newsgathering materials from an illegally seized device if it's encrypted.

Our team has also published numerous guides and resources for newsrooms looking to improve their digital security practices, through encryption and other means. And we welcome any journalists or publishers to contact us to arrange a digital security training session so we can help them adapt to the threats journalists now face.

What you can do to help in Marion

Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) hosted a meeting this week of numerous press freedom organizations where we heard from Max Kautsch, counsel to the Kansas Press Association, to get a local perspective on the situation in Marion and what people can do to help the Record and honor Joan Meyer’s memory. 

Afterward, FPF Deputy Advocacy Director Caitlin Vogus passed along his tips, and some of our own, on our blog. Read her post to find out more about what you can do, from supporting the Marion County Record financially to pushing investigators to get to the bottom of the raid to supporting legislation that would benefit the Record as well as your own local newspaper. 

What we’re reading

The Marion County Record. Against all odds, the Record was able to put out its weekly paper on time this week. Vogus had the opportunity to offer our congratulations to publisher Eric Meyer for the achievement during her appearance alongside him on NewsNation. 

‘A whole lot of history’ dies with newspaper veteran Joan Meyer after police raid. “Joan Meyer spent each of her almost 10 decades of life in about a six-block radius of Marion, Kansas, but she was a worldly woman who had an impactful newspaper career, a vigilance with words, a powerful sense of propriety and equally unflinching opinions.”