Source: ‘Stressed beyond her limits’: co-owner of Kansas newspaper dies after police raid | Kansas | The Guardian The co-owner of a small Kansas newspaper whose offices and staff were raided by local police officers conducting a leak investigation has died after the situation left her “stressed beyond her limits”, according to the publication. Joan Meyer, 98, collapsed on Saturday afternoon and died at her home a day after she tearfully watched officers who showed up at her home with a search warrant cart away her computer as well as an internet router, reported the Marion County Record, which she co-owned. After officers also photographed the bank statements of her son, Record publisher Eric Meyer, and left her house in mess, Meyer had been unable to eat or sleep, her newspaper said. . . . Attempts to contact both Marion’s police chief – Gideon Cody – and the judge who authorized his agency to conduct the raids aimed at the Record, Laura Viar, for comment on Meyer’s sudden death were not immediately successful. As the Record has told it, the weekly’s ordeal began when a confidential source leaked evidence that a local restaurant proprietor, Kari Newell, had been convicted of drunk-driving but continued using her car without a license. . . . According to reporting from the Kansas Reflector, Newell had admitted to the drunk-driving arrest as well as driving with a suspended license. Yet she insinuated that the leak was meant to jeopardize her license to serve alcohol and harm her business. But, as the Reflector reported, Newell’s comments during the council meeting were untrue, and she had police remove reporters for the Record from an open forum held by US congressman Jake LaTurner at a coffee shop which she operates. (LaTurner’s staff had invited the news media and apologized.) . . . The Reflector added that the warrant signed by Viar “appears to violate a federal law that provides protections against searching and seizing materials from journalists”. The law requires authorities to instead subpoena materials, the circumvention of which by the police prompted Eric Meyer to liken the raids his newspaper endured to those conducted by repressive government regimes. This is so sad and why "fake news" slanders are so dangerous. Especially if someone is willing to use police powers to enforce their criticism of a news organization. Bob Wilson
So corrupt cops, and in this case also a judge, violating journalists protected constitutional rights has turned into a wrongful death lawsuit... As always public funds get drained by hundreds of millions of dollars to pay damages for cops that won't behave and the police unions will do everything they can to ensure zero accountability/punishment of the cops and it goes on and on and on... All the while statistical studies have shown that you can prevent most of these problems/massive claims for damages by firing less than 1% of cops based on their existing records of misconduct. It's why the only occupation that doesn't deserve having a union is the police! These lawless cop enablers have gone way too far for way too long!
this is gonna get interesting: Police defend raid on Kansas newspaper amid backlash over 'brazen violation of press freedom'
"Newell declined to answer questions for this story but pointed to a statement she issued Saturday on her personal Facebook page. She said someone had used a piece of mail addressed to her from the Kansas Department of Revenue to obtain her driver’s license number and date of birth. That information was then used to find her driver’s license history through KDOR’s website. Eric Meyer, the newspaper publisher, said a confidential source had provided documentation that Newell had been convicted of drunken driving in 2008 and had driven without a license. A reporter used the KDOR website to verify that the information was accurate, but the newspaper decided not to publish a story about the information." In my state, convictions are public record. DOBs for most adults are public record. And it was only very recently that driver's license numbers were converted from the old system that was very easily guessable. Learning of someone's drunken driving conviction, and even getting the full court record of it, is simply not evidence of identity theft.
same here. in fact, we don't care what our politicians do, we just keep voting them back into office. call the the 'kennedy effect' boston-city-councilor-calling-change-022533509.html
