[HN Gopher] A conversation with a newspaper owner raided by cops
___________________________________________________________________
A conversation with a newspaper owner raided by cops
Author : celtoid
Score : 280 points
Date : 2023-08-12 17:17 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thehandbasket.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (thehandbasket.substack.com)
| bastardoperator wrote:
| Police in the US are becoming lawless gangs. Abolish qualified
| immunity. Stop having taxpayers' foot the bill, start using their
| pension fund and watch police make a 180 degree turn in terms of
| behavior and professionalism.
| ghastmaster wrote:
| Qualified immunity does not protect government employees who
| break the law. There are laws/rulings that specifically
| disqualify them from using qualified immunity as a defense. The
| problem is prosecutors, judges, and juries who allow government
| employees to commit illegal actions with no consequences. This
| is furthered by citizens who pay no attention and let these
| people stay in power.
| qingcharles wrote:
| It's near impossible to even charge a cop or a prosecutor
| with a crime. I had cops and prosecutors commit crimes
| against me, but I ran into dead ends every which way I tried
| to even file police reports etc. Not a single police agency
| will take a report against an officer or a prosecutor. And in
| theory you can report crimes directly to a prosecutor's
| office, but again, they won't take reports against police
| officers (who are the ones that keep them in business) nor
| other prosecutors.
|
| I don't know what the solution is.
|
| Chicago has an agency specifically to report police
| misconduct, but it seems to get shut down every couple of
| years due to rampant misconduct inside the agency.
| opo wrote:
| >Qualified immunity does not protect government employees who
| break the law.
|
| Well qualified immunity doesn't apply to criminal cases, but
| civil suits are generally the only way survivors and their
| families can get compensation for violations of their rights.
|
| Reading about egregious conduct where the government was
| somehow able to be granted qualified immunity will make
| anyone wonder how we could allow this to happen.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| sobkas wrote:
| Of course it does, especially when they don't know that they
| are breaking it.
|
| So much for "ignorance of the law excuses not", it does if
| you are a cop.
|
| And for someone who invented "clearly established right"...
|
| And if prosecutor doesn't want to prosecute cops, judge,
| jury, etc. isn't even involved.
|
| https://supreme.findlaw.com/supreme-court-insights/pros-
| vs-c...
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| It does protect them from civil suits, which have a lower bar
| for the burden of proof. When a citizen does manage to win
| damages in a civil case, it is paid by the city (aka the
| taxpayers). It should be paid from the police pension or an
| individual insurance similar to malpractice insurance.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Abolishing qualified immunity leads to situations like Uvalde
| where police don't want to intervene for fear of reprisal.
|
| Also, you're probably barking up the wrong tree. Instead of
| pissing off the police unions and dealing with the eternal
| backlash from that, you could instead push for something like
| Florida's Sunshine Laws which would provide needed transparency
| into universities, the police, and the government.
| delecti wrote:
| What do you mean by "fear of reprisal"? It seemed pretty
| clear to me that they didn't want to head in for fear of
| confronting someone who can shoot back for a change.
| vGPU wrote:
| Indeed. Hence, we get the latest FBI public execution of a
| "right wing terrorist": a 75 year old obese mobility-
| scooter-bound vet.
| ozaark wrote:
| Idk much about the situation but in a few of that guys
| posts he made prior to being raided he talked about
| sniping potusa from afar with time, place in mind,
| pictures of him with rifles, and threats to answer FBI
| with guns. Afaik obese scooter bound people can still aim
| a rifle from afar. He basically provoked a situation and
| was treated as credible threat based on his own actions.
| MarkMarine wrote:
| Fear of reprisal < fear of automatic weapon fire. Trust me.
| dmoy wrote:
| semi automatic in that case, but yea same difference
| kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote:
| Pretty sure the type of weapon is of little importance in
| this case, they would have stayed outside if the shooter
| had a muzzle loader.
| kibwen wrote:
| _> Abolishing qualified immunity leads to situations like
| Uvalde where police won't want to intervene for fear of
| reprisal._
|
| This couldn't be more wrong. Despite the existence of
| qualified immunity, the Texas police still cowered like
| cowards, and are using qualified immunity to shield
| themselves from the lawsuits of the families whose children
| they failed to protect.
| Asooka wrote:
| Even without qualified immunity, the police in question
| would not face any charges, as they have no duty to protect
| anyone from anything.
| hcayless wrote:
| But QI still exists, and Uvalde happened. It wasn't fear of
| reprisal, but fear of being shot. So your argument doesn't
| work.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Uvalde cops had (and have) qualified immunity, yet they still
| didn't take action. Perhaps they were more afraid of being
| shot?
| tehwebguy wrote:
| Yeah, 370 cops stood around doing nothing while children and
| teachers were murdered because they were afraid of
| "reprisal".
|
| They were afraid of getting shot, total cowardice with a lot
| of incompetence and nothing more.
| raincom wrote:
| Prosecutors, judges, law enforcement agents all belong to the
| same group: so, they collude in the name of co-operation; they
| are paid by the government. They are the enforcers of "state
| monopoly on violence". Usually, these folks (prosecutors,
| judges, LE agents) don't want to step on the powerful elite, as
| the latter can take these cases all the way to SCOTUS to clamp
| down on abuses. That's why prosecutors use "prosecutorial
| discretion" to NOT prosecute so that these cases won't get
| appealed further.
|
| When elites splinter into two groups, that's when you see some
| progress. Otherwise, two-tier justice is a common, hidden,
| feature of any system out there (be it Western democracy,
| communist, dictatorship, etc).
| hammock wrote:
| Surprised that these stories get 200+ votes but stories on the
| weaponized federal police (DOJ) get flagged to death
| predictabl3 wrote:
| Yeah because people can use their brains? Just because Trump
| was in bed with his Justice Dept doesn't mean Biden is. I
| haven't seen a SINGLE shred of evidence that Biden has even
| so much as thought about Merrick during the last 3 years.
|
| It's almost like a police force trampling on first amendment
| rights is appalling like a candidate trying to subvert the
| results of an election, incite a riot, pressure election
| officials, put up a knowingly fraudulent, illegal fake voter
| scheme, or pay off a porn star.
|
| Whatever, you know this, you don't care.
| hammock wrote:
| I was talking about Trump's DOJ.
| crazygringo wrote:
| "Becoming"?
|
| I'm pretty sure the evidence points to the contrary -- police
| are less corrupt than ever before.
|
| That doesn't mean there isn't still corruption (such as is
| claimed in this case), but you're claiming this is something
| getting worse.
|
| I _really_ don 't think you want to go back to policing in the
| 1960's and 70's.
| itronitron wrote:
| https://www.americanheritage.com/battle-athens
| sobkas wrote:
| Well maybe because stealing, getting bribed by
| rich(individuals or corps) and doing nothing to serve and
| protect became legal. They no longer need to break law, when
| they can make same things within the law.
| crazygringo wrote:
| My point remains that this has _always been the case_ and
| if anything is getting better, not worse.
|
| You can always cherry-pick examples of individual things
| getting worse, but I ask again: do you _really_ want to go
| back to the 60 's and 70's? Because yikes.
| mikem170 wrote:
| That's a neat idea. Too often miscreants face no consequences
| worse than being suspended for a while, with pay.
|
| Something needs to change with Internal Affairs, also. Local
| police departments are often investigating themselves, with
| predictable results.
| Dah00n wrote:
| But none of this would stick without judge, jury and lawyers
| colluding, surely? Seems to me the problem isn't the police
| but is systemic.
| shrubble wrote:
| There is a 'Bivens claim' but I have no idea how easy it is to
| use, and whether its scope extends beyond federal police
| officers... https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/bivens_action
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| Not only was this newspaper reporting on a restaurant owners DUI,
| _it was investigating sexual misconduct by the former police
| chief_!!! This is truly heinous cop-on-a-power-trip shit. We
| really need to curtail the so called justice system in this
| country...
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| It's funny how different people can read this and come to
| different conclusions. When I read this, I think that the
| system works. The fourth estate (the press) was doing their job
| and will now bring more scrutiny and possible legal
| consequences to the police chief.
| predictabl3 wrote:
| Life is not a movie. These things happen all of the time
| without some Hollywood feell good ending. You dont get to
| just go "oh good old journalism will just fix this". Did you
| even read it? They can't publish? They were decimated. The
| Kansas state governors office needs to getting involved and I
| have an alarm set to call Kelly's office when it opens
| tomorrow.
| krisoft wrote:
| > I think that the system works.
|
| How is the system working when clearly the newspaper is in a
| desperate search now for equipment to be able to stay in
| business after theirs got taken by the police? Don't you
| think that is somewhat chilling of free speech?
|
| What would be evidence of the system not working in your
| opinion? The editor washing up with a bullet in their head?
| All the journalist sentenced to 20 years of hard labour on
| the private farm of the police chief?
|
| The system is clearly not working.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > What would be evidence of the system not working in your
| opinion?
|
| The fact we can read about this is evidence that it _is_
| working. Evidence that it is not working would be hard to
| come by because we wouldn 't be able to read about it!
| 1shooner wrote:
| >The fact we can read about this is evidence that it is
| working.
|
| This is like saying we've cured cancer because you got a
| biopsy.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| We are talking about accountability, not cancer.
| twirlip wrote:
| In the age of ubiquitous information sharing, the news of
| cops raiding a newspaper office is rather not a signal
| the system is working, than it is a klaxon that the
| system is failing.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Alright. Please show me a system that works to your
| standards then.
| kibwen wrote:
| _> When I read this, I think that the system works._
|
| It's possible to assume that the system works if you assume
| that this is also the only time this has happened. How many
| times have corrupt cops such as these used the force of the
| state to silence their detractors and gotten away with it?
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > How many times have corrupt cops such as these used the
| force of the state to silence their detractors and gotten
| away with it?
|
| You tell me? What does the evidence say?
| Dah00n wrote:
| I'm not even from the US but I've heard of hundreds of
| times this has happened there. Only in a very few cases
| do they not win and who knows how many we don't even hear
| about.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| > But the allegations--including the identities of who made the
| allegations--were on one of the computers that got seized.
|
| That's really bad
| hinkley wrote:
| Maybe reporters should watch more spy movies.
| Asooka wrote:
| Quite glib, but I agree in spirit. Reporters need better
| OPSEC.
| BearhatBeer wrote:
| Just proves anonymous expose and investigation is superior to
| attaching your name and identity to your muck raking. People will
| kill you for uncovering their secrets.
| chefandy wrote:
| Know anyone in a small news outlet? Now would be a great time to
| talk to them about the importance of secure, redundant, off-site
| backup and archiving. Obviously wouldn't have prevented this--
| for all I know these folks were doing all of that-- but it would
| mean police in this situation couldn't stop you from accessing
| your data (and likely, leverage,) even if they controlled your
| equipment.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| > _Now would be a great time to talk to them about the
| importance of secure, redundant, off-site backup and
| archiving._
|
| Also encryption.
| vxxzy wrote:
| The chilling affect has me not even wanting to post this excerpt:
| "People in this town have been very supportive, but not publicly.
| And I talked to one person who said, "Oh, are you sure It's ok
| that I can talk to you because they might come and seize my
| computer?""
| networkchad wrote:
| Ahh small town Kansas. I love you and also hate ya. This kind of
| bs is one of the reasons why I can't live there. (Grew up in KS)
| freeopinion wrote:
| Because small town Arkansas or Atlanta or Dublin are so much
| better in this regard? Is there any evidence that such
| shenanigans are more common in Kansas?
| [deleted]
| duxup wrote:
| It is potentially bad in small town anywhere just dude to the
| low population, maybe one or no news source and etc. Lots of
| power in a few hands, little oversight.
|
| Small town not far of me there were billboards up about how the
| local police are crooks and on and on. Someone really felt
| strongly about that topic.
|
| The businessman who bought the billboards did an interview.
| Story was businessman supported the local police chief's
| election. Then business man's business partner was being
| investigated for selling drugs and the state police raided
| their business. Businessman called the local police police
| chief and told the chief to call off the cops. Police chief
| said he couldn't do that because he knew business guy and had
| to stay out of it.
|
| Businessman got upset and bought a bunch of billboards about
| "corruption".
|
| One man's corruption is another man's ethical choice.
| hinkley wrote:
| There's a handful of stories that lead me to distrust the
| police, and one of them was about a teenager being sexually
| harassed by a sheriff's deputy who kept pulling her over for no
| reason, and a police chief - who ran the DARE program - being a
| meth drug lord who was arresting his competition. Both were
| from downstate Missouri.
|
| That whole region is fucked up. Did you know the Oklahoma
| Panhandle was a gift from Texas? The Missouri Compromise
| basically said no new slave states north of Tennessee and NC,
| so Texas chopped the top of their territory off and gave it to
| Oklahoma, which was already about 34 miles to far north.
| s5300 wrote:
| [dead]
| creer wrote:
| Nothing in there is specific to Kansas, or really small town
| America. See if you haven't read it yet, the amazing Ferguson
| Report - extremely concise and readable for a government report
| - which collected testimony of corruption every which way and
| concluded with doing nothing and a full trust in the locals
| sorting it out for themselves. And then again and still higher
| scale, cities around the San Francisco Bay Area and all the way
| to San Francisco. The specifics vary greatly and creatively (?)
| but the overall theme is there.
| _jal wrote:
| I won't say "small town anywhere", that's probably not true.
| But also true of small town Tennessee.
|
| "Everybody knew" the sheriff took kickbacks from the
| bootleggers (it was, and still is, a dry county), and probably
| quite a bit more. I mean, I knew, and I was a high school kid.
| He did eventually get busted roughly a decade after I left.
|
| Cities have corruption too, of course. But the hypocritical
| gaslighting nonsense about how pure and clean small town life
| is horse shit.
| JimtheCoder wrote:
| I eagerly await the post about how the writer on Substack has
| been raided...
| lokar wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37096015
| KomoD wrote:
| This title is confusing
| sparrish wrote:
| "I haven't been able to see enough of the outpouring from the
| people in this town."
|
| That's concerning. Either the town's folk are all 'in' on it or
| we're only getting one side of this story and they know more
| about what's going on.
|
| I'm withholding judgement until the other shoe drops and we get
| the full story.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Or they are scared. It's a place where you keep your head down
| [deleted]
| koonsolo wrote:
| Why is this upvoted on HN?
| theknocker wrote:
| [dead]
| aa_is_op wrote:
| [flagged]
| spoonfeeder006 wrote:
| This country is founded on genocide and mass murder
|
| Nothing new here
| [deleted]
| Dah00n wrote:
| That's pure nonsense. Oligarch says something about wealth and
| maybe how you gained it. That is it. You might as well have
| said "rich person behaviour".
|
| Also, have cruel must one be to take joy in others pain because
| of what state they are from!
| lolinder wrote:
| From the report this newspaper did when the police chief took
| office in April:
|
| > Cody said two priorities would be transparency and more
| responsive media relations.
|
| That went well.
|
| http://marionrecord.com/direct/marion_selects_new_police_chi...
| jp57 wrote:
| Current title of this post: "Paper investigating police chief
| prior to the raids on his office and home."
|
| But it was the newspaper owner, not the police chief, who was
| raided.
|
| Actual article title and subtitle: "A conversation with the
| newspaper owner raided by cops / Eric Meyer says his paper had
| been investigating the police chief prior to the raids on his
| office and home."
| [deleted]
| leereeves wrote:
| I agree, "his" is ambiguous at best and seems to refer to the
| police chief (a person) rather than the paper (an
| organization).
|
| A simple change would make it clear:
|
| Paper investigating police chief prior to the raids on owner's
| office and home
| celtoid wrote:
| Fixed. Thank you and sorry for confusion.
| hgsgm wrote:
| The actual title is much better than this gore.
|
| _A conversation with the newspaper owner raided by cops_
| runnerup wrote:
| The title as it is this moment on HN was better for me at
| least, it made it clear that it was in context of ongoing
| investigative research done by the newspaper against the
| police.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| But it's missing a key piece of information: the paper
| was investigating allegations against the newly-hired
| police chief who was in charge of the raid.
| TheFreim wrote:
| > But it was the newspaper owner, not the police chief, who was
| raided.
|
| That's what the title means.
| paxys wrote:
| Then it should say "paper owner" not "paper".
| echelon_musk wrote:
| Absolutely.
|
| If the surname of the newspaper's owner happened to also be
| Paper, then this might make sense. Otherwise it is very
| wrong.
| JshWright wrote:
| It's definitely a confusing title though, as the pronoun
| "his" seems way more likely to refer to the police chief than
| the "paper".
| froggit wrote:
| Agreed. Last I checked, papers don't have a gender,
| therefore a gender specific pronoun is incorrect.
|
| Regardless, the title has since been edited. Controversy
| resolved, maybe now we can discuss the topic x.x
| TheFreim wrote:
| How many newspapers engage in raids upon police chiefs?
| Clearly it's the police who is doing the raiding.
| JshWright wrote:
| The title doesn't say the newspaper engaged in the raid.
| There are other agencies that could raid a police chief's
| home. It would be reasonable to assume some agency like
| the FBI conducted the raid based on the same information
| that prompted the investigation. That's not actually the
| case here, but I think that is a way more plausible
| reading of the sentence.
| halfdan wrote:
| It's ambiguous and I also read "him" as the police chief
| being raided.
| hinkley wrote:
| Because 'police chief' is the only potential gendered
| identifier in the entire title.
| eis wrote:
| The title on HN at the current time [0] says the police chief
| was raided.
|
| There is only one person mentioned and therefor "his" can
| only refer to that person. "His" can not refer to the
| newspaper.
|
| [0] "Paper investigating police chief prior to the raids on
| his office and home."
| hinkley wrote:
| I just clicked on the thread now and it still is listed as
| mentioned by GP.
| TheFreim wrote:
| It says that the paper investigating the police chief was
| raided. I don't know many news papers that engage in raids
| on police, so it's pretty clear.
| xdavidliu wrote:
| not a single person here agrees with you. The title didnt
| say who performed the raiding. A police chief could be
| raided by the FBI.
| JshWright wrote:
| It doesn't say the paper was the entity engaged in the
| raid. If I didn't know the broader context, I would
| assume that sentence meant "A newspaper was investigating
| a police chief at the time the police chief's home was
| raided by another law enforcement agency". That seems way
| more likely than a newspaper being referred to as "him".
| jahsome wrote:
| No, it's not. The current title omits the raised person
| altogether.
| TheFreim wrote:
| How is it that despite not having yet read the article I
| knew EXACTLY what it meant? The pedantic and intentionally
| obtuse nitpickery in this thread is silly and absurd.
| matsemann wrote:
| Because the title is changed now, but was something else
| half an hour ago.
| jahsome wrote:
| This is a community of people whose career revolves
| around precise language.
|
| You knew because you're intelligent and were able to
| piece things together. Many in society are not so
| fortunate for one reason of another and so it's important
| to be precise.
| chmod600 wrote:
| This story omits the most crucial information: why was the
| warrant issued?
|
| Judges issuing warrants is one of the least accountable aspects
| of our legal system. Warrants can cause major damage, disruption,
| or even death. There are never consequences for a mistake (cf.
| Breonna Taylor incident).
|
| They can also cause political interference and there's little
| mechanism to prevent abuses. The FISA warrants against Carter
| Page were later declared invalid[1]. Document mishandling
| sometimes resulted in essentially nothing (Clinton, Biden) and
| sometimes warrants and raids (Trump). There could be good reasons
| for all of this but there's not really any mechanism to sort it
| out. Next time there might not be good reasons, and the target
| might be a politician we desperately need (rather than Trump).
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Document mishandling sometimes resulted in essentially
| nothing (Clinton, Biden) and sometimes warrants and raids
| (Trump).
|
| "Document mishandling" (with classified documents) always
| results in an investigation. When there is overwhelming
| evidence that the investigation is being actively obstructed,
| things get spicy.
| sneak wrote:
| 100% of the warrants I have read (all of which were signed and
| in the process of being executed) had obvious factual errors in
| them, and all had been made under penalty of perjury by law
| enforcement.
|
| There is no accountability.
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| I see your point, but bringing in national politics is going to
| totally derail this conversation, imo.
| throw3823423 wrote:
| Document mishandling can lead to a slap on the wrist if you let
| the investigators come in and take a look (Clinton, Biden), but
| if you refuse to give investigators access, and brazenly lie to
| them about the documents you still keep, then their only option
| is warrants and raids (Trump). Then they might indict you, but
| only about documents that you didn't hand back when they asked
| for them.
|
| If we call every legal action against a political candidate
| political interference, we have two systems of justice, and all
| you need to do to have no consequences is to keep running for
| office. Then any investigations on you or your family become a
| witch hunt.
|
| The mechanism to sort it out is that the data must come to
| light at trial, and people can make their own minds regarding
| whether the investigation did everything that was remotely
| reasonable to get cooperation or not. But then again, thanks to
| the US media environment that is more interested in
| entertaining than informing, people's opinions might have
| little to do with reality, thanks to their own political
| biases. That allows someone to, on the campaign trail, call for
| locking up the opposition candidate, while claiming that
| everything is a witch hunt when any investigation heads in
| their direction.
| predictabl3 wrote:
| They don't care. They undoubtedly know this and knowingly
| just lie about it. There's no point in typing that stuff out.
|
| Of course, then I fell for it to. Politics here is bad enough
| but when people repost the lowest effort, lowest thought
| string-of-words they've been trained on... I mean, I could
| just go read Truth Social directly.
| J_Shelby_J wrote:
| I'm an advocate of privacy for this reason.
|
| A corrupt LEO can get a warrant to search your house easily,
| and so getting a warrant for a (completely automated process!)
| that hands them your entire digital life is even easier. It
| just takes a message to google/apple/meta and they have access
| to.... your digital soul, basically.
|
| Big brother is scary, but corruption at the local level is a
| very real threat to individuals and democracy as a whole.
| Imagine trying to run an election against a small town sheriff
| who is willing to abuse their power. Within a local political
| system complacent in that abuse? This isn't hypothetical. The
| judge in this case approved this warrant.
|
| Anti-privacy efforts like the current trend of anti-encryption
| proposals really need to be better labeled as anti-democratic
| by the politically active.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| miles wrote:
| For those who can support the paper, an annual electronic
| subscription is just $34.99. The subscription link is buried on
| the marionrecord.com homepage under "MORE..."; here's a direct
| link:
| https://marionrecord.com/credit/subscription:MARION+COUNTY+R... .
| themodelplumber wrote:
| Love the part where a bunch of people subscribed to their news
| service to show support...including apparently a famous movie
| producer and screenwriter.
|
| Yikes for the chief...he stepped right on top of a cherished
| American value. That's instant-villain territory.
|
| I'm sure even a talented screenwriter wouldn't complain when huge
| chunks of a story offer to write themselves...
| sixothree wrote:
| That kind of this only matters if you have shame. And in this
| age people really don't care as long as they wield power.
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| > And in this age people really don't care as long as they
| wield power.
|
| At least the _ideal_ was that this was a government by the
| people for the people. The goal being to align incentives to
| wield power appropriately. When you misuse your power against
| the people, the people take away your power.
| rob74 wrote:
| However, if you manage to convince the people (or at least
| a significant percentage of the people) that the
| journalists you are going up against are just peddlers of
| "fake news", you _might_ get away with it...
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-08-12 23:01 UTC)