MARION, Kan. — 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 location 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 go looking the newspaper’s places of work and the house of its writer, in addition to the house of a City Council member who additionally accessed the motive force’s license database.

The police chief led the Aug. 11 raids and stated within 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 identification theft or laptop crimes.

Both the City Council member and the newspaper have stated they acquired a duplicate of the 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 examine the standing of an individual’s license on-line and acquire 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 neighborhood 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.

PHOTOS: The preliminary on-line search spurring a raid on a Kansas paper was authorized, a state company says

“That’s legal,” he stated. “The website is pubic facing, and anyone can use it.”

The Kansas Bureau of Investigation continues to probe the newspaper’s actions. The KBI studies 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 southwest of Kansas City, Missouri, was scheduled Monday afternoon to have its first common assembly because the raids. The member whose house was raided, Ruth Herbel, was elected in 2019 and is town’s vice mayor.

The agenda says, in crimson: “COUNCIL WILL NOT COMMENT ON THE ONGOING CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION AT THIS MEETING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

But the agenda additionally features a place for public feedback, with audio system restricted to a few minutes.

Police seized computer systems, private cellphones and a router from the newspaper and the writer’s house and a laptop computer and iPhone from Herbel. Record Editor and Publisher Eric Meyer lived together with his 98-year-old mom, Joan Meyer, and blames the stress of the raid for her dying the day after the raids.

The seized gear was turned over to a pc forensics auditing agency employed by the newspaper’s legal professional final week after the county legal professional concluded there wasn’t sufficient proof to justify its seizure. The auditor is checking the gear to see whether or not supplies have been accessed or copied.

The Department of Revenue web site permits an individual to purchase a driving report for $16.70 a duplicate - and that requires somebody to once more enter the particular person’s driver’s license quantity and date of delivery whereas offering a reputation, deal with and telephone quantity. Meyer stated Zorn used her personal data and didn't impersonate the restaurant proprietor, Kari Newell.

The affidavit to go looking the newspaper’s places of work famous that when an individual submits a request for somebody’s driving report, it lists 13 circumstances wherein it's authorized to acquire it. They embrace an individual is looking for their very own report or a enterprise looking for it to confirm private data to assist gather 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 specialists consider the police raid on the newspaper violated a federal privateness regulation or a state regulation shielding journalists from having to establish sources or flip over unpublished materials to regulation enforcement. Meyer has famous that among the many objects 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 changing 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 he or she additionally disclosed a drunken driving offense in her previous. According to the affidavits, she informed Cody that she didn't authorize anybody to entry her data.

Newell additionally accused the newspaper of giving Herbel personal details about her. Herbel, who has referred most inquiries to her legal professional, stated that was a “blatant lie.” Meyer additionally informed the council that the newspaper didn't give data to Herbel and famous it didn't publish the knowledge it obtained.

Herbel handed alongside her details 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, in line with the affidavit for the search on Herbel’s house. Jones then informed Mayor David Mayfield concerning the data in an e mail, including, “We as a city need to stay out of this ‘hear say’ or whatever else you want to call it.”

Herbel’s legal professional, Drew Goodwin, stated Herbel was attending to her official duties. He referred to as the raid on her house “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.”

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Associated Press writers Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas, and Jim Salter in O’Fallon, Missouri, contributed to this report.

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