A chilling taste of government rule by iron fist | Sam Venable
My first copy of the Marion County Record recently arrived. It was out of date, but so what? This comes with the territory when you mail-subscribe to a distant weekly newspaper.
It was full of local news and sports. I especially liked coverage of the Labor Day sack race. Also featured was a “Memories” section with this photo caption from Sept. 13, 1978: “Tim McElfresh helps his grandmother, Mrs. Lawrence Winkley, display large cucumbers grown in her garden.”
But there was plenty of serious stuff, including four stories, an editorial and a guest editorial cartoon, all stemming from an infamous police raid.
As you may have guessed by now, this paper didn’t come from Marion County, Tennessee. It’s from the town of Marion in Marion County, Kansas, a ho-hum dot on the map prior to Aug. 11. That’s the day cops entered the Record’s office and seized cellphones and computers. Under fuzzy circumstances and with dubious evidence, a local judge had signed off on the search warrant.
Seems the Record had been investigating the town’s new police chief, also a local restaurant owner who is seeking a liquor license.
There’s nothing new about this process. You need look no further than the News Sentinel’s recent attempts to unravel the convoluted hiring of Knoxville’s top cop.
In Marion, Kansas, however, these legitimate efforts were deemed “attempted identity theft.” Thus, the raid.
The county’s district attorney was not pleased. He ordered all seized equipment returned to the newspaper and its staff.
Yet the ramifications are chilling to anyone who understands the U.S. Constitution. The fact that the government attempted to stop a news organization in legal pursuit of its — and the public’s — business portends authoritarian rule.
I’m one of some 4,500 new subscribers, most of us non-Kansans. Cost us $49.99 for one year. That tidy windfall has been bolstered by supportive advertisers, including full-page displays by organizations like the Society of Professional Journalists, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, and Reporters Without Borders.
Even without that backing, the Record will prosper. I remember hearing network news about the raid and thinking, “Sure hope the town of Marion has good insurance. It’s about to get sued from hell to breakfast.”
But this is about more than money. When news is stifled, the real victims are John and Jane Citizen.
Oh, and don’t waste time attempting to equate this wacko police action to the FBI’s seizure of top-secret documents from Donald Trump. They’re lightyears apart, which is clear to anyone not drunk on partisan Kool-Aid.
Sam Venable’s column appears every Sunday. Contact him at sam.venable@outlook.com.
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Sam Venable: A chilling taste of government rule by iron fist | Sam Venable
