The old saw is never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel. While ink has been largely replaced by pixels, and it’s unclear that the Marion County Record, a weekly newspaper that few beyond Marion County would be aware existed, bought pixels in bulk, but when one of the media tribe gets raided, the wagons circle and the outrage flows.

In an unprecedented raid Friday, local law enforcement seized computers, cellphones and reporting materials from the Marion County Record office, the newspaper’s reporters, and the publisher’s home.

Eric Meyer, owner and publisher of the newspaper, said police were motivated by a confidential source who leaked sensitive documents to the newspaper, and the message was clear: “Mind your own business or we’re going to step on you.”

The city’s entire five-officer police force and two sheriff’s deputies took “everything we have,” Meyer said, and it wasn’t clear how the newspaper staff would take the weekly publication to press Tuesday night.

From the story in the Kansas Reflector, another source rarely mentioned in the paper of record. the raid was “illegal” despite a warrant by a local magistrate judge, Laura Viar, which may or may not have had a probable cause predicate, grounded in the complaint of a local restaurant owner who threw Marion County Record reporters out of a political meeting.

The raid followed news stories about a restaurant owner who kicked reporters out of a meeting last week with U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner, and revelations about the restaurant owner’s lack of a driver’s license and conviction for drunken driving.

The publisher of the Record, Eric Meyer, says they were given damaging information about the restaurateur, Kari Newell, by a confidential source. Newell complained that the Record obtained information they would otherwise have no ability to lawfully.

A confidential source contacted the newspaper, Meyer said, and provided evidence that Newell had been convicted of drunken driving and continued to use her vehicle without a driver’s license. The criminal record could jeopardize her efforts to obtain a liquor license for her catering business.

A reporter with the Marion Record used a state website to verify the information provided by the source. But Meyer suspected the source was relaying information from Newell’s husband, who had filed for divorce. Meyer decided not to publish a story about the information, and he alerted police to the situation.

The story was about a small town police force engaging in an outrageous and unlawful raid and seizure of a local newspaper out of petty vindictiveness. And, indeed, that might indeed be exactly the story. It blew up on social media, with well-known reporters and news organizations condemning the raid and accepting Meyer’s version of the story as unquestionably accurate.

Police notified Newell, who then complained at a city council meeting that the newspaper had illegally obtained and disseminated sensitive documents, which isn’t true.

It isn’t because Meyer says it isn’t, which is almost certainly correct but isn’t the point, no matter how closely media clings to the truth of its own.

But was this an illegal search, as claimed?

The search warrant, signed by Marion County District Court Magistrate Judge Laura Viar, appears to violate federal law that provides protections against searching and seizing materials from journalists. The law requires law enforcement to subpoena materials instead. Viar didn’t respond to a request to comment for this story or explain why she would authorize a potentially illegal raid.

The applicability of federal law, 42 U.S. Code § 2000aa, here is far from clear.

(a) Work product materials

Notwithstanding any other law, it shall be unlawful for a government officer or employee, in  connection with the investigation or prosecution of a criminal offense, to search for or seize any work product materials possessed by a person reasonably believed to have a purpose to disseminate to the public a newspaper, book, broadcast, or other similar form of public communication, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce; but this provision shall not impair or affect the ability of any government officer or employee, pursuant to otherwise applicable law, to search for or seize such materials, if—

(1) there is probable cause to believe that the person possessing such materials has committed or is committing the criminal offense to which the materials relate: Provided, however, That a government officer or employee may not search for or seize such materials under the provisions of this paragraph if the offense to which the materials relate consists of the receipt, possession, communication, or withholding of such materials or the information contained therein….

The basis for the claim of illegality is a memo prepared by McGuire Woods in 2001, that says the statute applies to federal and state police seeking to seize evidence of a crime not involving the newspaper being raided. Not exactly authoritative.

Further, there’s a question about the underlying affidavit in support of the search warrant.

A Record reporter later requested a copy of the probable cause affidavit necessary for issuance of the search warrant.

District Court, where such items are supposed to be filed, issued a signed statement saying that no affidavit was on file.

If accurate, notably with neither name attached nor link to the “signed statement,” it doesn’t mean that there was no probable cause affidavit, but only that’s it’s not “on file,” whatever that means. Warrant affidavits are not usually available on file to the public before an arrest, and it’s also possible that the warrant was obtained on an oral application, though that would require a subsequent writing.

There’s no reason to doubt that the story of the Marion County Record raid isn’t as bad and wrong as the reporting suggests. But then, there is reason to believe that if there was reason to doubt the story, there was no interest in reporting it or writing anything to question their own tribe’s narrative.