A Stilted Breeze

Last Friday, Rockingham County Commonwealth’s Attorney Marsha L. Garst and more than a dozen police officers raided the James Madison University campus newspaper, The Breeze. They ordered the staff to turn over pictures taken at Springfest, an annual campus party that police broke up this year because it turned into a riot. On Friday, police entered The Breeze’s newsroom with a search warrant and threatened to seize all cameras, computers, and other documents unless the photos were turned over. Left with no choice but to hand over the photos, Breeze Editor-in-Chief Katie Thisdell complied. The police confiscated 926 photos, only 682 of which were pictures of the riot. Forcing The Breeze to hand over its unpublished photos violated the integrity and indepence of journalism.

This incidence of search and seizure oversteps legal authority and is a violation of the Privacy Protection Act, which states that it is illegal to forcefully take unpublished material from a journalism source—an act Thisdell cited when the police entered the newsroom. Because student journalists should be protected in the same way that full-time journalists are, the police had no right to demand material that the newspaper is entitled to keep private.

Moreover, the secrecy surrounding the situation is wholly unjustified. Rather than issuing a sealed affidavit that can remain sealed for up to a year, the judge who permitted the seizure should have issued a subpoena and introduced more transparency into the proceedings.

Even if the police technically possessed the proper documentation to enter the newsroom, they inappropriately exercised their force by intimidating the staff and threatening to confiscate other items besides the photos. Demanding the photos was wrong on its own, but threatening to shut down the entire operations of a paper showed even bigger disregard for the newspaper’s rights.

In spite of the trying circumstances, we believe Thisdell should be commended for how she handled this situation. By citing the Privacy Protection Act when the police initially requested photos, Thisdell not only attempted to protect the transparency and honesty of her school’s newspaper, but also made a statement about how college newspapers have the same rights as other journalism outlets. She acted in the best manner she could have, given the circumstances.

The photos are now being held by a third party until a judge can rule on the issue, and The Breeze is currently receiving legal advice on the case. Garst could face a fine for violating the Privacy Protection Act if the case goes in favor of The Breeze. Hopefully, the situation will be resolved in a way that will teach the authorities a lesson about the value of free speech.

Student newspapers are respectable journalism outlets and should be treated as such. The Breeze and all other student newspapers should receive the coverage of the Privacy Protection Act, which protects a principle that journalists and Americans pride themselves on—the principle of free speech.