To the editor:

Every resident of Douglas County who cares about civil liberties should be shocked and dismayed that the Kansas University police department, with a judge’s approval and the apparent endorsement of the district attorney, served a search warrant on a newsroom. While this is an issue about the rights of the press, it is much more than that.

If it is possible in Lawrence, theoretically the most enlightened community in the state, for the judiciary and law enforcement to generate a search warrant for a newsroom without following procedures outlined in the law, those of us who do not buy our ink by the barrel should have no expectation that our constitutional rights will be respected by those in power.

In the cases of Judge Stephen Six and District Attorney Charles Branson, Douglas County voters will have an opportunity to retain them in office or not. But why is Kansas University not being called to account as well? The idea that an arm of a university – whose lifeblood is academic freedom – would find it acceptable to intrude into a newsroom is stunning.

Gwyn Mellinger,

Mike Auchard,

Lawrence