If law enforcement officials come knocking at your door — or perhaps breaking the door down — and proceed to search your home, you’d want to know why.

Unfortunately, the leadership of the Kansas Senate thinks that police shouldn’t have to explain themselves to the public, or even the subjects of the search.

Currently, the probable cause affidavits that law enforcement officials and prosecutors use to obtain search warrants in Kansas are closed to the public. A bill that would have opened those affidavits to the public passed the Kansas House earlier this year, by an overwhelming 113-10 majority. However, when the bill reached the Senate Judiciary Committee, most of its important provisions were removed. Last week, the committee chairman and the Senate majority leader told supporters of the bill that they wouldn’t advance the bill for action, thereby killing it for the current session.

Opponents of the bill point to concerns by law enforcement officials about the possibility that opening the affidavits would hamper investigations or lead to sensational pre-trial publicity. That hasn’t been the experience in other states — all of which provide some kind of public access to those affidavits.

Any protection or convenience the closure of these documents provides to police or prosecutors is far outweighed by the need to ensure citizens’ protection under the Fourth Amendment from unreasonable search and seizure.

Ask Bob and Addie Harte of Johnson County, who have become the poster children for legislation to open police affidavits. Two years ago a heavily armed SWAT team invaded their home saying only that they were looking for narcotics. When the Hartes tried to gain access to the affidavits used to obtain the search warrant, they were told those records were closed.

After paying $25,000 to have an attorney investigate the matter, the Hartes finally obtained the records and learned that the search apparently was approved after Bob Harte was seen leaving a store that sells hydroponic growing equipment, and police found leafy material, which Addie Harte believes was discarded tea leaves, in the family’s trash. That apparently led police to think the Hartes were growing marijuana at their home.

The Hartes, who have testified in support of legislation to open the affidavits, say they believe that if those documents had been open to the news media and members of the public, police would have been more careful and never gone through with the raid at their home. As the Hartes have noted, allowing law enforcement to hide their justification for searches from the public is something that only would be acceptable in a police state.

Any Kansas legislator who supports open government or is worried about unwarranted government incursions into citizens’ private lives should be embarrassed that Kansas keeps these records closed — and that Senate leaders apparently believe that is perfectly all right.