St. Paul Police Subpoena Reporter's Cell Phone Records

By: St. Paul police subpoenaed the cell phone records of a KMSP-TV reporter and the phone records of a Ramsey County sheriff's department employee after the reporter obtained an arrest report that should have been public data, the station reported Tuesday night.

Veteran police reporter Tom Lyden had gone to the police department to check on the criminal history of a woman who was sitting in a car with a man who allegedly shot an undercover police officer in a roadside incident in Coon Rapids last June, the station reported.

Lyden requested a copy of a 7-year-old traffic arrest report for the woman, but was denied by St. Paul police spokesman Tom Walsh, the station said.

"I thought it was public and I thought they were stonewalling me and not giving me a public document,'' Lyden said in an interview with another KMSP reporter.

Lyden later got the document from a county official who agreed the report was public, the station said. Lyden reported his story without naming the woman, who was considered a witness in the police shooting.

The police department then obtained an administrative subpoena for Lyden's cell phone records to try to identify Lyden's source, the station said. Only a county prosecutor, not a judge, needs to sign such a subpoena, the report said.

"We're concerned about data privacy,'' St. Paul Police Chief John Harrington told the station when asked to explain. Asked what was private about a traffic arrest report, the chief said the station would have to talk to the city attorney about that.

Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher told KMSP the phone records for one of his employees also had been subpoenaed. The station said Fletcher planned to send Harrington a letter saying police used false information to get the subpoena, and that he'll file an internal affairs complaint against the officers involved.

KMSP said its lawyers believe the subpoena violates the First Amendment and may violate state law. It said it has asked for an apology and for Lyden's records back.

"In obtaining my phone records they basically opened up my reporter's notebook,'' Lyden said. ``They basically looked at my notes. They have looked at sources. They have looked at people I have tried to protect.''

University of Minnesota media law and ethics processor Jane Kirtley said state law makes it very hard for police to force reporters to turn over their notes and sources.

"In this case you've got a journalists shield law in this state that provides great protection to the press, and yet effectively what the government has done is done an end run around the shield law by going to the telephone company rather than the journalist,'' Kirtley said.

"Had they gone to the journalist the news organization could have contested the subpoena in court and had a full hearing. This was done in a very sneaky and in my opinion very inappropriate way.''

Harrington said it was the first time he knew of that his department had used an administrative subpoena to obtain a reporter's phone records. He wouldn't say who authorized the subpoena or how long a time period the records covered.

"There's an open investigation here. I can't really speak to that,'' he said.

But the sheriff told the station that the police chief should be able to talk about it. Fletcher said he was told that Harrington closed the investigation himself.

Harrington denied that he was trying to discourage his officers from talking to reporters.

But Kirtley said such actions send a clear message to reporters.

"If you're going to pursue a story the government doesn't want you to pursue you're going to have to be very prepared for the real possibility that they will take any steps they can to unmask your sources,'' she said.

While the investigation targeted the county officials who released the arrest report, Lyden said it's a blow to his work.

"I talk to a lot of people every day,'' he said. ``But now they can go throughout my stories and look at who did I talk to that day. They can match up every source that I have had. It is awful.''