Newspaper’s hard drives seized in Pa. grand jury investigation

PHILADELPHIA – State prosecutors seized four computers from a newsroom as part of a grand jury probe into whether a county coroner gave reporters his password to a secure law enforcement Web site, the newspaper said Wednesday.

The Intelligencer Journal of Lancaster had offered to provide the information sought through less intrusive means or to search the computers in the newsroom, newspaper officials said. But prosecutors won a court battle to take the hard drives.

Harold E. Miller Jr., the president and chief executive of parent Lancaster Newspapers Inc., said the ruling dismayed his reporters and could have a chilling effect on newsgathering.

“You get to the point where sources have confidence that we’ll do the right thing and that our industry’s protected. They’ll talk to us,” Miller said. “Without that confidence, we lose our ability to do our job.”

Kevin Harley, a spokesman for state Attorney General Tom Corbett, declined comment, citing grand jury rules.

Prosecutors have pledged to limit their search to items related to the Lancaster County-Wide Communications’ Computer Assisted Dispatch Web site, which contains details about criminal investigations.