TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — An eastern Kansas county is defending a policy that directs business owners to collect information about their customers as an effort to help trace the contacts of infected people during the “unique health challenge” of the coronavirus pandemic.
Attorneys for Linn County, its county commission and its health director said Thursday in a federal court filing that a May 1 order by the health director does not violate rights against unreasonable searches that are protected by the U.S. Constitution. The attorneys argued that two business owners who sued misrepresented the county’s plans in having the information collected.
The county’s attorneys were responding to a lawsuit from Jackie Taylor, publisher of the Linn County News in Pleasanton, and Linda Jo Hisel, owner of Nana Jo’s restaurant in La Cygne. They argued that telling them to log the names of customers and the dates and lengths of visits to their premises amounted to a warrantless search of their business records.
The county said in its filing that the business operators wrongly suggest that the county would make blanket demands for information when the local health department would ask only for data about specific customers in contact with infected people over the previous month.