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When the Police Control the Press
The Serbian soldier blocking the bridge cradled his AK-47 assault rifle as he delivered a ruling that brooked no argument: You cannot cross the river. Not today.
We implored him to reconsider. We are journalists. We've driven all the way from Belgrade. Here are our credentials.
No. This road is closed.
Zashto? (Why?)
Ne! (No.)
We never made it to Zvornik, the Bosnian town just across the river. When it came to press access, the final word belonged to the men with guns. As we later learned, the Serbs had plenty to hide that spring day about their activities in eastern Bosnia.
I was reminded of that instant -- admittedly a very different set of circumstances -- when we received a call last week at ProPublica from Lance Rosenfield, a freelance photographer we had hired to work in Texas City, Texas, on stories about BP's refinery there.
Rosenfield said he had been detained by local police after snapping a picture on the road into Texas City. Rosenfield said he had shown the officers and a BP security guard a letter from ProPublica that said he was on assignment. Police said he would be "taken in" if he did not let them look at the photos in his camera.
The senior officer present, Cpl. Thomas Robison, pressed Rosenfield to describe ProPublica's forthcoming story.
Rosenfield demurred but did allow police to review his photos. No threat to national security was detected -- the pictures were innocuous shots of the refinery and signage nearby. Rosenfield was eventually allowed to leave after being warned to clear further photography with the local authorities. At the request of police, he turned over his social security number and date of birth which were promptly given to the BP security officer who was present.
The men with guns had made their determination. It doesn't appear that they had much of a legal or logical basis to do so.
Why would potential terrorists take photos from a public street when they can view detailed reasonably high-resolution satellite photos via Google? What could possibly be gained from a ground-level shot, even with a telephoto lens?
Michael Marr, a BP spokesman in Texas City, said that the company acted because "an unidentified man" had been seen taking photos near refinery facilities, including "marine loading operations." Marr said Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Coast Guard regulations require the company to report anyone "appearing to be engaged in surveillance of any kind (picture taking, note taking, shooting video, asking strange questions, etc)."
David Schulz, a media lawyer who teaches at the Columbia Law School, told me that the rules are not so broad as to allow inspection of a journalist's unpublished photos. "It is not against the law to take photos from a public street," he said.
"While federal regulations do require critical facilities to report suspicious activities, they do not sanction police demands to inspect photos taken by a working journalist," Schulz said. "A demand to see the photos smacks of censorship -- monitoring the news before it's published, with police acting as censors of what they like and don't like. Police simply don't have the power to do that, and we should all be concerned when provisions intended to safeguard our security are twisted to intimidate journalists."
In the weeks since the Deepwater Horizon exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, local authorities in Louisiana and elsewhere have made it more difficult for reporters and television crews to follow the story, restricting access to public beaches and waterways. More recently, the Coast Guard has set limits on how close news crews can come to booms and oily beaches.
There is, of course, good reason to keep the press away from potentially dangerous pollution sites. And there's at least an equally valid public policy rationale for keeping an eye on people who are photographing critical infrastructure like a refinery.
But the public and the press have good reason to be suspicious when a major corporation and the government try to curtail photography or reporters' firsthand access. The American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana has raised questions about why reporters' movements have been restricted by local sheriffs.
And it's even harder to understand what circumstances justify allowing the police to review a journalist's work before publication.
News organizations fight hard to preserve the privacy of unpublished notes and photographs. The reasons are understandable. People often talk to reporters in confidence. We are not an arm of law enforcement and wouldn't want potential sources to feel that every dealing they have with us is open to scrutiny. News organizations routinely fight to quash subpoenas for unpublished material.
In the Texas City case, there was no confusion about Rosenfield's status as a journalist. He was carrying a letter from ProPublica confirming his assignment. The police officers who detained him made no effort to call editors here before questioning his credentials and detaining him. Marr's statement suggests that he was taking pictures near a marine loading facility. That may be true, but then a good swath of the Texas City is "near" one part of the port or another. And none of the photographs depict such facilities themselves.
This wasn't the first time journalists and the Texas City police have been in conflict. Capt. Ross Clements told me the police have a "standard practice" of reviewing photos snapped by tourists and news photographers because shots of "critical infrastructure" could be of use to terrorists.
A photographer for a local newspaper, The Galveston County Daily News, was detained in 2008 after shooting pictures of refinery workers trying to contain a leak at Marathon Oil Co.
Cpl. Robison, the local police's contact with the Joint Terrorism Task Force and the same officer who tried to get Rosenfield to disclose the contents of ProPublica's story, defended the policy, telling the Daily News:
"There's no law that says you can't take pictures from a public roadway, but the issue becomes: Are any of the shots compromising security measures?"
Michael Smith, associate editor of the Daily News, said the paper has pressed repeatedly for police to identify a federal law that permits them to review photos.
"As far as I can tell, there is no law that grants the police this power," he said.
"Nobody can point to a law of the United States of America or the State of Texas that allows police to do this," Smith continued. "This is an assumed power that the police have taken on themselves based on this amorphous notion that the demands of the security state allow this and if you're a good citizen, you shouldn't make a fuss."
To be fair, the streets of Texas City are nothing like the back roads of war-torn former Yugoslavia. But it's worth recording this historical note: The day I was stopped from entering Zvornik, a group of paramilitary soldiers had begun an "ethnic cleansing" that would leave hundreds of Muslim civilians dead. It was among the more brutal massacres of the war. One reason we know what happened is that one of the paramilitary groups invited an American photographer to accompany it.
If you don't think access matters, take a look at his photos.
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Show AllYes, this is what it has boiled down to. "The ones with the guns". They work for those who have the money and those who have distorted the meaning of language. Forget about law, reason, fairness and justice. Those things have fallen by the wayside. Quaint. Over shadowed by our need for security. Where have we heard this before? Trampling of human rights, international law, treaties. Imprisoning whole populations. Poisoning entire oceans. No accountability because they own the guns, the police, the soldiers, the CIA, the Mossad, the ISI......Seems the only thing lacking are vestiges of what used to be called humanity. Even though we are now more scared of our own corrupt government, our out of control Big Brother state, the police and military, than any terrorist, what can change? What can change this dynamic, when the police and military work for the criminals? What can change when our most psychologically vulnerable, and morally compromised citizens have all the weapons? Sorry, but vast majority of police and military personnel have never been the vanguard of intelligent and critical thought. In my experience, this is a fact. How, people, do we get them to point their guns at the true enemies? I just don't see it happening.
Them thar folks actually have a history of "restricting peoples movements" based on the law that's in effect at the time. The gulf states are simply going back to the future, except this time, few will be exempt from the law - unless you are rich, and many of those folks will be separated from their wealth at the appropriate time.
Last year, I was video-taping a demonstration in favor of a national health care program. It was on the sidewalk in front of the Augusta, Maine post office (A Federal Building). The demonstration was to make an impression on Maine Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe. As soon as one of the demonstrators started criticizing our Senators, a Homeland Security Agent came up to me and said I could not tape the proceedings. I explained that I was on public property (the side walk) and that I already had cleared it with another HS agent earlier. He said that one of Susan Collin's aides had complained and didn't want me there. He was enforcing, not the law, but a conservative politician's will. A lawyer, walking by approached the scene and wanted to know what was happening. Apparently, this lawyer was known by the Collins staff and, all of a sudden, they started backing down. I've no doubt, our country is already on its way to being a police state.
There are very indiscrete video cameras that hide in pens, hats etc. You may want to check into those if you plan on filming like this. It might be good for your own safety and to be sure your message gets out. I'm considering getting one myself.
Bullshit!
It was his right to openly make a video of the event and had nothing to hide. What you are proposing is called cowering to power and is sheer cowardice.
What "own safety" are you referring to??? If you are afraid of getting arrested on utterly bogus, vindicatabe, and even lawsuit-worthy charges, we have already lost.
Rights only matter if you have access to due process.
Ever since Congress took the right to due process (habeas corpus) away from "enemy combatants" in 2006, the cops can label you an "enemy combatant" which means that not only will you not be allowed to prove your innocence, you will not even be allowed to prove your true identity.
A couple of things. First off I was making a statement in general not specific to this case. Also When cops or media want to catch someone doing something wrong, do they use hidden cameras or do they have a guy standing in plain sight filming the whole thing? Also if you get the shit kicked out of you and your camera confiscated what have you accomplished? Is that your purpose? If seaweed, or someone near him had a hidden camera, they could filmed the whole thing, posted it on Youtube, and maybe make it uncomfortable for some people in power.
Yea maybe you you can sue and win and maybe not, maybe you'll be labeled a terrorist or enemy combatant and simply be disappeared.
I've been to a lot of demonstrations, and even when people barricaded the streets and broke windows, no one arrested was labeled a "terrorist" or "enemy combatant." Your attitude is defeatist. Go outside and do something.
Defeatism, realism, optimism, all terms whose meanings change the longer one spends on this Earth.
What I find so disturbing about such incidents is that, even if for no other reasons than being a US citizen, a policeman is supposed to be familiar with the bill of rights. Aides in congressman's local office have likewise called the police, and the police have actually arrested healthcare demonstrators on public sidewalks, openly saying with a straight face, that they are doing it at on the congressmans request.
Let us remember that totalitarianism only arises with the assent, and especially the active cooperation, of the mass of the citizens.
"I've no doubt, our country is already on its way to being a police state."
The police now make the law up as they go.
On it's way to being a Police State? I think it became that way awhile ago. Look at Police Uniforms. I work for a Police Dept. for over 25 years. When I started we looked like Police, now our patrol units look like Black booted thugs. There outfits now consist of Dark colored "BDUs" the gun belt has so many accessories that you can't see there gun. The mind set of police has changed as well.
Thank you so much for posting that. I'm in my early 50s now and my memory of how cops looked and acted when I was younger matches with almost nothing I see today. I wasn't sure if it was reality or just changes in my minds eye. Years ago police seemed to be much more approachable and civil. Not anymore, now I do my best to avoid them at all costs.
We are like the frog in the hot water..by the time we realized it our constitution and free press were gone..this was not suddenly upon us, it has been developing for a long time. The citizens have little or nothing to say anymore about what happens,it's all about money and power for the few now. In the 30's people changed this a little(at great cost) but how is it going to change in our current police state.
Mr Engelberg,
I know this is a bit off-topic, but the Bosnians, the Kosovo Albanians, and especially the Croatians comitted a lot of atrocities too. In fact, more Serbians were ethnically cleansed from their homes and towns than any other Balkan ethnic group.
Why are the Serbians so singled out for condemnation? Might it be becasue, unlike the others, they didn't buy-in to the post-cold war capitalist neoliberal project?
The pigs are just doing their job: protecting the corporate elite. Reporting live from the Vatican, I'm Benny Dick.
Welcome to Amerika, Land of the Consumer, Home of the Terrified.
Perhaps this article should be retitled, 'When Corporations Control the Information: Fascism in America'
You think things are bad now, wait about 20 years.
You won't even recognize the U.S. then. This is an ongoing process, and in 20 years we will be absolutely horrified at what this nation looks like. I know: you already are. I am, too. But give it a bit more time in the Fascism Cooker, and there will come a day down the road when we will, all of us, yearn for the "better days" of 2010.
Scared yet? You will be.
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross."
Sinclair Lewis, "It Cant Happen Here", 1935
Like this? http://www.motifake.com/26856
US incarceration rate increased from 500,000 1980 to 2,500,000 in 2010.
US have 5% of the world population but 25% of the world prison population.)
Let's check back in twenty years.
Lance Rosenfield is a white guy. Imagine someone with a "different" look taking these pictures - say, Hispanic or Middle Eastern! After all, the London police could not tell the difference when they shot the Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes after he got on the train (seven times in the head - just to make sure he was dead, I suppose).
And so it goes in the new Amerika, comrade. Big Brother is always watching. Must go now, it's time for the Two Minutes Hate. Back to the view screen.
The Nazi States of America.
Welcome to the Corporate Police State of America! And they said it couldn't happen here!
It's definitely happening here -- have a look at what's actually happening in the Gulf:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxDf-KkMCKQ&feature=player_embedded
You won't see this footage on nightly corporate national news in the U.S.
People, please take a look at the link provided by Kurt. I defy anyone to look at this horror and keep a dry eye. It is much much worse than depicted in the major media.
Michael Marr, a BP spokesman in Texas City, said that the company acted because "an unidentified man" had been seen taking photos near refinery facilities, including "marine loading operations."
Yeah, such people used to be called Tourists.
We are heading fast into a police state, yet so few will re-consider their fast held beliefs about what happened on 9/11.
Tragic.
It is assumed that a tourist is a terrorist until he/she can prove otherwise.
excellent! those two words are on the way to being interchangeable...
Glenn Greenwald's been all over this story, and we're just now getting some word about it through CD. In fact, every item on his front page has to do with some aspect of the Propaganda System; all are worth reading, which is usual for all of his work. IMO, he is primed to become Chomsky's heir. http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/
more like... primed to turn up missing
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
What more needs to be said? The Bill of Rights can only be changed by Constitutional amendment, not by legislative or executive fiat. I don't recall such an amendment.
As I said many years ago, when we were being Bushwhacked, "The Constitution and Bill of Rights have been shredded by the government and replaced by an Hitlerian "Enabling Act," misnamed the PATRIOT ACT."
When the Democrats took "charge" of the legislative branch, we hoped that this would be curbed or reversed. It quickly became obvious that there would not even be a meaningful challenge to the Bush government. My conclusion was that the Democrats wanted to keep this illegal criminality going so they could use it when it was their turn. And so it has come to pass. Now, we face the spectre of "legal precedence" "Well, this has gone on through two administrations with no check. Therefore it has the force of law."
In essence, the government is saying, to paraphrase from a great old movie, "Constitution? Constitution? We don't need no stinkin' Constitution!"
And they don't...but we do!
I see little difference between being Bushwhacked and living in the Obomanation.
But what about the hope and the change we were promised? Or
Are the people of this country "THAT!" F'n stupid! I suppose so.
God help all of these people and the sea and wildlife who are suffering along the Gulf Coast.
Yes they are fn stupid. Look at Palin and her followers. These people scare the fc out of me. They bow down to her and open up their checkbooks. And I just read that's she's the new voice for women.
This would have been a good article if it left out the hot air propaganda about the "terrible Serbs" in the Balkans, the same hot air that Slick Willy used to carry out the anything but humanitarian intervention there costing much more lives and blood than that that all the factions in the Balkans had already caused. The Bosnian and Croatian separatists engaged in as much and likely more rape and ethnic cleansing than Belgrade. Please Lord Owens account in his entitled the Balkan Odyssey. Also if you can read FAIR's accurate account in Extra issues of the time which showed how the Bosnian and Croatian separatists manipulated the Western press to the extreme. An NPR journalist was actually the source of some of this information. I personally covered the biased Western media reporting on the Balkans in some depth showing how this got the USA to intervene against Belgrade, and we have the terrible results today of two fascist governments in Croatia and Bosnia and neither Croatia, Kosovar, nor Bosnian war criminals brought to justice for their war crimes.
The break up of the Balkans didn't have to happen nor did all the destruction and death both Cyrus Vance and Lord Owen tried to prevent it with diplomacy, but Slick Willy sabotaged it with brutal military action.
The British were backing diplomacy until Blairite Labor got control of the British government.
AD
Thanks, I made a similar comment about this earlier. As I stated earler, far more Serbians have been forcibly driven from their homes, towns and provinces than any other Balkan ethnicity.
There are a bunch of Catholic charities-sponsored Croatian immigrants near where I live - and they are mostly a rather tough, thuggish fast-motorcycle-riding lot - some of them are no doubt verterans of war-atrocities. They are very similar to European skinheads, US rednecks, or Hebron-Zionist settler-thugs.
In contrast, the occasional Serbs I meet are among some of the finest poeple I've met.
Oh so I get it. When its poor ol white Serbia in trouble, CD gets 34 comments on this article.
But when its Africa with widespread malnutrition and hunger, prevalent war, racism, and neo-colonialism, no one cares?
I get it. Even the white progressives hate talking about Africa.
Africa was never mentioned in this article, but the author seemed to go out of his way to kick Serbia, with links, two seperate times.
When Americans finally wake up to the fact that the police, comprised of the stupidest people in your graduating class, are the enemy, it'll be too late, eh?
Yes it is true, we live in a Corporate Police State.As long as you go to work, pay your bills, and say nothing, you can hide for awhile.Otherwise you will be targeted.Free press has been long gone. They hide the truth about almost everything. We live in a candy coated world, for now.The only thing worse than a bad man, is a good man doing nothing to stop him.That is the way most Americans live, we do nothing. We let the bad guys run the show and keep our mouths shut,well we have seen throughout history that this method only brings about teareny,we are not FREE.Our abuse of the planet, and each other will have it's day,for every action there is a reaction.We are falling right into the Religious fanatics dream come true of the "End of Days",instead of living like StarTreck and all getting along moving into the future, we are living in a way that will take us all to hell.And it's true no body cares about Africa,only what we can take and kill,the people mean nothing.We killed the buffalo,the whales ,the Indians,lions,elephants, we kill everything, we have no respect for life. The planet see's this and will most likely wipe us out before we destroy everything.Personaly I think we deserve what ever we get !!
"There is, of course, good reason to keep the press away from potentially dangerous pollution sites. And there's at least an equally valid public policy rationale for keeping an eye on people who are photographing critical infrastructure like a refinery."
I disagree. Reporters choose to put themselves in dangerous situations because often that is where the story is.
As far as "becoming" a police state? I was in Chicago at the Democratic Convention in 1968 on the street in the middle of the famous police riot. Those pigs were raw amateurs despite having no respect for the Constitution or human rights. They beat the shit out of defenseless young girls with 3 foot truncheons, but they were nothing compared to the robocop shock troops in America today. We have nightmare fright squads beyond Hollywood or Blade Runner. Watch the footage from other countries when their police go out of control and they are somewhere between the raw amateurs in Chicago and the full fledged robocop terror forces we have here in the U.S.A. Our pigs are unmatched anywhere in the world.
They make the super goosestepping special forces of Indonesia look like girl scouts!
We all need AK-47s and grenade launchers just to go down to the park safely for a lemonade. We might as well be honest with ourselves.
As Fred Hampton used to say before he was turned into Swiss cheese in his bed at 5:00 a.m. by a Chicago police machine gun - "Off the Pig!"
"Watch the footage from other countries when their police go out of control and they are somewhere between the raw amateurs in Chicago and the full fledged robocop terror forces we have here in the U.S.A. Our pigs are unmatched anywhere in the world."
I have to disagree. What footage from the Israelis represing a Palestinian protest and you'll see pigs really go out of control and thoroughly enjoy it to the last drop of blood.
Anyone who has lived under the rule of a totalitarian regime will tell you that the first thing be quashed is the press. The US has already done that.
"Officers" Robison and Clements are acting much like fascists, as they deploy their "authority" and power to control, silence, and intimidate...their unconstitutional actions threaten our way of life more than terrorists ever could.
Robison and Clements, more fodder for the Totalitarian-surveillance State.
"And there's at least an equally valid public policy rationale for keeping an eye on people who are photographing critical infrastructure like a refinery"
Grade A BS. There is no evidence that "terrorists" or anybody else at any time have taken video or still pictures of targets. None.
It is pure Hollywood, just like the cars that are parked outside the airport main door or courthouse and the bombs that have the flashing red diode and second countdown display and go beep every second.
The War on Photographers continues. Funny that you can take pictures inside the Kremlin but not in New York's Grand Central station.
Every day the USA and Canada become more and more like the former Soviet Union.
Hilary Clinton is a member in good standings of the
INTERNATIONAL LIARS CLUB