The dark side of the RNC carnival in St. Paul, Minnesota

Link: St. Paul Mayor and Media Mum on Journalism Crackdown | CommonDreams.org. (from Huffington Post)

Dark news coming out of St. Paul regarding a coordinated harassment of the press covering events in and around the Republican National Convention.

I have to say, this is some of the most disturbing news I've heard in a long time, because what I read between the lines is that FEDERAL SURVEILLANCE of journalistic entities is being made in the name of the Patriot Act (the implications: convention-credentialed journalists = potential terrorists?! Pray tell, then, how did they get security clearance and credentials for the convention floor?!).

The dissemination of locations and movements of members is being shared with these so-called "Fusion Centers" of Posse Comitatus- and Insurrection Act-violating Secret Service, military and mercenary paramilitary groups (Blackwater?), police entities, and further, some unidentified "Others" that I can only think of as the "Brown Shirts" of the 2000s. The fact that this is happening at all, let alone that it now appears that journalists and citizen journalists are being targeted for wiretapping and other surveillance, should disturb all Americans.

I make this claim of surveillance because of the obvious coordination and home-targeting in the sweeps and raids. The St. Paul "enforcers" obviously knew where they were going and what they were after, in their "Department of Pre-Crime" and "non-crime" actions.

Even darker are the implications for the legions of citizen journalists (I Witness Video was one of the first groups targeted) and bloggers, who will undoubtedly be reporting on the way they were treated, and other observers who just happened to be swept up in a pincer move that left the crowd being "herded" with no way to obey the police orders, because the crowd could not move in the direction the police wanted them to go (a dead-end).

The police orders seem designed to force people to be at odds with police directions, for the sole purpose of giving them a reason to be arrested.

For further eyewitness accounts, be sure to catch Amy Goodman on the Democracy Now podcast for Tuesday, Sept 3. It is quite sobering.

It feels like little more than a new Fascist Information State. It makes the prospect of the GOP winning the presidency and continuing the policies of the Bushies who created this encroaching totalitarianism a nightmare worthy of becoming an expatriot.

Read the bits below, and you tell me if it doesn't send a massive chill up your spine.

Published on Wednesday, September 3, 2008 by The Huffington Post

St. Paul Mayor and Media Mum on Journalism Crackdown

by Timothy Karr 

In St. Paul this week, a new generation of media makers is under assault by the city's mayor and law enforcement officers.

These local officials think freedom of the press is a privilege that extends only to their closest allies in mainstream media. 

For the rest of us, it's a crime.

While reports of brutal police arrests and home invasions are still coming in, by Tuesday night the picture became clear. Dozens of journalists, photographers, bloggers and videomakers had been arrested in an orchestrated round up of independents covering the Republican National Convention.

Targeting the New Press

The list of those detained ranges from the well-known (Democracy Now's Amy Goodman) and well-established (Associated Press photographer Matt Rourke) -- to the bootstrapping bloggers and video makers who are covering local protests for TheUptake.org, Twin Cities Indymedia, I-Witness and other outlets. 

Police -- with firearms drawn -- raided a meeting of the video journalists and arrested independent media, bloggers and videomakers. Journalists covering protests have been pointed out by authorities, blasted with tear gas and pepper spray, and brutalized while in custody.

Democracy Now's Goodman reports that a U.S. Secret Service agent ripped her press credentials from her neck the moment she identified herself to him as a member of the media. Her producers emerged yesterday from their jail cells bloodied and scarred, reporting unusually harsh treatment at the hands of local and federal authorities.

Mayor Coleman's Silence

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman hasn't responded to repeated phone and e-mail requests for comments on the targeting of journalists. Instead he praised the work of Police Chief John Harrington and painted those arrested as a small band of outsiders and vandals intent upon committing felonies against the good people of his city.

In less than a day, more than 35,000 people have signed a letter from Free Press (my employer) to Mayor Coleman condemning the arrests and demanding that he and local prosecutors immediately "free all detained journalists and drop all charges against them."

But when Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald pressed Harrington and Coleman to respond to widespread reports of journalist arrests, Harrington claimed ignorance while Coleman stood silent at his side.

Police spokesman Don Walsh intervened only to say that "arrest have been made" and that all those arrested were involved in criminal activities and not "simply non-participants."

[...]

The Star Tribune itself is owned by out-of-towners from Avista Capital Partner, a New York City private equity firm specializing in energy, healthcare and media investments.

Other than a brief story about Goodman's arrest, the paper has failed to report on the apparent targeting of independent reporters, even though groups like the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists have sounded the alarm.

Sweeping Real Journalism Under the Carpet

Here we have every indication of an orchestrated assault by federal and local law enforcement agencies to stifle independent sources of information. As shocking as this conduct is, more disturbing is the fact that the mayor's office and the local daily seem so unconcerned.

[...]

As a powerful news organization, the Star Tribune should know better, and should be sticking up for a free press, regardless of what form it takes.

But this week, the democratic spirit of journalism can be witnessed not in the "Strib's" newsroom, but among the rough-hewn videos and blogs of those who are covering the convention from the ground up.

                                                                          

Comments

[dmarks]

I have no problem with the police cracking down on anyone who tried to interfere in any way with the convention (including those trying to shout down, block, and harass conventiongoers)

But I see no justification for harassing Amy Goodman, etc. None at all.