POST CONSTITUTIONAL AMERICA .

EXXON FILES CRIMINAL COMPLAINT AGAINST PROGRESSIVE JOURNALIST

GREG PALAST - Fatherland Security has informed me that television
producer Matt Pascarella and I have been charged with unauthorized
filming of a "critical national security structure" in Louisiana.

On August 22, for Link TV and Democracy Now! we videotaped the thousands
of Katrina evacuees still held behind a barbed wire in a trailer park
encampment a hundred miles from New Orleans. It's been a year since the
hurricane and 73,000 POW's are still in this aluminum ghetto in the
middle of nowhere. One resident, Pamela Lewis said, "It is a prison
set-up" . . .

To give a sense of the full flavor and smell of the place, we wanted to
show that this human parking lot, with kids and elderly, is nearly
adjacent to the Exxon Oil refinery, the nation's second largest, a
chemical-belching behemoth.

So we filmed it. Without Big Brother's authorization. . . So now Matt
and I have a "criminal complaint" lodged against us with the feds. . .

Detective Frank Pananepinto of Homeland Security told us, "This is a
'Critical Infrastructure' . . . and they get nervous about unauthorized
filming of their property. . . .

After I assured Detective Pananepinto, "I can swear to you that I'm not
part of Al Qaeda," he confirmed that, "Louisiana is still part of the
United States," subject to the first amendment and he was therefore
required to divulge my accuser.

Not surprisingly, it was Exxon Corporation. . .

http://www.gregpalast.com

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GREG PALAST FACES HOMELAND POLICE INQUIRY FOR FILMING EXXON SITE

ZACH ROBERTS - Greg Palast is facing a criminal complaint from the
Department of Homeland Security stemming from his filming the Hurricane
Katrina investigation for Link TV and Democracy Now. The film's
producer, Matt Pascarella, is also facing the legal wrath of Big
Brother. It appears the complaint is about filming a sensitive national
security site owned by Exxon petroleum. It seems that photographing
major Bush donors is now a federal offense.

Palast says, "Let's not get over-excited. They haven't measured us for
our orange suits yet." During questioning by Homeland Security, Palast
asked, "Hey, aren't you supposed to be looking for Osama? Or for guys
with exploding shoes? . . . We're journalists." At Palast's request,
Homeland Security confirmed that Louisiana is, indeed, still part of the
USA but did not respond when asked if the First Amendment applies there.

http://www.gregpalast.com/palast-pascarella-face-homeland-
security-criminal-charge#more-1485

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COPS HARASSING PHOTOGRAPHERS CITING NON-EXISTENT RESTRICTIONS

NEAL MATTHEWS, POPULAR PHOTOGRAPHY - Both amateur and professional
photographers all over the country are being stopped and harassed with
no legal basis. As digital cameras proliferate wildly, so do attempts to
restrict what you can shoot and how you can use the picture. And not all
attempts to quash photography have to do with national security
concerns. Some invoke copyright and trademark protection, others the
privacy both of celebrities and ordinary people. . .

On escalating tension between police and photographers, a New York City
Police Department spokesperson explains, "We live in a world where
everyone is suspicious of photography. Generally, anything in a public
place can be photographed. But there's a difference between taking a
picture and taking surveillance, and our officers have to determine
where that line is.". . .

"This is one of the biggest myths with the law of taking photographs,"
explains Bert Krages, a Portland, OR-based copyright attorney who has
written books on photographers' rights and techniques. "There is no
general prohibition against photographing federal buildings. There are
statutes that prohibit photographing areas of military and nuclear
facilities. But there are no laws against photographing other federal
facilities, other than the right of all property owners to restrict
activities that take place on their property. A federal office building
manager cannot restrict photography when the photographer is situated
outside the federal property boundary."

In fall 2005, Pop Photo Senior Editor Peter Kolonia was shooting small
architectural details near the Mall in Washington, D.C. Stopping by the
stairs of the Department of Agriculture to shoot the base of a column,
with a fairly mainstream camera-a Fujifilm FinePix S3 Pro with a normal
lens and no flash-he put one foot on the bottom step, and…

"Two people, a security guard in a generic uniform and a SWAT-type guy,
dressed all in black with a big gun, came out the front and asked what I
was doing."

They looked at his pictures, then took the memory card and his driver's
license inside to run a check on him. "They were clearly trying to scare
me," he says. "They knew I was just a tourist. When they came out the
second time they got very lecturey with me: 'Haven't you heard there's a
war on? Do you know about the threat of terrorism?'"

They threatened to confiscate his camera (which requires a court order),
and he had to talk them out of keeping his memory card.

How far does the zealotry extend? All the way to the flags at the county
courthouse. That's what recently got Ben Hider, a 27-year-old British
citizen working (legally, with a green card) as a photographer, into
trouble. On March 17, he stopped on a public thoroughfare at the
Westchester County courthouse in White Plains, NY, to snap a few
pictures of the wind-whipped flags out front.

Three court police officers quickly surrounded him and started firing
questions, then told him he was being detained for shooting pictures of
an official government building. He was taken inside, where he was
frisked, interrogated, photographed, lectured on terrorism, told he was
going to be picked up by the "terrorism task force," and threatened with
deportation. After being held for two hours, he was released.

"People should know that police are using fear and intimidation," says
Hider. "For what? I don't know what they gain."

http://www.popphoto.com/popularphotographyfeatures/2668/
the-war-on-photographers.html