Adventures of a Gonzo Journalist
Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News
Protesters at the first presidential debate last night found themselves forced into a “free speech zone” about a quarter mile away and separated from the actual event site by a 6-lane highway.
Many others had difficulty even making it that far, thanks to extensive police roadblocks and “an absurd level of security,” according to journalist Abby Martin, the host of “The Empire Files” on teleSUR English, who spoke with MintPress News on Tuesday after covering Monday’s protests.
Martin continued:
Posted in Archive, Journalism, and MintPress News
The ACLU of Pennsylvania is suing the City of Philadelphia after anti-poverty activists were denied the right to protest during next month’s Democratic National Convention.
The NGO is suing on behalf of the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign. The interracial, intergenerational movement to end poverty is led by activist Cheri Honkala, who served as Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s running mate in the 2012 presidential election.
“We are filing the lawsuit today because the last thing that poor people have is their voice, and we can’t allow our voice to be taken away,” Honkala said in a press release issued on Thursday.
Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News
A California Senate committee killed a bill to increase transparency in police misconduct investigations, hampering victims’ efforts to obtain justice.
Chauncee Smith, legislative advocate at the ACLU of California, told MintPress News that the state Legislature “caved to the tremendous influence and power of the law enforcement lobby” and “failed to listen to the demands and concerns of everyday Californian people.”
California has some of the most secretive rules in the country when it comes to investigations into police misconduct and excessive use of force. Records are kept sealed, regardless of the outcome, as the ACLU of Northern California explains on its website:
Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News
An investigation of social media surveillance of Black Lives Matter activists shows a pattern of systemic racism and disregard for the law, according to an Oregon civil rights group.
The comments from the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon came in response to a report issued this month by the Oregon Department of Justice on the DOJ’s Criminal Justice Division’s monitoring of the social media use of Black Lives Matter activists.
“The report is damning,” wrote Mat dos Santos, the nonprofit’s legal director. “It paints an abysmal picture of rampant misinformation, beginning with agents and analysts and running all the way up to the deputy attorney general, and it shows how one mistake in judgment can lead to dangerous consequences for the public.”
Last year, a “threat assessment report” issued by an investigator at the state’s DOJ, singled out Facebook and Twitter users that used the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag for surveillance. The investigation became so broad that one of the department’s own attorneys was cited in the report as a possible threat.
Ellen Rosenblum, the state’s attorney general, said she was “shocked and appalled” and called for a full investigation, according to a November article from The Oregonian.
Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News
Next month, the U.S. government will return to court again to prevent the release of thousands of photos of military personnel torturing detainees at Abu Ghraib and other sites in Iraq and Afghanistan that have been described as more horrific than the infamous Abu Ghraib torture photos.
It’s the latest round in a protracted legal battle that began in 2004 when the American Civil Liberties Union filed a suit demanding the release of some 2,000 photographs which were withheld by the government after it released the infamous images of Abu Ghraib, the Iraqi prison where U.S. soldiers tortured prisoners.
One photo is said to depict a mock execution, while another reportedly shows the body of a farmer shot who was by an American soldier while he was handcuffed.
Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News
On Monday, the ACLU asked an attorney general to “back off” and stop invading the privacy of Internet users to infringe on free speech or serve the agenda of big corporations and their lawyers.
In December, Google sued Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, “alleging that his efforts to hold the search engine accountable for objectionable content online, such as illegal prescription drugs and pirated movies, violate federal law and are unconstitutional under the First and Fourth Amendments,” according to Dana Liebelson, writing last year for the Huffington Post.
But according to the suit and emails obtained by HuffPost, Hood hasn’t just been overzealous in his pursuit of allegedly objectionable content online; he actively collaborates with representatives of corporate industry to target the tech giant:
