Journalists Arrested at the RNC - Freedom of the Press?

By Mark Taylor-Canfield - October 2008

One of the many descriptions of the modern journalist is the term "correspondent". This implies that the reporter is somewhere far off from the head office, filing reports from remote locations about events in another part of the nation or the world. One familiar part of everyday journalistic parlance is the title, "foreign correspondent".

In this fashion, I thought I'd let the past month of news and political stories speak for themselves through letters and news reports I wrote during this period. It is my humble hope that in this correspondence, the truer history of the Republican National Convention in 2008 might be told.

As with the protests against the Democratic National Convention in Denver, police harassed press and demonstrators and made mass arrests of peaceful individuals practicing their First Amendment right to freedom of speech and assembly. Tear gas filled the air in Minneapolis, concussion grenades exploded and reporters were swept up and hand cuffed.

This, folks, is the United States of America, circa 2008 A.D., believe it or not. You will not see these images on the national news networks. You won't hear about these stories on corporate radio broadcasts. These truths have been shoved down the memory hole so fast no one even noticed outside of a few independent journalists and protest groups.

In spite of this news media blackout, brave souls posted videos on You Tube and fostered a backlash against the abuse of the rights of the people. The all-seeing eye is now in the hands of the average person and can be monitored on the web. Other alarmed citizens held community meetings to discuss the issues. Some are filing lawsuits, others are documenting their experiences on various websites. The truth is out there, it's just a little hard to find these days.

To: Reclaim The Media Seattle

Jonathan,
I won't be able to be there for the report back from Minneapolis/St. Paul, although I'm hoping someone from KBCS will report on the event. My band the Galaxy Machine is performing that night at the King Kat Theater for Vivian McPeek's birthday party.

As someone who knows what it's like to be arrested and detained by police with no charges ever being filed, I feel that we all have an obligation to report these incidents to the public. This is especially important because for the most part, the corporate media refuses to report on the demonstrations or the arrests of journalists at the political conventions.

Here's a statement I sent out to other folks in the news media about my thoughts on the treatment of members of the press during the RNC:

Journalists Arrested At Republican National Convention
[video of Amy Goodman's arrest:
www.reclaimthemedia.org/journalistic_practice/goodman%3D6151
www.reclaimthemedia.org/journalistic_practice/goodman=6151

I invite you to watch this video and tell me what you think.

I'm afraid that freedom of the press in the US seems to be under attack at the Republican National Convention. Journalists and TV/radio producers have been arrested for no apparent reason while covering the street demonstrations. Along with the Democracy Now crew and the Pepper Spray Productions documentary filmmakers, an Associated Press reporter and several newspaper reporters were also arrested. Some are still facing charges which seems ridiculous to me since they were just doing their jobs - covering the protests. Two TV news producers are facing felony charges for "conspiracy to incite a riot". Since these two folks were reporting and were never involved in organizing any protests, I'm not sure how they came up with that one...

Along with the pre-emptive raids on activist homes and the convergence center before the convention (in one case a journalist was held at gun-point) these actions by law enforcement are sure to cause controversy among civil rights advocates, at schools of journalism, etc., and it will certainly result in major civil rights lawsuits.

As during the WTO protests in Seattle, police in Denver during the Democrat National  Convention have been accused of wearing no identification.

Police officers have confiscated people's cameras and even erased memory cards. Many demonstrators and press were detained with no charges ever filed against them. First they are forced to lay on the ground, then handcuffed and questioned before being let go. Legal observers, including the ACLU and the National Lawyers Guild are investigating all of these complaints.

Although you wouldn't know it from watching the corporate TV news reports or coverage of the convention, approximately 300 people have been arrested during protests in Minneapolis so far. Apparently, few of these folks have actually been caught while committing acts of vandalism. Almost all the arrests have been of totally peaceful people exercising their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and assembly, and some have been diligently trying to report for indy and major news media outlets.

Obviously these police tactics (mass arrests, the use of chemical agents, so-called "no-protest zones", rounding up journalists, etc.) were also used in Seattle during the WTO protests in 1999. One has to wonder whether a precedent was set that has now been repeated across the country at major protests. Journalists were also arrested in Seattle in 1999. Many demonstrators and bystanders were pepper sprayed.  Millions of dollars in legal settlements were paid out by the city of Seattle to numerous plaintiffs in civil rights cases and class action lawsuits. I was a lead plaintiff in a major class action suit against the city for the indiscriminate use of tear gas and pepper spray on residents of  Capitol Hill during during the protests in 1999.

Since I also formed a public interest group, the Committee For Local Government Accountability in order to oversee the city's "official" investigation of the events of the WTO ministerial conference in Seattle, I have seen this pattern before. My only conclusion is that the city and the police department in Minneapolis have already taken into account the legal settlements they will be forced to pay out to people who's constitutional rights they are currently violating.

I'm curious about what representatives from the Society of Professional Journalism have to say about these arrests. According to various reports put out by well known organizations, including Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders, unwarranted arrests and harassment of journalists has increased world-wide recently. According to these reports, the occupation of journalism, especially freelance journalism, has become much more dangerous in the last few years.

Reporters have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan covering those wars. I think we all owe a great deal of thanks and gratitude to these brave people who work so hard to get the facts out to the public. I know there are reporters who file stories in other countries for the Pacifica Radio Network or Free Speech Radio News who are often harassed and threatened by various factions, government or otherwise, because of the reports they file.

I am truly alarmed about the state of the free press both in the US and around the world. I plan to continue to report on the convention and to cover McCain's nomination speech and the fall-out from the protests.

Long live freedom of the press!
Mark Taylor-Canfield, Freelance Journalist

Letter to Mike Malloy

I'm a journalist who's covering the convention in St.Paul. I sent mike and the producer a couple of emails about the harassment and arrest of reporters at the convention. I'd really like to talk about this pattern of behavior on the part of law enforcement officers at major protests and political events since the anti-WTO demonstrations in 1999.

Mike:
My report on the events at the Republican National Convention as per your request:

Well, let's see, in Minneapolis/St Paul, in the name of protecting the Republican Nat'l Convention from a handful of anarchists, they've had preemptive raids on private homes where activists and reporters were held at gunpoint by government agents and police.

We've had illegal searches where people's cameras and memory sticks have been confiscated, illegal detainment and arrests of both protesters and journalists on trumped up charges. Many of them are later released with no charges at all, begging the question why were they arrested in the first place - unless it is a premeditated plan to stop the demonstrations against the Republican Party and the US gov't at all costs. I guess this is the unreported side of our current form of democracy...

The real strategy is "Arrest 'em all and sort it out later". We've seen this same thing perpetrated before. The contemporary version of this form of political suppression obviously started in my own hometown of Seattle when tens of thousands gathered to protest the World Trade Organization in 1999.

Millions of dollars were paid out in legal settlements to people whose civil rights were violated by police. We saw the same thing in New York City during the last Republican Nat'l Convention when police swept up 1,800 people off the streets. It's been repeated at every major political convention and at every major free trade agreement conference since 1999. In fact, it is well-known that the Seattle police dept. served as consultants to other law enforcement agencies during many of those events.

After the WTO conference in Seattle, I helped found a public interest group that investigated the events in 1999 and we found mass violations of people's constitutional rights during the conference. Since then we've seen this pattern documented again and again all across the country.

Considering what happened to Amy and the DN crew, I'm just hoping to avoid being detained again by overzealous boys in blue while working as a reporter. Amy Goodman is a friend of mine and a respected colleague. I planned to be at the TV station with the Democracy Now crew when she and the others were arrested.

If I had arrived on time, I'm sure I would have been arrested with them. But I know how she must have felt as they put her in hand cuffs and led her away to the police van. In my particular case, at a completely different time and location at a protest, I was cuffed and held for hours with no charges ever filed against me. As the police let me go, an officer said to me sarcastically, "No hard feelings, huh?"

As a former Seattle Independent Media Center reporter at the 1999 anti-WTO protests, I am familiar with this kind of harassment. It should not be tolerated in a free society. Free the press!
Mark Taylor-Canfield

Letter to The Galaxy Machine -

Hope all is well with you. I assumed your flight would be delayed by the hurricane. I've been delayed, too. Not by natural forces, but by man-made threats. Unfortunately, a bunch of reporters were caught up in a mass arrest of protesters. Amy Goodman and two of the show's producers were arrested, along with newspaper reporters, Associated Press photographers, etc. Not good news as far as freedom of the press goes... I've been detained like that but no charges were filed since I broke no laws. Just like during the anti-WTO protests, it's a mess and we are trying to get it all straightened out.

800 people arrested this week at the Republican National Convention. Pepper spray, tear gas, rubber bullets, concussion grenades. The marchers refused to stay within the officially designated "protest zone".

Amy's producers were charged with "conspiracy to incite a riot" even though they were just there as reporters doing their job. These are felony charges. Totally ridiculous!

Denver was more fun. Minneapolis turned out to be more like the Seattle WTO protests but you won't see any of it in the corporate media. The police raided private homes, held activists and journalists at gunpoint, arrested nationally recognized reporters, etc.

We've been monitoring the news about the hurricanes. I was wondering about the storm. Hope everybody's OK. Call me when you return to Seattle. Got my cellphone back.
Good Luck!
Mark

Letter to Dave Ross:

Good show today. I just wanted to say that I can see why the band members of Heart would object to the use of their song as Sarah Palin's theme song.  I wish them luck with their "cease and desist" order. It was cool to hear Roger play his guitar live on the air.

Before I joined the Galaxy Machine I met Roger Fisher. He taught guitar lessons to my ex-girlfriend and he actually sold her a custom made guitar with scalloped frets that I think he built himself.

Anyway, Roger is one of the best guitarists I've ever heard and his rifts on the band's albums are totally unique and masterful.

But more to the point, I think that the folks from Heart are following a brilliant strategy here because if the Republicans had just played their song "Barricuda" at the convention (by the way that song totally rocks!) and they had said nothing, no one would be talking about It. Apparently, Sarah Palin's nickname in high school was "Barricuda". Probably still is...

I'm sure the band is receiving about 20 times more publicity than they would have if they didn't say anything. It's sort of a reverse Dixie Chicks phenomenon. I think it will increase sales substantially, especially among supporters of Senator Barack Obama.

And one more thing Dave. I'm also a freelance journalist and I have one major complaint about both political conventions I covered. It's cruel and unusual punishment to force delegates and journalists to sit through hours and hours of endless speeches full of, well, B.S. about how the candidates are going to solve all our problems.

Has no one noticed lately that politicians are usually the ones who cause many of the problems? It's enough of a hassle for reporters to have to breath tear gas and get pepper sprayed outside the convention while covering the protests where 800 people have been arrested. It's not fun!

Letter to Seattle Times:

Dear Editor,
I covered the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis as a freelance journalist and found McCain's speech to be one of the most boring and inane acceptance speeches in recent history. There was none of the youthful fire that Senator Barack Obama displayed during his nomination speech in Denver.

Listening to McCain is like hearing an old scratchy record that plays the same old familiar song over and over again.

What is new about McCain's policies? What kind of change should we expect from his crowd when they are the ones who perpetrated a false war scare to get us into Iraq, promoted the deregulations that put the economy on the skids, violated people's constitutional rights, etc.?

Barack Obama has a clear vision for our country that hopefully does not involve the same corporate power politics of the past. Clearly, as evidenced by the current financial market disaster, the good old boys network's way of doing things has brought us to the brink of economic collapse.

McCain's vision seems to be clouded by his own pandering to the right-wing, and by the party's neo-con propaganda about terrorism, national security, so-called "family values" and extreme fundamentalist ideas about religion. After eight years of corporate right-wing rule, we desperately need a populist movement in the US.
Mark Taylor-Canfield
Seattle

Letter #2 To Mike Malloy:

Mike:
I've been trying to get through for the last two days by phone. I'm still covering the RNC happening in the Twin Cities.

I sent an email about my harassment and detainment and about police arresting reporters who are covering the convention. You said you were curious about my thoughts about the state of free speech in the US media. I'd love to talk with you about the current state of affairs in St. Paul and the arrests of journalists, innocent bystanders, etc. I'm also following up on stories of beatings and abuse at the local jail where protesters and reporters are being held.

As I mentioned in my previous email, the current policy of harassment of journalists by US police is an on-going problem that really began during the anti-WTO protests in Seattle. I base this assertion on my own personal experiences as a reporter and civil rights activist.

Thanks and keep up the good work,
Mark Taylor-Canfield
Freelance Reporter
Seattle

Letter To ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union):

I'm a journalist for public radio who's covering the convention in St.Paul. I report for KBCS in Seattle and a news program on the Pacifica Radio Network. I'd like to talk about abuse and harassment of both protesters and reporters at the Republican National Convention.

I've been harassed myself - arrested, handcuffed and held for hours only to be released with no charges ever having been filed against me. The police officer who released me just smiled when I asked him why I'd been arrested. In my case, after I was released, the police department denied having any record of my arrest. Clearly I was being held until the events were concluded and any potential protests had been suppressed.

Dozens of reporters have been arrested, hand cuffed, detained and questioned during both the Democratic Convention in Denver, Colorado and the Republican convention in St.Paul/Minneapolis. Given the importance of the Fourth Estate for the future of any healthy democratic society, I am appalled at the abuse of the press by agents of the government's law enforcement branches. As responsible members of this society we must ask ourselves, "Why is it so important for the government and law enforcement to stop the protests at the national political conventions? Why are they so afraid of dissent?"

The FBI and other agencies admit that they had infiltrated protest organizations two years before the convention in Minnesota. Shades of COINTELPRO? Where is the oversight and accountability for these surveillance programs? Where is the evidence that these groups were involved in criminal activities? Yes, some windows were broken but where were the terrorists?

In terms of the future demonstrations that are sure to come, a concerted effort must be launched to document any political abuses of demonstrators and members of the press. Trained legal observers should be dispatched to watch the crowd from every angle and to photograph and videotape any police activity. Legal counsel should be available to every protester who takes to the streets. Police should be held accountable for every rubber bullet fired at unarmed people, for every tear gas canister unleashed on the crowds and for every type of dangerous crowd control technology used to disperse demonstrations.

News agencies must bring law enforcement and government officials to justice when they violate the rights of journalists and prevent them from reporting current events to the public. This can be done through lawsuits and even by filing criminal charges against police and government officials who condone or order the use of violence against demonstrators. If this is unsuccessful, I suggest an appeal to international bodies like Amnesty International and the United Nations.

In order for the press to fulfill its obligations to the people, reporters must be allowed to cover important events without being subjected to the dangers of chemical devices, explosive concussion grenades, rubber bullets, police intimidation or unwarranted arrests.
Mark Taylor-Canfield
International Steering Committee
Free Speech radio News

More Bad News For Corporate America -
My Boeing Strike News Story Pitch

Dear Producers:
Here's another pitch for a short feature on the current Boeing strike. I propose at least two voices, but three would be fine. I will be interviewing Boeing strikers, local business reps and laid-off workers from other businesses in the area.

I'd say I can probably get it done within a few days. Since no talks are scheduled at the moment, we probably have some time, unless back room talks are taking place without public knowledge.

The Boeing machinists strike in Seattle, effecting 2,700 workers, is now going into its fourth week with no new talks scheduled. The union is fighting outsourcing of jobs to Japan and Italy. Boeing is reportedly losing up to $100 million a day as the strike continues. Next month engineers say they will also strike.

It's already delayed production on the 787. Other aerospace businesses that rely on Boeing contracts are laying off workers and cutting work schedules. They blame the lay-offs on the Boeing strike.

The strike, which began on September 6th, was organized by the most powerful manufacturing union in the US, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. One key disagreement involves the issue of job security. The union's also seeking a thirteen percent increase in wages, and they're opposed to the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs.

After union officials unanimously recommended to it's members that they reject Boeing's final contract offer, eighty seven percent of the membership voted to strike.

In the Boeing corporation's official statement on the negotiations, they claim that the company made a "very generous offer" to the machinists. Boeing representatives say that the corporation can't give the union the pay increase it's demanding because it would make it difficult for them to remain competitive in the global market.

The strike has caused further delays in delivery of the new 787 "Dreamliner". Union officials say the 787 was already behind schedule due to the outsourcing of jobs to Japanese contractors who have less experience than IAM workers. According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the strike could cost Boeing 2.8 billion dollars in lost revenues this month.

The strike is having enormous negative consequences for the local and the international economy, and with businesses going bankrupt and other strikes in Seattle, including 3,000 workers at a local shipping company, things are really in turmoil in terms of labor relations here.

The story would highlight the nature of the labor dispute, mention the other strikes and lay-offs in the area. l would look at the local businesses going under and also mention the international implications in terms of economics and aerospace technology.
Thanks,
Mark

Letter To Jim Hightower:

Hi Jim, The Washington Mutual crisis here has everyone scared that the bank will fold, leaving stockholders, employees and customers holding an empty bag. WAMU is the largest savings and loan in the US.

Here's the news report I'm writing:

Washington Mutual Collapse

The potential collapse of the largest savings and loan in the US, Washington Mutual based in Seattle, could have devastating effects on workers and small businesses in the State of Washington. Residents of the state are already experiencing high unemployment, a collapsed housing market, and major labor disputes.

Labor unions and consumer rights organizations in Seattle have been holding emergency community meetings to discuss the potential failure of Washington Mutual. They claim that the bank's collapse will further damage a local economy which is already struggling. Other local companies have expressed the fear that a potential "ripple effect" will also wipe out their businesses.

According to local media accounts, Washington Mutual employees have been suffering from extremely low moral. If the institution goes bankrupt, or even if it is bought out by another group of investors, many of the workers will lose their jobs.

Washington Mutual president Steve Rotella sent out a memo to employees warning them not to engage in speculation about the future of the institution.

"We have nothing right now planned. But we're running a business and if at some point we get to that stage, we will let them know first."

Bank executives are also trying to calm the fears of customers who might want to remove their savings from the bank. Bank customers have been making withdrawals from their accounts, moving many assets which are not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

"We tell our customers we have plenty of capital and liquidity. We have plenty of income and operating expenses to keep our stores open and cash on hand."

But despite these reassuring statements from bank representatives, some customers are not convinced that their money is safe. Along with a growing number of customers, Seattle resident Robert Hibbitt is not satisfied by the claims of bank executives.

"They're talking about bailing out - somebody buying them. But these are just speculations. This is up in the air. So I'm not going wait for the hammer to fall on me."

As one of the largest financial institutions in the world, Washington Mutual controls 143 billion dollars in retail deposits, and owns 2,300 branches throughout the Untied States. The bank employs 6,000 people in Washington State, most of them in Seattle where it owns 90 different branches and real estate properties.

A series of major lay-offs over the last few years at both the Boeing and Starbucks  corporate headquarters in Seattle have contributed to an unemployment rate in Washington State that has become one of the highest in the nation.

The Seattle housing market has experienced a crash along with the rest of the United States and Governor Christine Gregoire just announced major cuts in government services due to a multi-million dollar deficit in the state's budget.

A major labor strike at Boeing manufacturing plants in Seattle has caused a delay in production of the 787 and next month Boeing faces another possible strike by engineers.

Although Citigroup, J.P. Morgan/Chase and other major financial institutions have been named as potential buyers, so far no investment group has been willing to take on the 37 billion dollars in debt that Washington Mutual carries.

This is Mark Taylor-Canfield reporting from Seattle.
(Note: Washington Mutual was just bought out by J.P. Morgan/Chase at a bargain price.)