Rob: [station ID] We're talking to Paul Hetznecker, a defense attorney who does a lot of pro bono civil rights work and we're talking about the protesters and the reporter who were arrested at the Army Experience Center.
You know Paul, one thing that I'm very interested in and aware of is that the Obama administration promised transparency in government. Actually OpEdNews even got a grant from the Sunlight Foundation which focuses on government transparency. Most of what they do is aiming for transparency in contracts and legislation and relationships with lobbyists and things like that, but it seems to me that allowing the press to see what the police are doing is just one of the most clearly obvious kinds of transparencies that is out there. Isn't it?
Paul: I agree and I think it's a much broader issue because it's not just whether it's the Bush or Obama administration that is called to task. It's really a question of how far government agencies have gone to essentially marginalize our areas of privacy as well as our areas of public protest.
Rob: We're talking about marginalizing the Constitution aren't we?
Paul: We are. Not marginalizing, but really changing the whole kind of view that we've had traditionally about the rights that are protected under the Bill of Rights. Those protections that are guaranteed under the Bill of Rights only having meaning if people are able and feel comfortable enough and willing enough to express themselves.
All of these efforts by the government which are longstanding, they go back for decades, but what has happened recently is that our focus has changed, that as a society we don't believe that those activities that have been traditionally protected under the Bill of Rights are ones that should be heralded, that should be lauded, that should be cherished and now considered threats and so the dialogue has changed.
So, those people that engage in a protest such as the ones that these individual clients have engaged in now are considered a threat, a threat to the status quo, a threat to the particular agency or governmental entity which they are confronting rather than what I believe which was really was born out of a tradition of struggle the view that this is exactly what was protected under the first amendment, under the Bill of Rights.
"We" were here essentially on this street corner to argue, to voice our dissent because this is a protection that is guaranteed something that we should cherish and laud and and support rather than the society's focus has changed and the focus is now well to what extent are these people there to disrupt and possibly threaten a governmental agency or a governmental entity or a particular view that is embraced by possibly the majority of the public.
I think what we need to do is change the dialogue a little bit and talk about how our realms of freedom or areas of freedom, our ability to communicate, to associate and to express ourselves are further enhanced by activity, by the kind of activity which is now deemed to be criminalized or deemed to be marginalized.
Rob: Cheryl Biren-Wright was charged with criminal conspiracy because she was taking pictures of police arresting protesters.
Paul: Right.
Rob: This is just insane to me. It's not just the police who were part of this, though, this is also the District Attorney's office right?
Paul: They are the charging authority, yes, and they are provided the information by the police department. But, you're right, it's very frightening and it is the kind of thing that happened on several occasions and more recently the one that I think is most widely circulated was Amy Goodman from Democracy Now being arrested last year in Minneapolis by the police and again after she had announced herself as a reporter who was covering the particular protest at that moment.
I think the total disregard for the freedom of the press or the ability of reporters to cover an event is a frightening development because there seems to be no concern about whether or not a person who has a press credential, a person who is taking photographs, a person who is doing exactly what the police surveillance squads are doing which is filming the event and taking photographs of the event that somehow that person presents a threat to the official version, whatever official version they want to present about what happened that day.
I guarantee you that the official version of the police report is going to differ very much from the accounts reflected in the photographs and in the individual accounts of those who were there in support of the protest, but also those who were there to cover it such as Cheryl who was not a protester, who was simply a member of the press covering the event.
Rob: You told me in our conversation earlier today that you had an impression that the police are treating independent media different than the establishment media. Can you talk about that a little bit?
Paul: Well, I think that's a broader discussion, but it goes back to independent media, for example, covering the Republican National Convention in 2000 and the way the independent media had been treated by the police during the course of the events that unfolded during that week. Part of the strategy and I think it's a multi-faceted and multi-pronged strategy by those who engage, those entities such as the civil affairs and in coordination with FBI, those who engage in surveillance of political dissenters and political protesters do not want these events covered by independent press and independent media.
Rob: Why?
Paul: Because in large part it goes back to what I said earlier that they want to be able to control the version of what unfolds in front of them at that particular time and have the ability to provide a version that is going to support whatever charges are eventually brought.
Rob: So they want to prevent the press from covering the events so that the press is unable to have visual evidence of what happened that would refute the verbal reports and the selected visual evidence that are presented by the police. Is that what you're saying?
Paul: Correct. And that happens routinely. So, for example at many demonstrations when the police begin to take action they immediately push the press out of the way and get them out of the way and further away from the events that are occurring. Anybody with a camera, anybody with a video camera is identified as a threat to their actions and so they try to move them off . Essentially it is more of a tactic than anything else, clear them out, we don't want the press to cover this particular event.
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