Since the beginning of his crackdown against the Occupy Wall Street movement, Mayor Mike Bloomberg has gone to great lengths to present himself as a champion of the First Amendment. But the free speech rhetoric coming from City Hall hasn't matched the brutal reality experienced by journalists at the front lines of the protest.
In the two months since the movement began 25 journalists have been arrested covering events across the country. More than half of these arrests have occurred in New York City, including 13 journalist arrests in the last week.
My colleague Josh Stearns, who maintains a running tally of media arrests and harassment, said that the NYPD's early morning raids on Zuccotti Park on November 15 resulted in the "single worst day for journalist attacks and arrests to date."
"From the beginning, I have said that the City had two principal goals," Mayor Bloomberg said in a statement following the raids, "guaranteeing public health and safety, and guaranteeing the protestors' First Amendment rights."
Regarding the rights of reporters covering the Occupy protests, the Mayor is less clear.
| AFP reporter Jennifer Weiss films her own arrest |
Police have kettled others into "Free Speech Zones" -- barricaded and controlled areas where journalists are kept far from the action.
Mayor Bloomberg said the police kept the media at a distance "to prevent a situation from getting worse and to protect members of the press." But according to the New York Times, one journalist told a police officer "I'm press!" and the officer just responded "Not tonight."
Many journalists who remained on the front lines were arrested, roughed up, tear-gassed or pepper sprayed. New York police put one New York Post journalist in a choke hold; Daily Caller reporter Michelle Fields was hit and forced to the ground; Lucy Kafanov of RT was struck with a baton; and countless others have been shoved and harassed. In October, Kafanov reported that police were using high-powered strobe lights to blind news and cellphone cameras and block people from recording their actions.
On Friday the mayor's office disputed our account of these violent arrests and harassment. His spokesman Stu Loeser tried to dismiss the notion that the police arrested so many or acted inappropriately saying that only five of the journalists arrested actually had NYPD-issued press credentials.
But a great number of journalists working in New York City, including myself, don't bother to submit ourselves to the NYPD's "Kafkaesque" credentialing process. Others don't recognize the NYPD's authority to determine who qualifies as a working journalist and who does not. It's likely the credentialing process itself would not survive a First Amendment challenge.
In any event, one NYPD detective admitted to Wired's Ryan Singel that the department doesn't intend to provide any press passes to journalists wishing to cover the Occupy movement.
All of this point to profound problems with the ways City Hall regards the media. As the former head of a press organization, you'd think Mayor Bloomberg would know better.
Before he again wraps himself in the First Amendment, New York's mayor needs to fully account for the trampling of these rights by his police.
Follow Timothy Karr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TimKarr
Justin Zorn: The Progressive Case for Moving Backward
Mark Engler: Occupy the Pulpit
littlebiggy.org/3653047
http://sarcasticliberal.blogspot.com/2011/11/occupy-usa-worst-police-brutality-cases.html
Not all police are violent and sadistic, such as these, but we must hold the vicious accountable, whether or not they wear a badge.
The people who have the problem are the journalists. If they refuse to document the unconstitutional behavior, and they refuse to sue for the unconstitutional behavior, then they have no right they actually want to protect.
Yes, its horrible that this can happen in America.
But all it takes is enough good men and women to do nothing, for the forces of evil to triumph in the world....
These people, and our elected officials have made a complete FARCE of our RIGHTS!!! YOUR Rights, end where mine, begin. Closing bridges and roads?? When innocent victims of your whims..are trying to go to work, or a mom, home to her sick children?? ISNT RIGHT!! Also, you DONT OWN/OCCUPY Real Estate you didnt purchase. The entitlement agenda /mentality, has gone way past logic or, REALITY.
If you take no issue about how journalists are being prevented from covering events that happen within the country then what else is there to say other than "Enjoy your freedoms while they last."
Republicans are the last people on earth to claim to have any logic and are so far removed the the general populations "reality" to offer up any criticism of the left, or the population as a whole.
The lines are divided between the working class and the rich, who fired the first salvo and when the "people" started to push back, claimed that we aren't following the rules of the game, which were: crush all who dare stand in the way of corporate profits.
You don't have the numbers to win a war of attrition.
Where is the Justice Department?
Where is the FBI?
Where is justice?
Keep it up OWS!
And for the NYPD - you shame yourselves and shame the memory of 9/11!
- the worst that the cowards can say of you is that you need a bath.
- that in itself is a great testimony to your efforts
When the 0.01%ers are trying to shut you down, you KNOW your message is coming through.
His attempt to stop OWS will only make the movement stronger.
Keep up the good work.
He may know better but his actions suggest that he holds such knowledge in disdain. Maybe his prime objective in that former position was more the paycheck than the concept of a free press.
The Tea Party bought permits, held a day rally, and cleaned up after themselves. You may not like the Tea Party message, but you know what it is, and you didn't have to miss work, pay millions in police overtime, and worry about crime and filth.