Police invading homes and arresting journalists in St.Paul

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Police in full swat gear have surrounded and invaded more than half a dozen houses where visiting journalists and college students were staying in St. Louis, hand-cuffing them all and ransacking the house for electronic gear and documents. The occupants are charged with trumped-up crimes like 'fire code violations,' and released after the police seize their cameras and computers and cell phones.

Police have also violently arrested both right- and left-wing journalists on the streets around the convention who were wearing their press passes visibly displayed, and who were actively filming protests (and not participating in them); several journalists, including Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! and two of her co-workers; the latter two were thrown to the ground and kicked or dragged, despite having cameras and visible press passes. Both Amy Goodman and one of her co-workers had their press passes confiscated - and no recipt given - by unidentified law enforcement.

How is this considered acceptable under the U.S. constitution? How can McCain stand to be associated with this kind of behavior?
http://www.democracynow.org/
http://dc.indymedia.org/feature/display ... /index.php

More:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ougH8G6UnkI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0UUsdCx3Qg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJZNkJbTpjA
http://www.minnesotaindependent.com/
http://www.truthout.org/article/pre-emp ... rotest-rnc

iamnotaparrot hasn't been arrested yet so i think we're okay.

I live in Jordan, not St. Paul.

The thought police seems to be pretty busy keeping people with different opinions away.
First protesters and now the journalists. What's next ? shutting down internet sites where people may voice a critical opinion ?

It has to do with the Republican Convention at the Excel Center in St. Paul. It is wrong and I don't approve of this paranoid precautionary action, but that is the reason according to NPR.

It's not 'precautionary' in the sense that it will prevent violence; it's 'precautionary' in the sense that it's intended to discourage legal dissent and legal protests. One of the homes invaded was the staging area for a group called "I-Witness," whose entire purpose is to passively videotape police interactions with protesters, and then present the film at the protester's trials as evidence that they weren't doing what the police accused them of.

Kind of hard to do when your cameras have been seized.

paranoia is an annoying trait in many "modern" republicans.

Is it completely without cause, this paranoia?

True, but not limited to Republicans. The clamp-down on the WTO protests took place in blue Seattle.

i'd say so.

I was here for those, I'm afraid to say it was my friends on TV getting gassed and whining to the press. Seriously, my high school sent a whole brigade of people with giant puppets and everything, which only made me wish they had broken out the rubber bullets sooner. It was a huge black eye for the city, and millions of dollars in damage was done by protesters. I don't agree with the extremes to which they are taking their preemptive measures for the RNC, if they are being accurately reported (I have inside experience with left-wing journalism), but I do understand the reasoning behind it. The Seattle protests probably could have been conducted peacefully if the "anarchist" contingent had been neutralized early, and this lesson has not been lost on police departments elsewhere. Also, when you adopt extreme measures as some of these groups being targeted have, you have to expect an extreme response. You can't expect to vow to disrupt an event through illegal means, and then cry foul when the law is applied to you in a less than equitable manner, turn about being fair play and all. Be that as it may however, if in fact legitimate groups were in fact unfairly targeted, I believe an inquiry should take place.

There is only one war that i stand for, and that is the war on fascism.

that was a very even-handed, level headed response.

I bet the conservatives would let Westboro Baptist Church get away with whatever they wanted.

http://www.kucinich.us/

Hes looking for 1,000,000 signatures by the eve of September 11th. One thing I think many of can agree upon is the erosion of our civil liberties. Please sign the petition to impeach on the grounds of abuses of power and failure to defend our constitution. Thank you