Thread: 1st Amendment suspended at oil spill. Newsblackout CNN repor

http://www.naturalnews.com/029130_Gulf_ ... rship.html

As CNN is now reporting, the U.S. government has issued a new rule that would make it a felony crime for any journalist, reporter, blogger or photographer to approach any oil cleanup operation, equipment or vessel in the Gulf of Mexico. Anyone caught is subject to arrest, a $40,000 fine and prosecution for a federal felony crime.

Video: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=203

CNN reporter Anderson Cooper says, "A new law passed today, and back by the force of law and the threat of fines and felony charges, ... will prevent reporters and photographers from getting anywhere close to booms and oil-soaked wildlife just about any place we need to be. By now you're probably familiar with cleanup crews stiff-arming the media, private security blocking cameras, ordinary workers clamming up, some not even saying who they're working for because they're afraid of losing their jobs."

Watch the video clip yourself at NaturalNews.TV:

http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=203

The rule, of course, is designed to restrict the media's access to cleanup operations in order to keep images of oil-covered seabirds off the nation's televisions. With this, the Gulf Coast cleanup operation has now entered a weird Orwellian reality where the news is shaped, censored and controlled by the government in order to prevent the public from learning the truth about what's really happening in the Gulf.


The war is on to control your mind
If all this sounds familiar, it's because the U.S. government uses this same tactic during every war. The first casualty of war, as they say, is the truth. There are lots of war images the government doesn't want you to see (like military helicopter pilots shooting up Reuters photographers while screaming "Yee-Haw!" over the comm radios), and there are other images they do want you to see ("surgical strike" explosions from "smart" bombs, which makes it seem like the military is doing something useful). So war reporting is carefully monopolized by the government to deliver precisely the images they want you to see while censoring everything else.

Now the same Big Brother approach is being used in the Gulf of Mexico: Criminalize journalists, censor the story and try to keep the American people ignorant of what's really happening. It's just the latest tactic from a government that no longer even recognizes the U.S. Constitution or its Bill of Rights. Because the very first right is Freedom of Speech, which absolutely includes the right to walk onto a public beach and take photographs of something happening out in the open, on public waters. It is one of the most basic rights of our citizens and our press.

But now the Obama administration has stripped away those rights, transforming journalists into criminals. Now, we might expect something like this from Chavez, or Castro or even the communist leaders of China, but here in the United States, we've all been promised we lived in "the land of the free." Obama apparently does not subscribe to that philosophy anymore (if he ever did).

So how does criminalizing journalists equate to "land of the free?" It doesn't, obviously. Forget freedom. (Your government already has.) This is about controlling your mind to make sure you don't visually see the truth of what the oil industry has done to your oceans, your shorelines and your beaches. This is all about keeping you ignorant with a total media blackout of the real story of what's happening in the Gulf.

The real story, you see, is just too ugly. And the government has fracked up the cleanup effort to such a ridiculous extent that instead of the "transparency" they once promised, they're now resorting to the threat of arrest for all journalists who try to get close enough to cover the story.

Yes, this is happening right now in America. This isn't a hoax. I know, it sounds more like something you might hear about in Saudi Arabia, or Venezuela or some other nation run by dictators. But now it's happening right here in the USA.

As Anderson Cooper reported on CNN:

"Now the government is getting in on the act. Despite what Admiral Thad Allen promised about transparency just nearly a month ago.

Thad Allen: "The media will have uninhibited access anywhere we're doing operations..."

Anderson Cooper: The Coast Guard today announced new rules keeping photographers, reporters and anyone else from coming with 65 feet of any response vessel or booms out on the water or on beaches. What this means is that oil-soaked birds on an island surrounded by a boom, you can't get close enough to take that picture. Shot of oil on beaches with booms? Stay 65 feet away. Pictures of oil-soaked booms uselessly laying in the water because they haven't been collected like they should? You can't get close enough to see that. Believe me, that is out there. But you only know that if you get close to it, and now you can't without permission. Violators could face a fine of $40,000 and Class D felony charges."

See the video yourself at: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=203


Welcome to the (censored) club
All I can say to CNN is: Welcome to the club! This kind of censorship, intimidation and tyranny has been going on for decades in the field of health, where the Orwellian FDA has treated the entire U.S. public to a nationwide blackout on truthful health information about healing foods and nutritional supplements. CNN has never covered that story, by the way. Most of the mainstream media has, in fact, gone right along with censorship of truthful health information by the FDA and FTC.

Now they're suddenly crying wolf. But where was the media when the FDA was raiding nutritional supplement companies and arresting people who dared to sell healing foods with honest descriptions about how they might help protect your health? The media went right along with the cover-up and never bothered to even tell its viewers a cover-up was taking place.

You see, even CNN is willing to tolerate some Orwellian censorship, as long as its advertisers are okay with it. The only reason they're talking about censorship in the Gulf of Mexico right now is because oil companies don't influence enough of their advertising budget to yank the story.


Censorship is not okay in a free society
I like the fact that CNN is finding the courage to speak up now about this censorship in the Gulf, but I wish they wouldn't stay silent on the other media blackouts in which they have long participated. Media censorship is bad for any nation, and it should be challenged regardless of the topic at hand. When the media is not allowed to report the truth on a subject -- any subject! -- the nation suffers some loss as a result.

Without the light of media scrutiny, corporations and government will get away with unimaginable crimes against both humanity and nature. That's what's happening right now in the Gulf of Mexico: A crime against nature.

Obama doesn't want you to see that crime. He's covering it up to the benefit of BP. He's keeping you in the dark by threatening reporters and photographers with arrest. How's that for "total transparency?"

The only thing transparent here is that President Barack Obama has violated his own oath of office by refusing to defend the Constitution. By any honest measure, in fact, these actions, which are endorsed by the White House, stand in direct violation of the U.S. Constitution. And that means this new censorship rule in the Gulf, which suspends the First Amendment, is unconstitutional. It also means those who decided on this rule are enemies of freedom.

They are the ones who should be arrested and hauled off to federal prison, not the CNN reporters who are trying to cover this story.

The seeds of tyranny
The loss of life in the Gulf of Mexico isn't the only catastrophe taking place here, you see: Now we're losing our freedoms while our government tries to intentionally blind us all from the truth of what's happening on our own public beaches.

When those who seek truth are branded criminals by the government, it is only a matter of time before that government expands its criminalization labeling to include anyone who disagrees with it. These are the seeds of tyranny, and Obama is planting them at your doorstep right now.

What BP did to the Gulf Coast, Obama is now doing to your freedom.

Here we go boys and girls...one Amendment gone and 9 more real ones to go. They are going to take over and censer freedom of speech. As I said before we are in a dictatorship...

State of national emergency From Source Watch

"According to the United States Constitution, Article 1, only Congress shall make federal law. However, since the War and Emergency Powers Act of 1933, every president has usurped lawmaking powers. Their 'laws' are called Executive Orders (EOs). These EOs, not our Constitution, are what is governing America today. The War and Emergency Powers Act enables ... the president to declare a national emergency, and thereby become a dictator."[1]

"Presidents can also carefully choose their words and declare a war on anything, in order to give them dictatorial control. For example, the War on Drugs makes it possible to use federal authorities, such as FBI, FEMA, BATF, and the military against American citizens. A well-known example is Waco. Another example is Hurricane Opal. After Florida was declared a nation emergency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) arrived on the scene and residents were placed under marshal law (restricted to the point of not going outside their door). When the federal government does this, it is going against the Constitution. The War and Emergency Powers Act is an unconstitutional act on the part of our government, created so that presidents can bypass Congress, and do whatever they choose."[2]

"It also makes it possible to do away with posse comitatus in cases of 'emergency'. Posse comitatus is what protects American citizens from the military being used against them."[3]
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?ti ... _emergency

This is looking less like America and more like an authoritarian regime every day!

W

And the obamanation in the white house did say that the cleanup was a war, so his butt is covered, legally speaking.

This is looking less like America and more like an authoritarian regime every day!

Yep...

And the obamanation in the white house did say that the cleanup was a war, so his butt is covered, legally speaking.

If he calls it a National Emergency we are done for. Hell...he is already a full blown dictator.

Silencing the press, ordering homeland security to demonize his political opposition as domestic terrorists, establishing a kill switch for the Internet, ordering NASA to take us out of space and focus on reaching out to Muslim nations, depriving Americans of anything that would instill national pride, lying to the public, pulling strings for his illegal alien aunt, no birth certificate or answers for the public on his eligibility, what's next? The purge? The knocks at the door in the middle of the night?

What is next from this fraud and usurper in the White House?

W

Perhaps it is as simple as the people who live in the Gulf region are at extreme health risk and the government does not have the resources to resettle them all. Or perhaps it is true that the most useless eaters live in the Gulf region and this is a good way to knock them off before that holy health plan kicks in.

Georgianne Nienaber.Haiti relief worker, investigative journalist, author
Posted: July 3, 2010 09:34

Facing the Future as a Media Felon on the Gulf Coast

The United States Coast Guard considers me a felon now, because I "willfully" want to obtain more photos like these to show you the utter devastation occurring in Barataria Bay, Louisiana as a result of the BP oil catastrophe. If the Coast Guard has its way, all media, not just independent writers and photographers like myself and Jerry Moran, will be fined $40,000 and receive Class D felony convictions for providing the truth about oiled birds and dolphins, in addition to broken, filthy, unmanned boom material that is trapping oil in the marshlands and estuaries. We don't have $40,000 to spare, and have had to scrape the bottoms of our checkbooks as is to hire boats to take us to the devastation the Coast Guard, under the direction of BP, does not want you to see.

It is now a felony to take more photos of birds like this, wading through oil that broken booms have trapped in rookeries
Here is what BP wants you to believe--kayakers enjoying a peaceful paddle in pristine waters. Does the new boom law apply to them, as well? If so, it is time for BP to redo its public relations photography, unveiled at a community meeting in Houma, or we will have a ton of kayakers as well as journalists clogging Louisiana courts and prisons.

One to five years in prison is a definite possibility for "willful violation" of the latest Coast Guard directive that flies in the face of the First Amendment. And, I guarantee you that writers and photographers will continue to try our best to use cameras and words to explain to those who have not been there exactly what is happening on our Gulf Shores. If we don't continue to try, Americans will no longer see the images and read the words that have been a voice for the voiceless fishermen and women, coastal residents of the Delta, and the battered wildlife.

Working and reporting from the American Gulf Coast is starting to remind me of working in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where photos and recordings must be hidden on secreted flash drives at border crossings, and where interrogation by drunken border patrols certainly follows if one does not provide a proper "explanation" for visits to certain regions. In 2007 I was accused of being a "spy" and held by the secret police in Goma, DRC for having video of illicit "conservation" activities. Now the same sick feelings of fear, anger and helplessness is stalking my mind as I try to plan for the next round in south Louisiana. Never in my lifetime could I imagine that a foreign company could dictate my ability to move freely and openly in American territorial waters.

Already we have been challenged by the private security firm, Talon, on the oiled beaches of Grand Isle, and hassled by the Coast Guard and Louisiana Wildlife officials for not wearing flotation devices when it was not necessary. The law was on our side then, now the "law" is being used to limit free speech.

What's next? Will media be totally shut down? Will we face assassinations like journalists do in Rwanda? I realize assassination is over-the-top, but when it crosses your mind, even for a moment, you know something is terribly wrong.

On June 30 there was an uptick in press releases flowing from "Unified Command." The notice of the Coast Guard felony directive was buried along with EPA test results on Corexit, Thad Allen's "official" retirement from the Coast Guard, notices about NOAA, oiled wildlife-- at least nine press releases in the space of a few hours.

Ordinarily, these propaganda pieces go in the file folder. The media ban disguised as a safety rule jumped out, but there was much analysis to do regarding the EPA test results on that day. So, the bogus 20- meter (65 feet) "safety zone" surrounding all Deepwater Horizon booming operations and oil had to wait until I could wrap my head around the implications. Frankly, I wanted to ignore it.

The Coast Guard directive states, "The safety zone has been put in place to protect members of the response effort, the installation and maintenance of oil containment boom, the operation of response equipment and protection of the environment by limiting access to and through deployed protective boom."

That statement is the most egregious smokescreen we have encountered on this story. No one is maintaining the boom in Barataria Bay. Boom must be anchored, cleaned and replaced. This is not happening, and the Coast Guard, which reports directly to President Obama, does not want you to see this.

Why aren't boom maintenance laws enforced? Instead, reporters now become felons for showing the American public the utter mess the Coast Guard, federal officials and BP have created in our once-beautiful waterways.

Here is one boom plan that is not being implemented.

"The boom is not working ... it is a joke," says Billy Nungesser, president of Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, at a Thursday Senate hearing. "It washes up on the shore with the oil, and then we have oil in the marsh, and we have an oily boom. So we have two problems."

Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) has said that the boom only works in open ocean.

Another under-reported aspect of this story is that the dispersant Corexit has done its job of hiding the catastrophe so well that booms cannot stop the oil. It slips, snakes and slides under the booms, which are inherently worthless in shallow waters, as Landrieu says.

Here is what the Ports and Waterways Safety Act directs. Is the Coast Guard ensuring the environmental protection of Barataria Bay? It is not, and Thad Allen and BP and the federal government do not want you to see the images that bring that fact home.

The Coast Guard has a statutory responsibility under the Ports and Waterways Safety Act of 1972 (PWSA), Title 33 USC §1221to ensure the safety and environmental protection of U.S. ports and waterways. The PWSA authorizes the Coast Guard to "...establish, operate and maintain vessel traffic services in ports and waterways subject to congestion.
In fairness to beleaguered information officers at Unified Command, there is one woman who has been trying to be helpful on several information fronts. I sent her this question:

Have you heard about the Coast Guard regulation (new) about booms and staying 20 meters away. Does this apply to unmanned booms? There is a felony penalty. Does this mean no boat traffic in Barataria Bay? It is hard to stay that distance if you are near the boomed islands.
Her response was immediate and we cannot hold PIO officers accountable for the regulations. She did sum it up in no uncertain terms.

The safety zone applies to ALL boom. In the case of Barataria Bay, the statement made in the press release," In areas where vessels operators cannot avoid the 20-meter rule, they are required to be cautious of boom and boom operations by transiting at a safe speed and distance," would apply.

Permission to enter any safety zone must be granted by the Coast Guard Captain of the Port of New Orleans by calling 504-846-5923. Perhaps the American public should start calling him and demand that our rights of free speech and expression be reinstated in Gulf waters.


Note: I am removing all copyrights on my work. Spread these photos far and wide.

UPDATE: This in at 10:30 AM CST July 3. Perhaps media is protesting too much? Me, I don't buy the explanation. A sop to Cerberus. This directive hardly "protects" the people of South Louisiana.

HOUMA, La. - The Coast Guard Captain of the Port of New Orleans has delegated authority to the Coast Guard Incident Commander in Houma to allow access to the safety zones placed around all Deepwater Horizon booming operations in Southeast Louisiana.
The Coast Guard Incident Commander will ensure the safety of the members and equipment of the response before access is granted.

"The safety zones are intended to safeguard critical resources that are a vital part of the largest oil spill response in our history," said Chief Petty Officer Paul Roszkowski, Assistant Public Information Officer at Incident Command Post Houma, La. "We must take the steps necessary to preserve the assets needed as we fight to save the way of life of the people of Louisiana."

The safety zone has been put in place to prevent vandalism to boom and to protect the members and equipment of the response effort by limiting access to, and through, deployed protective boom.

Media wishing to gain access to the safety zones should call the Houma Joint Information Center at 985-493-7835.

Do you really believe the Coast Guard will allow photos of this? This is BP and Coast Guard neglect, and does not reflect vandalism. Ask yourselves what motivations anyone could have to vandalize worthless boom material--material that is now doing more harm than good. It is past time for us to become critical thinkers.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/georgiann ... 34661.html

Originally Posted by ALIPAC

Silencing the press, ordering homeland security to demonize his political opposition as domestic terrorists, establishing a kill switch for the Internet, ordering NASA to take us out of space and focus on reaching out to Muslim nations, depriving Americans of anything that would instill national pride, lying to the public, pulling strings for his illegal alien aunt, no birth certificate or answers for the public on his eligibility, what's next? The purge? The knocks at the door in the middle of the night?

What is next from this fraud and usurper in the White House?

W

Gets better everyday...