Police Confiscate Cameras of Observers at Tar Sands Blockade Action

[phantom power]

A Tar Sands Blockader, Alejandro de la Torre, locked his body in a concrete capsule buried in the path of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline to stop a small family farm in East Texas from being destroyed by construction. He blocked demolition for at least six hours before police were able to break off a chunk of concrete is arm was in and arrest him.

Police confiscated cameras of Blockaders that were there to film for Torre’s safety. Tar Sands Blockade spokesperson Ramsey Sprague reported they wanted to keep cameras on him as long as possible but police intimidated observers and took the cameras.

Last week, TransCanada supervisors encouraged police to use torture tactics on protesters to stop their nonviolent direct action.

Sprague recounted the brutality, which was “astounding.” Shannon “Rain” Beebe and Benjamin Franklin locked themselves to TransCanada machinery to stop clear-cutting. The police hung them with their arms behind their backs. They put pressure on their shoulder with their arms twisted. They pepper sprayed a tube connecting their arms. They twisted a tube cutting off circulation to their hands. (One protester is seeking medical attention for nerve damage.)

http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2012/10/01/police-confiscate-cameras-of-observers-at-tar-sands-blockade-action/

[broiles]

1. My granddaughter is there, I hope she's OK.

[lonestarnot]

13. I hope she's ok too!

[broiles]

22. She is okay

she is okay. Just heard that she is out of the trees and is doing administrative stuff, but she said the cops are out of control. Tazering without restraint.

[lonestarnot]

2. WTF! On what basis? They making up laws?

Guess they're broke and gona sell them.

[awoke_in_2003]

10. Since when has the law mattered...

to them? Laws are for us, not them.

[lonestarnot]

12. Good point.

[Zalatix]

18. Law enforcement has outlived its usefulness.

[former-republican]

3. Not enough information

Did the family that owned the small farm agree to this?
And if they didn't was this done with a court order by eminent domain?

[tech3149]

4. This shit is not going to get any better anytime soon

I suggest going for an alternative like micro video cameras. You can buy one in the form of a working pen, others that are smaller than a pack of cigarettes with a remote camera that can be hidden behind a button.
Using a cell phone or camera makes you an obvious target for the forces in power.
So long as the entrenched powers can operate by their own rules with almost endless resources, our best option is to fight back with stealth and guile.
We can't afford having one person in jail for a week, or a month, or a year if they could do the same work without risk.

[Octafish]

5. What country is this, again?

I'm so old, I remember when the police defended and protected people.

[former-republican]

6. That's why I asked for more information on it, the article is vague

Was the person asked by the property owner to do this.

Did the property owner have this done by A court order using the same eminent domain case that happened in New London CT

[Fire Walk With Me]

7. Find more info here:

https://www.facebook.com/TarSandsBlockade?ref=ts&fref=ts

https://www.facebook.com/TarSandsAction?ref=ts&fref=ts

:/

By the way, it is illegal for police to confiscate recorders and recordings of them, or to arrest those recording them, via Glik V. Boston.

[former-republican]

11. Thank you and I agree on what you say, it's just right now I am more interested how eminent domain

was used or if it was used on the property owner.

I personally know someone in the New London Supreme court case ruling where they lost their home.

[Fire Walk With Me]

15. Oh, okay. Sorry...that's freaking awful. Evidently they've been trying to build on 1st Nation land

as well. Lakota, I believe. And they've been run off.

[former-republican]

16. No need at all to say you're sorry , I should have been more clear in my question

damn



I'm not a religious man but I pray the Lakotas stay strong on this.

[Fire Walk With Me]

19. Thank you for supporting the 1st Nations...links:

http://www.bing.com/search?q=keystone+lakota&pc=Z128&form=ZGAFDF&install_date=20111121

[former-republican]

20. I watched the video

The woman that was one of the elders left me in awe.
92 years old and brilliant in her speech to the others.

Thank you for the link

[starroute]

8. I've found references to two different property owners

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/09/25/fighting-keystone-xl-in-the-heart-of-texas/

The Tar Sands Blockade have been active up and down the pipeline route building relationships with landowners and community members set to be most impacted by the project. Over the past few months, many more landowners have joined the cause, are becoming spokespeople and potentially participants in blockades. . . .

In 1999, when native Texan David Hightower retired from the U.S. Air Force, he’d looked forward to a quiet country life. His parents had bought 70 acres north of Winnsboro, TX in 1957 when he was three. Hightower returned to start up a vineyard and plant an orchard. The property now has 500 running feet of productive muscadine grapes as well as peach, pear and persimmon trees.

Unfortunately, TransCanada had other plans. The company approached Hightower’s mother, in her 80’s, with the contract for the pipeline to cross the property. She signed without fully understanding what it would mean. While opposing the pipeline, Hightower didn’t want to add stress to his elderly mother in the last years of her life. She has since passed away.

The Keystone XL pipeline will cut about 200 feet from his front door and plow right through his vineyard and orchard. It will ruin the family business. Hightower talked to representatives about just moving the pipeline over a few feet, so at least the vineyard and trees would be spared. TransCanada refused to change the pipeline route.


http://www.opednews.com/articles/Tortured-Law-in-Texas-by-William-Boardman-120929-913.html

Earlier the same week, David Hightower of Winnsboro came to the end of his resistance to the pipeline clearing crews. Hightower, who was living in his childhood home after serving 40 years in the Air Force, had planted a muscadine grape vineyard and nurtured it over the years into a home business. He asked TransCanada to shift the pipeline route. TransCanada wiped out his vineyard. . . .

Meanwhile it leaves people like the Holland family, who are part of Texas Rice Land Partners, already have some 50 or more pipelines on their property, but this is only the second time they've gone to court over the issue of eminent domain. The first time they were plaintiffs in the Denbury case.

TransCanada had offered the Hollands $446,864 for an easement, which the Hollands were prepared to accept on the same terms as their other pipelines. But TransCanada, with a pipeline that would be carrying a far more toxic load than the other pipelines, would not accept the usual terms, but rather wanted to be able to walk away from their pipeline any time, with no liability.

With the court order, the Hollands are to get $20,808, or about 5% of what TransCanada offered, even though a landowners' compensation is supposed to bear some reasonable relationship to fair market value.

[former-republican]

14. thanks

[flvegan]

9. NJ,JU.

Cheers to the activists living it.

[burrowowl]

17. Pigs!

What we called them in the 60s, however I think it is getting worse than the 60s
msybe Nazi Brown Shirts!?

[Hestia]

21. What really disgusts me is that this pipeline is going to run smack through the Ouachita Mountains

on the Okla & Ark boarders. Not many people live around them and they are absolutely pristine. The Tallamena Trail runs from Queen Wilhamena State Park to Tallahena, Okla. Beautiful drive and very popular with bike riders.

http://www.talimenascenicdrive.com/

[Shitty Mitty]

23. And if we try and confiscate their cameras, we get shot.

Fuck the 95% or so of bad cops