Louisiana Police Ban Video Filming at Behest of BP

[amborin]

Louisiana Police Pull Over Activist at Behest of BP

Everyone knows by now that BP is stil blocking press access to oil-spill sites even though they're not supposed to anymore. I've been blathering about it for weeks, and it's been all of three days since four contractors wouldn't let me through the Pointe Aux Chenes marina outside Montegut, Louisiana. And though as of June 16 the federal government was saying helicopters could fly reporters as low as 1,500 feet around spill sites, on June 17 I was on a helicopter that was prohibited from flying below 3,000 feet (and whose pilot flipped silent birds at the "military guys" coming over the radio and hassling him about being in the area at all). But Louisiana state police pulling over a video camera-wielding private citizen because the head of BP security wanted to ask him some questions is a whole other level of alarming.

Last week, Drew Wheelan, the conservation coordinator for the American Birding Association, was filming himself across the street from the BP building/Deepwater Horizon response command in Houma, Louisiana. As he explained to me, he was standing in a field that did not belong to the oil company when a police officer approached him and asked him for ID and "strongly suggest" that he get lost since "BP doesn't want people filming":

Here's the key exchange:

Wheelan: "Am I violating any laws or anything like that?"

Officer: "Um...not particularly. BP doesn't want people filming."

Wheelan: "Well, I'm not on their property so BP doesn't have anything to say about what I do right now."

Officer: "Let me explain: BP doesn't want any filming. So all I can really do is strongly suggest that you not film anything right now. If that makes any sense."

Not really! Shortly thereafter, Wheelan got in his car and drove away but was soon was pulled over.


http://motherjones.com/rights-stuff/2010/06/BP-louisiana-police-stop-activist

[DJ13]

1. Are they flying the new US flag there?

[amborin]

3. that graphic perfectly describes where we're at

[dgibby]

2. It's not a police state.

It's a corporate police state.

I hope the ACLU is all over this. Drew Wheelan should own BP and La when it's all said and done.

[amborin]

4. one definition of fascism: merging interests & actions of state and corporations

[dgibby]

8. Indeed!

And here are more:

http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/britt_23_2.htm

[louis-t]

5. It's a BP state. They now own everybody.

[Kievan Rus]

6. More proof that only the rich have rights anymore

[Taitertots]

7. Who will peacefully video tape until arrested?

So they can sue BP and the Police to stop this non-sense.

Make sure to bring a wireless device so it can be streamed to the internet.