Journalist Kicked out of ALEC Conference, Threatened With Arrest (2nd incident)

[highplainsdem]

There was a DU topic yesterday about another incident of security at the ALEC conference in New Orleans assaulting ThinkProgress reporters:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1672256

This topic is what happened to a reporter from the Center for Media and Democracy.

Al Jazeera English, which does such great reporting, was also denied access to the ALEC conference.

http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/08/10939/journalist-kicked-out-alec-conference-threatened-arrest

After filling out my registration form to receive press credentials, I was told by an alarmed ALEC intern to wait while she fetched her boss. While I did not think she had ever heard my name, the look on her face made me think that perhaps she had heard of our new project ALEC Exposed.org. A very stern looking gentleman -- Ted Wagnon of Vox Global Communications -- arrived and told me my application would be denied on the grounds that the Center for Media and Democracy was an "advocacy organization." I asked Wagnon for a written explanation, and he handed me ALEC's Media Policy, which bears no mention of "advocacy organizations." Instead, news outlets funded by a "think-tank, political party, lobbying organization, trade association, or corporation" are forbidden from registering. CMD complies with this criteria even though most media outlets (owned by major corporations) do not.

Discouraged by by dismissal from the registration table, but not defeated, I headed to the Marriott hotel lobby to do some writing and ALEC sightseeing. I was greeted by there by a contracted security guard with no hotel affiliation, and told to leave. I asked if I was being kicked out of the hotel, to which replied that I would be removed if I didn't depart immediately. I left, a bit miffed. A quick phone call later in the day to Marriott management confirmed that I by sitting in the lobby filing a story I had not violated any of the hotel's rules, and would be welcome back in the lobby the next day.

Thursday morning I sat down once again in the Marriott lobby, where I decided to start tweeting the names of some of the ALEC corporate lobbyists. Apparently tweets like, "South Carolina Rep. Liston Barfield #spotted at #ALEC Annual Meeting. He's wearing a name tag that says 'Legacy Member'" and "Some legislators have 'New Member' ribbons attached to their name tags. Makes it easier for the corporations to track them down" drew the attention of ALEC's communications team. A senior staffer raced towards me, asked if I was Eric Carlson, and then screamed "that's him!” (See the offensive tweets here).

Marriott security guards swarmed to where I was standing, demanding again that I leave the hotel or "face arrest." I escaped before they could follow through on their other promise of taking my picture for their permanent records. My only comfort? Al Jazeera English was also denied credentials on the grounds that ALEC was not an “international” conference -- even though it has an International Relations Task Force whose priority results in the offshoring of U.S. jobs and even though international politicians were addressing the conference.

-snip-

The article goes on to point out the "hypocrisy of ALEC's media policy" -- although it says news outlets funded by a corporation are forbidden from registering, they have corporations sponsor speakers (big PhRMA sponsored Bobby Jindal and Visa sponsored Dick Armey at this conference) and they promote the interests of big media conglomerates.

Such as Comcast, which is a member.

And Time Warner invited ALEC members and lobbyists to a dinner at Emeril's Delmonico Thursday night.


Link to Eric Carlson's Twitter feed, with a lot of recent tweets about ALEC:

http://twitter.com/theericcarlson


And the long compilation topic on the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has much more on this group's influence and the harm that it does.

[Generic Other]

1. These roaches need to have the light shined on their every move

Obviously, every public official lickling their boots ought to have the full force of the media EXPOSING the act!

[highplainsdem]

3. I agree.

[nashville_brook]

2. ALEC's shocking promotion of prison labor at the behest of corp bosses:

just one of the dirty little secrets ALEC protects by kicking journos out of New Orleans conference....


The Hidden History of ALEC and Prison Labor -- The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/article/162478/hidden-history-alec-and-prison-labor


New Exposé Tracks ALEC-Private Prison Industry Effort to Replace Unionized Workers with Prison Labor -- DemocracyNow

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/8/5/new_expos_tracks_alec_private_prison

AMY GOODMAN: If you were at the conference in New Orleans right now, what would you be asking?

MIKE ELK: I would be asking, why are so many corporations, you know, turning to prison labor, of all things? You know, it’s become incredible in this country. You know, you see so many corporations now that going to China isn’t cheap enough anymore. You know, it’s expensive to ship stuff across seas. So they’re coming to the only source of labor that isn’t more expensive than China, which is U.S. prison population. Why are they doing that? Why is ALEC keeping so many people in prison that could be doing something more productive? We spend $60 billion a year in this country keeping people in prison. And having a captive labor workforce that corporations can profit from is just going to make it tougher to have prison reform in this country.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, the issue of prison labor versus union labor?

MIKE ELK: Well, as we saw already in Wisconsin, you see now prison labor replacing, you know, unionized public workers, where the prison labor, you know, working in road crews in Racine, Wisconsin, is not getting paid anything. So we’re seeing that come in. We’re seeing factories close down in this country that were employing unionized prison labor, and instead we’re now shifting to prison labor. For instance, in the state of Florida, the largest printing company is Prison Industries. So, now there’s not even a market anymore. So we’re seeing increasingly American workers having to not compete just against Chinese labor that’s forced and exploited, but forced and exploited labor in this own country.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, we have to break, and then we’re going to go back to another story in New Orleans, but we’ve just been talking about the processing of meat. Talk about the story from 2005 around prisoners and meat.

MIKE ELK: My co-author, Bob Sloan, who’s an ex-offender, who actually worked in Prison Industries and has dedicated his life to unveiling, you know, the tragedy of Prison Industries, showed how ATL Industries, back in 2005, had 14 million pounds of beef that they knew was infected with rat feces. Now, many people raised the alarms, and they were even trying to pressure ATL Industries to recall the beef. However, the USDA wouldn’t let them recall the beef, even through a voluntary recall, because they didn’t want to draw attention to how much meat and how many other products in this country are being made by prison labor. So, we have an industry, prison labor, for example, in '95, the U.S. government passed a law, the federal government, that now the regulating body for Prison Industries is not the Department Justice, but the National Correctional Industries Association. This is sort of like turning over bank regulation to the American Bankers Association. So we're seeing an industry that’s basically completely unregulated and poses a great threat, not just to American workers, but to the mouths and health of, you know, American children and adults.

AMY GOODMAN: Mike Elk, I want to thank you very much for being with us, contributing editor at The Nation magazine, exposé in The Nation called "The Hidden History of ALEC and Prison Labor." We’ll link to it at democracynow.org.