“I’m tracking these journalist arrests because I’m concerned about the state of the First Amendment, and our willingness as a public and a democracy to defend it.”

Via freepress.net

Why I Won't Stop Tracking Journalist Arrests

Josh Stearns

November 14, 2012

One year ago today I published a blog post entitled “Why I'm Tracking Journalist Arrests at Occupy Protests.” The next day, police raided New York City’s Zuccotti Park, where they arrested 12 journalists and blocked many others from documenting the raid.

Police had previously detained or arrested 13 journalists in the two months since the Occupy Wall Street movement began. By the end of 2011, that number grew to 60, and it now stands at roughly 100.

When I began tracking these arrests, it was an effort to bear witness, to make sure each of these stories was documented. But over the past year it has become much more than that. Through this work I have developed an incredible community of journalists, lawyers, press freedom advocates, organizers and a whole range of people who felt riled up and got involved. This network of friends and allies has been instrumental in tracking these arrests — sending tips, spreading the word, helping with research and supporting one another.

In working with people across the U.S. to chronicle journalist arrests, and in many cases advocate on behalf of journalists who’ve been detained, I’ve come to understand that expanding this community is critical to protecting the First Amendment. As journalism grows more networked and participatory, we need a system for supporting press freedom that builds on those same principles.

Traditionally, press freedom has been protected by institutions, like media companies, whose business interests depended on it. These companies had the legal resources and the clout to push back on First Amendment violations. But the arrests of the past year have illustrated the dwindling influence of these stakeholders and the need for new ways of defending press freedom.

With a few notable exceptions in New York and the Bay Area, commercial media didn’t weigh in on the journalist arrests. Those that did intervene tended to be newsrooms whose journalists were arrested or otherwise harassed. First Amendment groups, journalists’ professional organizations and local press associations have fought admirably, but they, like so many nonprofits, are stretched thin.
While some of the arrests I documented were relatively short detainments, other reporters were held for days and suffered rough treatment during and after their arrests. Some charges were dropped right away, but other journalists are just now being acquitted, almost a year after their arrests. A number of journalists are still waiting to hear the outcome of their cases while police drag out the process.
The arrests received some national attention, but most people are still unaware of how extensive the problem is and no one is tracking the impact of these year-long legal battles on the journalists themselves. In a piece for the Columbia Journalism Review last February, Carla Murphy (who herself had been arrested and is still facing charges) examined how arrests chill speech, especially for independent journalists.

While journalists rarely discuss this openly, many of these arrests were traumatic experiences, especially for those who were detained for extensive periods. Most of the research on post-traumatic stress disorder in journalists focuses on war correspondents, but I have heard from journalists arrested this past year who are struggling with similar symptoms. And I’ve talked with a number of journalists who approach their work very differently than they did before their arrests. These arrests are not just about our universal rights, but also about people’s individual lives.

A year ago I wrote “I’m tracking these journalist arrests because I’m concerned about the state of the First Amendment, and our willingness as a public and a democracy to defend it.” That worry continues today.

We need commercial media institutions to continue fighting to protect the First Amendment. We need strong nonprofit advocates to support citizen and independent journalists. We need journalists to stand up for each other on city streets and in the halls of power. But more than anything, we need to understand that we all have a stake in the First Amendment — and a role to play in defending it.
That’s why I’m going to continue tracking journalist arrests — to bear witness, to broaden the community of concern and to use the tools of media making to empower more people as advocates of our shared First Amendment rights.

Timeline: One Year in the Debate Over Press Freedom
Sept. 17, 2011: Occupy Wall Street begins in New York City

Sept. 24, 2011: John Farley of WNET/Thirteen is the first journalist arrested while covering Occupy Wall Street.

Oct. 1, 2011: The Occupy Wall Street movement crosses the Brooklyn Bridge, leading to mass arrests, including the arrests of three journalists.

Nov. 15–17, 2011: The New York Police Department raids Zuccotti Park right before the two-month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. Twelve journalists are arrested, with two more arrested on the actual anniversary two days later.

Nov. 18, 2011: The NYPD admits to arresting journalists with NYPD press credentials.

Nov. 21, 2011: New York media demand a meeting with NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly and Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne about abuses of press covering Occupy Wall Street.

Nov. 23, 2011: The NYPD issues a formal memo ordering officers to avoid “unreasonably interfer[ing]” with journalists. (Ten days later the NYPD arrest another journalist.)

Dec. 1, 2011: Forty-thousand people send letters and call their mayors, asking them to defend press freedom in their cities.

Dec. 8, 2011: The Committee to Protect Journalists releases its 2011 global census of journalist imprisonment, and finds that “the number of journalists imprisoned worldwide shot up more than 20 percent to its highest level since the mid-1990s.”

Dec. 9, 2011: Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York calls on the Justice Department to investigate the NYPD’s raid on Zuccotti Park and its treatment of protesters and journalists.

Dec. 12, 2011: The NYPD arrests nine independent journalists, livestreamers and photographers at the Winter Garden in New York City. Video also reveals officers blocking a New York Times photographer as he tries to cover the arrests.

Dec. 13, 2011: A series of “Who is a Journalist?” posts appear here, here and here.

Jan. 3, 2012: The NYPD raid the Brooklyn studio of Globalrevolution.tv, one of the central livestreaming groups covering Occupy Wall Street, and arrest six citizen journalists.

Jan. 18, 2012: The SOPA Internet Blackout spreads across the Web in protest of a piracy bill with broad First Amendment implications.

Jan. 25, 2012: Reporters Without Borders releases its yearly press freedom ranking. The U.S. plummets 27 spots to 47th in the world.

Jan. 28, 2012: Oakland police detain or arrest nine journalists when Occupy Oakland attempts to take over an empty building.

Feb. 2, 2012: Some cities respond to journalist arrests with apologies and police reprimands. Documentarian Josh Fox is arrested while trying to film a public hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Feb. 9, 2012: Sixteen-thousand people send letters of support to journalists who have been arrested.
March 3, 2012: Bay Area journalists and press organizations meet with Oakland Mayor Jean Quan about ongoing press suppression and arrests in the city.

April 30, 2012: A coalition of elected officials and members of the press file a civil rights lawsuit against the NPYD seeking redress for police misconduct during Occupy Wall Street protests. The National Press Photographers Association joins the lawsuit later in the year.

May 3, 2012: On World Press Freedom Day, a coalition of press freedom and digital rights groups send a joint letter to Attorney General Eric Holder calling on the Justice Department to protect all people’s “right to record.”

May 14, 2012: The Justice Department releases a lengthy memo providing guidance to police departments and asserting that people’s right to record is protected under the First Amendment.
May 20, 2012: Four journalists are arrested while covering the NATO summit in Chicago. Other journalists and livestreamers complain about being targeted and harassed by police.

June 8, 2012: NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne tries to rewrite history and denies the NYPD arrested journalists the department had earlier admitted to arresting.

July 25, 2012: Researchers at NYU and Fordham law schools release an eight-month study which finds the NYPD “consistently violated basic rights” by using aggressive force and obstructing press freedom.

July 31, 2012: Twitter bans journalist Guy Adams for revealing an NBC executive’s work email address during the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. (Adams was later reinstated.)

Aug. 27–Sept. 6, 2012: The Democratic and Republican conventions included a significant police and security detail, but there are relatively few incidents of press suppression.

Sept. 15–17, 2012: Eight journalist arrests occur on the one-year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. This leads to another set of letters from the Society for Professional Journalists, the National Press Photographers Association and 13 other media organizations.


Related: NYC Sued for Systematic Civil Rights Violations During Occupy Protests
     
             Here we go again: Occupy Wall Street Arrests Photographers

Suppressing Protest: Human Rights Violations in the U.S. Response to Occupy Wall Street
 

Photojournalists Stephanie Keith, Charles Meacham; the National Press Photographers Association Sue NYC for violated their First, Fourth, and Fourteen amendment rights during Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011

Via pdn

NYC Sued for Systematic Civil Rights Violations During Occupy Protests

Occupy Wall street protesters, New York City council members, and several journalists have filed suit against the City of New York, the Metropolitan Transit Authority, JP Morgan Chase and other defendants, alleging widespread civil rights violations during the Occupy Wall Street process in 2011. The lawsuit was filed today in Federal District Court in New York City.

The plaintiffs--including photojournalists Stephanie Keith, Charles Meacham, the National Press Photographers Association, several citizen journalists and five New York City council members--allege that the New York City Police Department .

"The City of New York in concert with various private and public entities have employed Officers of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and others acting under color of state law, to intentionally and willfully subject Plaintiffs and the public to, among other things, violation of rights of free speech, assembly, freedom of the press, false arrest, excessive forces, false imprisonment, and malicious prosecution and, furthermore, purposefully obstructing plaintiffs carrying out their duties as elected officials and members of the press," the lawsuit asserts.

It goes on to say that police conduct was intended to obstruct, chill, deter and retaliate against the plaintiffs for engaging in "constitutionally protected activity." It accuses the NYPD of unreasonable search and seizure of the individual defendants (a Fourth Amendment violation) and deprivation of due process (a Fourteenth Amendment violation.)

The plaintiffs are seeking an unspecified amount of "compensatory and monetary damages," as well as injunctions to force the NYPD to allow citizens to protest peacefully in public spaces, and to prevent the police from barring the access of journalists to protests.

The suit includes allegations of specific acts of police misconduct against each individual defendant. More generally, it alleges that police prevented citizens from gathering lawfully and peacefully in public spaces; that police violated privacy by retaining photographs of protesters who were arrested then released without charges; that police detained people for extended periods without charges; that police charged the plaintiffs without probable cause, and for crimes not committed; that police used excessive force to discourage people from exercising free speech and other constitutional rights; and that police justified the use of excessive force under false pretenses.

It also alleges that police barred journalists from covering the eviction of protesters from Zuccotti Park on November 15, 2011. "The NYPD's use of force in general, and against journalists in particular is on-going and well-documented," the lawsuit alleges, with references to many reports about police conduct.

It also paints a picture of the NYPD as an unaccountable, insular organization that covers up the misconduct of individual police officers. "These practices, policies and customer engender perverse incentive for officers to commit acts of misconduct against civilians without consequences," the lawsuit alleged.

The lawsuit goes on to say, "by employing the NYPD in its present condition to police protests while failing to provide meaningful avenues of police accountability, the [City of New York] chills each plaintiff, and indeed each citizen, from engaging in Constitutionally protected speech by setting up the NYPD, in effect, as the arbiter of the content of speech in a democratic society."

Related:

Here we go again: Occupy Wal Street Arrests Photographers

 Suppressing Protest: Human Rights Violations in the U.S. Response to Occupy Wall Street
Report issued by The Global Justice Clinic (NYU School of Law) and the Walter Leitner International Human Rights Clinic at the  Leitner Center for International Law and Justice (Fordham)

HERE WE GO AGAIN: OCCUPY WALL STREET ARRESTS

 Moccupychi via Instagram

"One officer repeatedly shoved photographers with a baton and a police lieutenant warned that no more photographs should be taken. “That’s over with,” the lieutenant said."

Arrests Near Stock Exchange Top 100 on Occupy Wall St. Anniversary

UPDATE: One Year of Occupy. One Year of Journalist Arrests

UPDATE: NYPD Caught on Video Violently Shoving Photographer

NYPD Continues Arresting Photogs at Occupy Wall Street Anniversary Protest

UPDATE: The detention of journalists again brought back memories of last fall, when the NYPD on occasion arrested journalists wearing NYPD credentials.

Dozens of Occupy Wall Street arrests in NYC

Two Photogs, One Journalist Arrested as Activists Descend Upon Wall Street for Anniversary

Student editor arrested while covering Occupy Wall Street anniversary protests
Ironically, the arrests take place on Constitution Day, a day which Congress has set as a day to celebrate, study and discuss the United States Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.

Civil Rights and Press Freedom One Year After Occupy

In Pictures: Occupy Wall Street protesters hold rally in New York to mark anniversary

A New York City Police Department officer pushes photographer Craig Ruttle during the Occupy Wall Street protestPicture: STAN HONDA/AFP/GettyImages


Mickey Osterreicher, general counsel for the National Press Photographers Association, gave the following statement:

NPPA has been receiving reports from a number of our members who are covering the OWS demonstrations in NY. We are deeply concerned and troubled by the aggressive and indiscriminate manner in which officers and command staff are allegedly treating those exercising their First Amendment rights to photograph and record matters of public concern on the streets of NY. These acts of intimidation, detention and sometimes arrest continue to occur despite Commissioner Kelly's Finest message (reminding 'members of the service of their obligations to cooperate with media representatives acting in a news-gathering capacity at the scene of police incidents'), issued last year in response to the arrests of journalists covering the events in and around Zuccotti Park, as well as specific directives in the NYPD Patrol Guide regarding the rights of "Observers at the scene of Police Incidents."

It should also be noted that whereas the Tampa and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Departments chose to work with NPPA and other organizations in order to prevent these incidents during the recent political conventions held in those cities (where no journalists were arrested), the NYPD has declined to accept similar offers of training. While NPPA appreciates the fact that NYPD has adopted the above referenced guidelines, without proper training and appropriate disciplinary action, those directives are just pieces of paper.

Related: Tracking Journalist Arrests at Occupy Protests Around the Country, Part Two

"Topic that concerns me the most in recent years is law enforcement’s misconceptions regarding the legality of a person’s ability to photograph in a public space"

Via The Baltimore Sun

Public spaces are fair game for photographers – a right protected under the First Amendment as free speech. But in recent years that right has come under attack by law enforcement and officials, who are challenging the constraints of what can and cannot be filmed in a public space. Now, more than ever, photographers would be well-advised to learn their rights.

 

As the director of photography at The Baltimore Sun, I deal with legal issues concerning a number of topics, from copyright to privacy to trespassing to public access. First, let me state, I am not a lawyer nor have I ever played one on television. But, I am called upon often to give my opinion, or at times, state that The Sun should consult a real lawyer.

The one topic that concerns me the most in recent years is law enforcement’s misconceptions regarding the legality of a person’s ability to photograph in a public space. Photography in a public space is free speech protected under the First Amendment.

People believe that the press is granted special privileges because they have credentials. This is not the case. The press has no greater access then the average person in a public space, and certainly no less access. So a photographer standing in a crowd at a crime scene should not be singled out to move back unless everyone else is asked to do the same.

When confronting a photographer who is taking pictures in a public area such as a train station, police and other officials will often site the Patriot Act as forbidding photography. The Patriot Act does not forbid photography.

In May 2011, Baltimore Sun reporter Michael Dresser wrote about photographer Christopher Fussell, who was detained by three MTA police at a Baltimore City light rail stop while taking photographs.

Dresser wrote, “The right of photographers to take pictures in public places has been a point of contention virtually since the invention of the camera. But the disputes have become more frequent — and more contentious — since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, which prompted police to challenge individuals who take photos or video of public infrastructure as potential security risks.”

“Civil libertarians and rights advocates say police have been given no new powers to curb photography since 9/11. In many cases, they say, police are making up laws and rules on the spot and issuing orders they have no right to give,” he added.

Continue reading full post here.


Related: "Literally every day, someone is being arrested for doing nothing more than taking a photograph in a public place"

"Literally every day, someone is being arrested for doing nothing more than taking a photograph in a public place"

Today's must read, via The New York Times Lens Blog

Mickey H. Osterreicher is the general counsel for the National Press Photographers Association and edits the organization’s Advocacy Committee blog. He spoke with James Estrin. Their conversation has been edited.

"It’s not just news photographers who should be concerned with this. I think every citizen should be concerned. Tourists taking pictures are being told by police, security guards and sometimes other citizens, “Sorry, you can’t take a picture here.” When asked why, they say, “Well, don’t you remember 9/11?”
I remember it quite well, but what does that have do to with taking a picture in public? It seems like the war on terrorism has somehow morphed into an assault on photography.

Q.What’s caused this?

A. It’s been a perfect storm. There’s 9/11, and now photojournalists who traditionally worked for newspapers are losing their jobs and becoming freelancers who may not have the backing of their news organizations. You have Occupy Wall Street, where police didn’t want some of their actions to be photographed. And now everybody with a cellphone is capable of recording very high-quality images. And everyone has the ability to upload and share them almost instantly. There is no news cycle — it’s 24/7 with unlimited bandwidth."

Full post here.

Legal Issues

Photojournalism v. Law

A Lens blog guide to knowing one’s rights of photography.

• You Can Photograph That Federal Building »

• Cracking Down on Croparazzi »

• See Officer, I Can Too Take That Picture »

• ‘Step Away From the Camera!’ »

Related:

Why Is It So Hard to Get Press Credentials?


New York Times photographer arrested while covering arrest

Photographer's Rights: NYPD's Backwards Policy on Photography at Occupy Wall Street

 NYPD 'consistently violated basic rights' during Occupy protests – Report by NYU and Fordham law schools

“That the First Amendment right to gather news is . . . not one that inures solely to the benefit of the news media; rather, the public’s right of access to information is coextensive with that of the press"


Tracking Journalist Arrests at Occupy Protests Around the Country, Part Two


"You got that credential you’re wearing from us, and we can take it away from you.”

Photographer's Rights: NYPD's Backwards Policy on Photography at Occupy Wall Street



Via ACLU

By Naomi Gilens, Legal Administrative Assistant, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 12:32pm

The day after police evicted Occupy Wall Street protestors from Zuccotti Park last fall, I had some trouble deciphering exactly what had happened. Police had corralled journalists into a "press pen" removed from the park itself, and arrested at least ten people for attempting to take photos or video. When I visited Zuccotti during the following days and weeks to see for myself what was happening, I could only enter through a single access point, guarded by police officers who often filmed me as I walked in. Why could police arrest people for taking video footage of them, and then turn the cameras on those same people for engaging in lawful activity in a public space?

The answer, of course, is that they couldn't—not legally, at least. Under the First Amendment, Americans have the right to observe and record members of the police force in the public discharge of their duties. Conversely, the NYPD’s right to conduct photo and video surveillance on citizens engaging in lawful protest is limited, with very few exceptions, to circumstances in which “it reasonably appears that unlawful conduct is about to occur, is occurring, or has occurred.”

SPECIAL FEATURE > A Guide to Photographers' Rights

> Learn More: Filming and Photographing Police

As a report released today by the New York Civil Liberties Union starkly illustrates, though, these rules bear little relation to what is actually happening. Police continue to subject photographers to harassment, injury, and arrest. In July, an activist (and friend of mine) found that videotaping police stop and frisks had landed him on a “Wanted”-style police poster featuring his full name, photograph, and home address. The following week, a photographer attempting to document an arrest was flung violently over a stone bench several times, pinned down by a knee on the back of his neck, and arrested.

Even as they mistreat photographers, police are continuing to subject these same citizens to illegal surveillance. When recordings are made for a purpose other than to record unlawful activity, police are supposed to avoid “close-ups of participants.” Yet peaceful marches are regularly lined with NYPD officers, cameras in hand, zooming in on individual faces. Even more egregiously, there has been at least one case this summer of police filming a protestor receiving medical treatment by EMTs.
From the earliest days of the occupation at Zuccotti Park, a police watchtower carried out round-the-clock surveillance of the protesters below. Almost a full year after the Occupy movement began, the watchtower remains, clearly communicating that “even if you’re not doing anything wrong, we’re watching.”

Under our laws and the Constitution, you have the right to film police without making yourself a target, and to engage in political speech and assembly without police surveillance (see the ACLU’s related resources here). Follow NYCLU’s Facebook and Twitter feeds to learn when they post a new Free Speech Threat Assessment report, and keep an eye out for upcoming reports by the Protest and Assembly Rights Project on the police response to Occupy movements in Boston, Charlotte, Oakland, and San Francisco.

Learn more about photographers' rights: Sign up for breaking news alerts, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook.

Related: Tracking Journalist Arrests at Occupy Protests Around the Country

Tracking Journalist Arrests at Occupy Protests Around the Country, Part Two

Via John Sterns

Since September 2011 83 people have been arrested in 12 cities around the United States while trying to report on Occupy Wall Street protests. This list is part two of that tracking effort and begins on May 1, 2012. For a quick list of arrests and a break down of their affiliation and occupation see this spreadsheet.

Full post here.


About Josh Sterns: "I have been tracking, confirming and verifying reports of journalist arrests at Occupy protests all over the country since September. Help me by sending tips and tweets to @jcstearns and tagging reports of press suppression and arrests with #journarrest"

Related: New York Times photographer arrested while covering arrest

NYPD 'consistently violated basic rights' during Occupy protests – Report by NYU and Fordham law schools

Photograph: Jessica Rinaldi/Reuters

Via The Guardian


"...evidence that police made violent late-night raids on peaceful encampments, obstructed independent legal monitors and was opaque about its policies"

"Obstruction of press freedoms and independent legal monitoring, including arrests of at least 10 journalists, and multiple cases of preventing journalists from reporting on protests or barring and evicting them from specific sites."

Full article here.

Previous coverage: Freedom of the Press?

"It is neither a police officer’s duty or right to decide what is appropriate news coverage of any story"

 An Albuquerque police officer first told a news videographer that he would not be allowed to continue filming an incident where the body of a motorcyclist remained trapped underneath a car this morning.


Mickey Osterreicher, general counsel for the National Press Photographers Association, who will be sending a letter to Albuquerque Police Chief Ray Schultz, provided the following statement:

Watching the video of a senior officer who should know better illustrates how important proper guidelines and training are regarding these issues.

It is neither a police officer’s duty or right to decide what is appropriate news coverage of any story. So long as news personnel are in a public forum and not violating any ordinances they have a right to gather news unfettered by the personal feelings or opinions of law enforcement. Anything less may be considered a form of prior restraint or censorship. It is all well and good that the police set-up a media staging area but that does not mean it is the only place that media are allowed to be. They can go wherever the public is allowed, which in this case is outside of the "crime scene" perimeter. To expand that area for the sole purpose to preventing photographs or video recording is not a reasonable time, place and manner restriction and limits more First Amendment protected activity than is necessary to achieve a governmental purpose.

This department would be well-advised to take a page from the Crime/disaster scene guidelines of San Diego Sheriff's Department Media Guide, specifically:

Do not establish artificial barriers. For example, do not hold the press at bay a block from the crime scene, while allowing the general public to wander freely just beyond the crime scene tape.

Do not prevent the taking of pictures or interviews of person(s) in public places. The media, when legally present at an emergency scene, may photograph or report anything or interview anyone they observe.

Do not isolate the media outside the crime/incident scene unless the area has been secured to preserve evidence or their presence jeopardizes law enforcement operations.

“That the First Amendment right to gather news is . . . not one that inures solely to the benefit of the news media; rather, the public’s right of access to information is coextensive with that of the press"

Via National Press Photographers Association June 8, 2012

"I read with disappointing disbelief your recent statement in the Queens Chronicle “that only one journalist was arrested during the operation, despite stories to the contrary,” which you called “a total myth.” I also found it incredulous that given our media coalition letter of November 21, 2011, which addressed the arrests of journalists in and around Zuccotti Park; and during our meeting with you and Commissioner Kelly on November 23, 2011, no one ever raised the issue that “Occupy Wall Street protesters were forging press credentials in an effort to get through the police lines.” To hear you now deny your department’s culpability by claiming that “actual reporters” were not arrested is an absolute revision of history and is more appropriate as part of “1984 Newspeak” than coming from the Deputy Commissioner for Public Information for the NYPD."


Via SaveTheNews.org

NYPD Tries to Rewrite History
"After becoming the epicenter for press suppression and journalist arrests over the last nine months, the NYPD is trying to rewrite history and pretend like nothing ever happened."

Via New York Observer Politicker  June 8, 2012
NYPD Spokesman Says Stories Of Reporters Arrested At Occupy Raid Were ‘A Total Myth’


Setting the Record Straight on NYPD Journalist Arrests


February 1, 2012: The New York Times fired off another letter to the Police Department today on behalf of 13 New York-based news organizations about police treatment of the press over the last several months.

"You got that credential you’re wearing from us, and we can take it away from you.”

November 18, 2011: As faculty members of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, we are alarmed at the arrests of working news professionals during the ongoing Occupy Wall Street protests, and deeply concerned that the NYPD blocked reporters' and photographers' access to Zuccotti Park during the recent eviction of the Occupy Wall Street encampment.

NPPA WORKING TO RELEASE PHOTOGRAPHER ARRESTED AT NATO SUMMIT

 

 Via National Press Photographers Association

CHICAGO, IL (May 21, 2012) – At least one photographer was arrested and another struck over the head with a police baton late Sunday while covering anti-war protesters marching in opposition to the NATO summit in Chicago.

Details are sparse, but photographs posted on Twitter and other Web sites show Getty Images freelance photographer Joshua Lott being arrested on Sunday night,while another photograph shows Getty's Scott Olson with blood streaming down his face after being hit with a Chicago police baton.

Sixty heads of state gathered in Chicago for a two-day NATO meeting to discuss the war in Afghanistan and other global defense issues. Reports say more than 2,500 journalists are there to cover the thousands of protesters who converged on the NATO meeting. Chicago's police responded to the influx of protesters and reporters by deploying thousands of police clad in riot gear, not only Chicago officers but also police pulled in from departments outside of the city.

NPPA's lawyer Mickey H. Osterreicher joined forces with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press to support a hotline for journalists arrested or assaulted while covering NATO protesters.

NPPA's lawyer was allowed to meet with Lott in an attorney interview room to let the photojournalist know that NPPA was there and working on his release, and Osterreicher then waited outside a Chicago police station for Lott until he was released shortly before 4 a.m. Monday morning.

Osterreicher said that for the most part, outside of Sunday night's late clash that included Lott, the Chicago police had been "very restrained" in dealing with photographers.

Calls and emails to Getty Images at the editorial picture desk in New York asking for more information have not been answered. Unconfirmed reports say that Lott's cameras were smashed by police, and that while he had been originally arrested on a more serious charge it had been reduced to a lesser charge before he was released on a personal bond.

The photograph posted on Twitter by The Toronto Star of Lott being arrested was credited to Spencer Platt.

There will be more NATO protests in Chicago on Monday.

Related: Department of Justice Warns Police Against Violating Photographers' Rights

Department of Justice Warns Police Against Violating Photographers' Rights

Via PDN
Photo District News


The Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice doesn't mince words in a May 14 letter to the Baltimore Police Department. Citizens have a constitutional right to record police carrying out their public duties, and it is illegal for police to seize and delete the recordings, the letter says. The DOJ goes on to give the BPD a blueprint for re-writing its policies regarding journalists or citizens recording police activities.

The letter, posted on the DOJ web site, could be a powerful tool for photographers (or citizens) who are harassed or arrested anywhere in the country for photographing police activities. It says exactly what National Press Photographers Associations, the ACLU, and others have long argued--one painstaking case at a time-- about citizens' right to record police activities.

"Private individuals have a First Amendment right to record police officers in the public discharge of their duties," the DOJ writes to the Baltimore police. The letter continues, "[O]fficers violate individuals’ Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights when they seize and destroy such recordings without a warrant or due process."

The letter re-iterated the arguments that the DOJ made to a federal court in Maryland earlier this year in a civil rights case involving the Baltimore Police Department. Christopher Sharp sued the BPD in 2011, alleging that police officers had seized, searched, and deleted the contents of his cell phone after he used it to record the officers arresting his friend. The incident took place at the 2010 Preakness Stakes horse race.

BPD said the claim was groundless and asked the court to throw it out. But the DOJ urged the court to rule that private citizens have a First Amendment right to record police carrying out their duties, as well as Fourth and Fourteenth amendment protections against unlawful search and seizure and deprivation of property without due process.

The court agreed, and has allowed the case to proceed. Among Sharp's allegations is that the BPD has a policy of advising its officers to to detain citizens who record police activities and to seize, search, and delete individuals’ recordings. He is seeking an injunction to force the BPD to change its policies.

In an effort to pre-empt that part of Sharp's claim, the BPD made public in February a general order titled "Video Recording of Police Activity" directing its police officers how to handle the recording of their activities. The order says citizens have the "absolute right to photograph and/or video record the enforcement actions of any Police Officer" as long as they don't "interfere."

The DOJ has reviewed that BPD order, and concluded that it doesn't adequately protect citizen's First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights. In support of Sharp, the DOJ is now urging the court to order the BPD to amend the general order as part of the resolution of Sharp's lawsuit.

For instance, the DOJ says, the policy does not explicitly state that citizens have a First Amendment right to record police activity. "Given the numerous publicized reports over the past several years alleging that BPD officers violated individuals’ First Amendment rights, BPD should include a specific recitation of the First Amendment rights at issue," the DOJ says.

The letter goes on to provide what amounts to a prescription for a new policy that protects citizens rights. Among the recommendations:

• BPD should clarify that the right to record public officials is not limited to streets and sidewalks – it includes areas where individuals have a legal right to be present, including an individual’s home or business, and common areas of public and private facilities and buildings.
• [P]olicies should instruct officers that, except under limited circumstances, officers must not search or seize a camera or recording device without a warrant.
• Officers should be advised not to threaten, intimidate, or otherwise discourage an individual from recording police officer enforcement activities or intentionally block or obstruct cameras or recording devices.
• Policies should prohibit officers from destroying recording devices or cameras and deleting recordings or photographs under any circumstances.
• If a general order permits individuals to record the police unless their actions interfere with police activity, the order should define what it means for an individual to interfere with police activity and, when possible, provide specific examples.

(With regard to the issue of interference, The DOJ also notes, "an individual’s recording of police activity from a safe distance without any attendant action intended to obstruct the activity or threaten the safety of others does not amount to interference. Nor does an individual’s conduct amount to interference if he or she expresses criticism of the police or the police activity being observed.")

• [The order] must set forth with specificity the narrow circumstances in which a recording individual’s interference with police activity could subject the individual to arrest.
• [The order] should encourage officers to provide ways in which individuals can continue to exercise their First Amendment rights as officers perform their duties, rather than encourage officers to look for potential violations of the law in order to restrict the individual’s recording.
• A supervisor’s presence at the scene should be required before an officer takes any significant action involving cameras or recording devices, including a warrantless search or seizure.
• A general order should provide officers with guidance on how to lawfully seek an individual’s consent to review photographs or recordings...[and] [p]olicies should include language to ensure that consent is not coerced, implicitly or explicitly.

The case of Sharp v. Baltimore City Police Department is currently in the discovery phase. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for May 30.

Two journalists were handcuffed and detained by Chicago police outside a hospital over the weekend as they waited to speak with the family of a 6-year-old girl who was murdered

“Your First Amendment rights can be terminated if you create a scene. Your First Amendment rights have limitations.” The journalists asked how they were creating a scene, and the arresting officer responded, “Your presence is creating a scene.”

Full article with video here via Reporters Committee For Freedom of The Press

Related: Photojournalist Under Attack

Another Day, Another Photograper Arrested, and Photographer Rights Lens Cloths

Via pixiq

"As I prepare my legal battle against the Miami-Dade Police Department for falsely arresting me and for deleting my footage, I am seeking new ways to raise money for my legal defense fund.

I recently entered into a business venture with Keith Robertson, a Vancouver man who runs Zap Rag, a company that sells lens cloths and laminated cards with photo laws printed on them.

The items are designed to be used by photographers when they get harassed by cops or security guards for shooting in public."

Elsewhere: "Today, the NPPA sent another letter of protest to U.S. Parks Police Chief Teresa Chambers asking her to investigate allegations that a photographer was arrested and detained for 48 hours without being formally charged." Full post here.

Related: Your street photography rights on a lens cloth
              Freedom of the Press?

Your rights as a photographer

Know Your Rights: Photographers
Via ACLU

When in public spaces where you are lawfully present you have the right to photograph anything that is in plain view. That includes pictures of federal buildings, transportation facilities, and police. Such photography is a form of public oversight over the government and is important in a free society.

When you are on private property, the property owner may set rules about the taking of photographs. If you disobey the property owner’s rules, they can order you off their property (and have you arrested for trespassing if you do not comply).

Police officers may not generally confiscate or demand to view your photographs or video without a warrant. If you are arrested, the contents of your phone may be scrutinized by the police, although their constitutional power to do so remains unsettled. In addition, it is possible that courts may approve the seizure of a camera in some circumstances if police have a reasonable, good-faith belief that it contains evidence of a crime by someone other than the police themselves (it is unsettled whether they still need a warrant to view them).

Police may not delete your photographs or video under any circumstances.

Police officers may legitimately order citizens to cease activities that are truly interfering with legitimate law enforcement operations. Professional officers, however, realize that such operations are subject to public scrutiny, including by citizens photographing them.

Note that the right to photograph does not give you a right to break any other laws. For example, if you are trespassing to take photographs.

Full post here.

So long as we have enough people in this country willing to fight for their rights, we'll be called a democracy.

-- ACLU Founder Roger Baldwin


Related: Freedom of the Press?

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS?

Police during the Occupy Wall Street 'Day of Action.'

Adrian Kinloch

Via CapitalNew York

By Joe Pompeo

12:23 pm Feb. 1, 2012

The New York Times fired off another letter to the Police Department today on behalf of 13 New York-based news organizations about police treatment of the press over the last several months.

The first letter, sent back in November during the height of the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, resulted in a meeting with NYPD brass and "stepped up" efforts on the part of the department's public information office to train officers in working with the media.

But in today's letter, a copy of which was obtained by Capital, the news organizations, which also include the New York Post, Daily News, Associated Press, Reuters, Dow Jones, Bloomberg News, the National Press Photographers Association, several local TV affiliates and others, say problems have persisted.

"There have been other reports of police officers using a variety of tactics ranging from inappropriate orders directed at some joumalists to physical interference with others, who were covering newsworthy sites and events," the letter reads. "Indeed, as recently as this Monday it was reported ... that at another OWS demonstration, police 'officers blocked the lens of a newspaper photographer attempting to document the arrests.'"

Read the full post HERE.

Related:

Report: American Press Freedom Declines Due to Occupy Arrests

"You got that credential you’re wearing from us, and we can take it away from you.”

White House Photog Wrongfully Arrested Considering Suing After Being Banned

Continuing an alarming trend : The photographer who took the iconic portrait used in President Obama’s “Hope” poster lost his White House press credential in October after police arrested him on a charge of disorderly conduct. He is now considering a civil rights suit against the police. NY Times Lens Blog:

After an Arrest, Civil Rights Questions

"You got that credential you’re wearing from us, and we can take it away from you.”

This is not a good story to start 2012 with: "The Rules on News Coverage Are Clear, but the Police Keep Pushing". See related with new update at end of scroll.

Via The New York Times:
January 2, 2012

In late November, the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, ordered every precinct in his domain to read a statement. Officers, the commissioner said, must “respect the public’s right to know about these events and the media’s right of access to report.”

Any officer who “unreasonably interferes” with reporters or blocks photographers will be subject to disciplinary actions.

These are fine words. Of course, his words followed on the heels of a few days in mid-November when the police arrested, punched, kicked and used metal barriers to ram reporters and photographers covering the Occupy Wall Street protests.

And recent events suggest that the commissioner should speak more loudly. Ryan Devereaux, a reporter, serves as Exhibit 1A that all is not well.

On Dec. 17, Mr. Devereaux covered a demonstration at Duarte Square on Canal Street for “Democracy Now!,” a news program carried on 1,000 stations. Ragamuffin demonstrators surged and the police pushed back. A linebacker-size officer grabbed the collar of Mr. Devereaux, who wore an ID identifying him as a reporter. The cop jammed a fist into his throat, turning Mr. Devereaux into a de facto battering ram to push back protesters.

“I yelled, ‘I’m a journalist!’ and he kept shoving his fist and yelling to his men, ‘Push, boys!’ ”

Eventually, with curses and threats to arrest Mr. Devereaux, the officer relaxed his grip.

You don’t have to take his word. An Associated Press photograph shows this uniformed fellow grinding a meat-hook fist into the larynx of Mr. Devereaux, who is about 5 feet 5 inches. A video, easily found online, shows an officer blocking a photographer for The New York Times at the World Financial Center, jumping to put his face in front of the camera as demonstrators are arrested in the background.

And three nights ago, at a New Year’s Eve demonstration at Zuccotti Park, a captain began pushing Colin Moynihan, a reporter covering the protest for The Times. After the reporter asked the captain to stop, another officer threatened to yank away his police press pass. “That’s a boss; you do what a boss tells you,” the officer said, adding a little later, “You got that credential you’re wearing from us, and we can take it away from you.”

Reporting and policing can be high-adrenaline jobs. . But the decade-long trajectory in New York is toward expanded police power. Officers routinely infiltrate groups engaged in lawful dissent, spy on churches and mosques, and often toss demonstrators and reporters around with impunity.

When this is challenged, the police commissioner and the mayor often shrug it off and fight court orders. The mayor even argued that to let the press watch the police retake Zuccotti Park would be to violate the privacy of protesters. “It wouldn’t be fair,” he said.

As arguments go, this is perversely counterintuitive. But the mayor’s words reflect, as State Senator Eric Adams, the civil liberties lawyer Norman Siegel and two others wrote in a recent letter to the commissioner, a misunderstanding of long-established patrol guide procedures. The regulations are clear:

“The media will be given access as close to the activity as possible, with a clear line of sight and within hearing range of the incident.”

Precisely the opposite occurred on Nov. 15, when police officers herded reporters into a pen out of sight and sound of Zuccotti Park.

The next day, the protesters moved north and briefly occupied a lot owned by Trinity Church. As the police closed in on demonstrators, they also handcuffed and arrested Associated Press and Daily News reporters. Mayoral press representatives stoutly insisted that the police acted properly. “It is impossible to say the reporters were not breaking the law,” a spokesman wrote to me.
Let me venture into the world of the impossible then. The police patrolmen’s guide is explicit. “Members of the media,” it states, “will not be arrested for criminal trespass unless an owner expressly indicates ... that the press is not to be permitted.”

I checked with the landlord, Trinity Church. They’d made no such call. Paul J. Browne, a deputy police commissioner, agreed. That is why, he noted in an e-mail, “The reporter arrests at Duarte were voided.”

Senator Adams retired as a police captain. He loved the blue and all it implied, and acknowledges he was not above cursing the laws that restrained him.

“Who wouldn’t like unlimited power?” he said.

That is precisely why the past decade worries him so. “If the police and the mayor won’t follow their own rules, whose rules will they follow?” he says. “And very few people ask any questions.”
New York, Mr. Adams says, “is leading the way in not wanting to know where it’s going.”

E-mail: powellm@nytimes.com
Twitter: @powellnyt

Related:


NEW: Police have raided the Brooklyn studio of Globalrevolution.tv and taken some of the project's key volunteers into custody

The New York Times Sends Angry Letter to NYPD Over Blocked Photographer

 NYPD orders officers not to interfere with press

 "We are alarmed at the arrests of working news professionals..."

 Video Shows Oakland Police Shooting Photographer

Police are roughing up journalists across U. S.

Alarmingly, we are seeing more and more posts about interference with the press, including photographers. UPDATED: "The Committee to Protect Journalists have released their report for 2011 which chronicles the attacks on journalists worldwide. They report that at least 43 journalists were killed including seven dead in Pakistan making it the deadliest country to work in as a journalist. Photojournalists suffered particularly heavy losses in 2011."


Via BuffaloNews.com



By Douglas Turner

News Staff Reporter

Updated: December 19, 2011, 6:30 AM

WASHINGTON — Half-dressed celebrities can’t get enough of them when posing along the rope lines of Hollywood or Dubai. Then there is the stale but true remark about how dicey it is to get between a certain legislator and the lens of a camera.

Beyond serving our amusements, the work of press photographers and reporters is deadly serious. The crux of the matter is that press photographers and reporters are our last guarantors of freedom.

Think Danny Pearl, beheaded by al-Qaida in 2002; Don Bolles, murdered by the mob in Arizona in 1978; and Lara Logan, brutally assaulted while monitoring the behavior of a dictator’s police during Egypt’s Arab Spring.

Worldwide, 889 journalists have been killed since 1992, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Today, photographers and reporters are being manhandled again in this country by police. Not in the smoky backwoods of the Deep South, as in the 1960s, but in cradles of so-called liberalism like New York, Los Angeles, Oakland and Rochester.

These cities are among dozens where the cops are moving out Occupy Wall Street protest encampments, and the police plainly don’t want citizens to see how they’re doing it. Photographers and reporters, with chains of credentials hanging off their necks like the Lord Mayor of London, are being handcuffed, herded into pens, hustled into police wagons and sometimes into court.

The cops under New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg are operating with impunity. Consider the timeline of a Buffalo lawyer, Mickey H. Osterreicher, who is in the middle of this swirl. Osterreicher, a former newspaper and television photographer, is general counsel of the National Press Photographers Association.

Osterreicher helped arrange a meeting with Bloomberg’s police commissioner, Ray Kelly, in Manhattan just before Thanksgiving to get Kelly to restrain his troops, who were roughing up demonstrators and journalists while closing down an Occupy encampment. Among the attendees were representatives of Thomson-Reuters, Dow-Jones and the New York Times.

On Nov. 21, Kelly sent out a pious-sounding directive to all police reminding them of the journalists’ constitutional rights and directing that they be treated with respect. “The next day,” Osterreicher said, “a photographer for the New York Daily News was interfered with. And there were absurd incidents involving journalists trying to cover the Thanksgiving Day parade.”

Last week, according to AtlanticWire. com, Kelly’s cops shoved a New York Times photographer down a set of stairs, then blocked him from shooting an Occupy protest. So much for Kelly’s paperwork.

In Los Angeles, police arrested a credentialed City News Service reporter trying to cover the dismantling of an Occupy site. A video shows police taking him to the ground as he tried to show his credentials. Police later claimed he was drunk.

Among Osterreicher’s cases is his defense of a student journalist in Rochester who was arrested trying to cover an Occupy protest there. In what Osterreicher claims is a “terrific waste of public resources,” the Monroe County prosecutor refuses to drop trespassing charges against the man.
Osterreicher sees some of the police-versus-press tension as cyclical. The Occupy movement and police anxiety following 9/11, he adds, prompt more of it. There is also some public myopia involved.

“Photographers were killed in Syria and Egypt,” he said. “What is seen as heroic overseas is looked on as offensive here.”

Police harassment of demonstrators and journalists doesn’t seem to trouble the Obama administration much. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-Manhattan, wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder on Dec. 6 asking for an investigation into police mauling of Occupy demonstrators. Holder hasn’t bothered to answer Nadler, ranking Democrat on a Judiciary subcommittee.


dturner@buffnews.com

The New York Times Sends Angry Letter to NYPD Over Blocked Photographer

Via The New York Observer

You didn’t think that The Paper of Record was going to take the mistreatment of one of their photographers at Monday’s Occupy Wall Street Protest at the World Financial Center Plaza sitting down, did you? Absolutely not:

Once The New York Times confirmed that their own freelance journalist Robert Stolarik was captured on video being pushed down the steps of the atrium by a member of the NYPD and then blocked by another officer with a baton for trying to take pictures of the ensuing arrests, the editors wrote a strongly-worded email to the NYPD. Because the first time they told Ray Kelly and Michael Bloomberg that the harassment of credentialed journos would not be taken lightly, it worked out so well?

While we don’t have an exact copy of the memo, NYT‘s VP and assistant general counsel George Freeman said:

“It seemed pretty clear from the video that the Times freelance photographer was being intentionally blocked by the police officer who was kind of bobbing and weaving to keep him from taking photographs,” said Freeman, who expressed concern Tuesday that the commissioner’s “message that was sent out, while aimed with good intentions, doesn’t seem to have had much effect on the ground.”

And while the NYPD’s department head has acknowledged relieving the note, there has been no response from Commissioner Kelly or one of his representatives. Because who needs to answer to journalists anymore?

You Tube video here

NY Times: The Police, the Press and Protests: Did Everyone Get the Memo?

Related:  Columbia Journalism School letter to Mayor Bloomberg and NYPD
         
               NYPD Orders Officers Not To Interfere With Press