In June, Adm. Thad Allen told ABC, "Media will have uninhibited access anywhere we're doing operations." Oh really? Not exactly….
Local police and federal officials now work with BP to harass, impede, interrogate and even detain journalists who are covering the impact of the spill and the clean-up efforts.
Here is only one documented incident which was particularly chilling of an activist who — after being told by a local police officer to stop filming a BP facility because "BP didn't want him filming" — was then pulled over after he left by that officer so he could be interrogated by a BP security official.
BP is now dictating to entire Police Departments which now do its bidding: "One parish has 57 extra shifts per week that they are devoting entirely to, basically, BP security detail, and BP is paying the sheriff's office."
Today, an article reported that a BP refinery in Texas "spewed tens of thousands of pounds of toxic chemicals into the skies" two weeks before the company's rig in the Gulf collapsed. And the photographer taking pictures for the article was detained shortly after shooting a photograph of a Texas City sign on a public roadway. Rosenfield said he was followed by a BP employee in a truck after taking the picture and blocked by two police cars when he pulled into a gas station.
According to Rosenfield, the officers said they had a right to look at photos taken near secured areas of the refinery, even if they were shot from public property. Rosenfield said he was told he would be "taken in" if he declined to comply.
This is a clear description of a Police State. Where is the outcry from the Media?
It's been documented for months now that BP and government officials have been acting in unison to block media coverage of the area; Newsweek reported this in late May:
As BP makes its latest attempt to plug its gushing oil well, news photographers are complaining that their efforts to document the slow-motion disaster in the Gulf of Mexico are being thwarted by local and federal officials — working with BP — who are blocking access to the sites where the effects of the spill are most visible. More than a month into the disaster, a host of anecdotal evidence is emerging from reporters, photographers, and TV crews in which BP and Coast Guard officials explicitly target members of the media, restricting and denying them access to oil-covered beaches, staging areas for clean-up efforts, and even flyovers.
The very idea that government officials are acting as agents of BP (of all companies) in what clearly seem to be unconstitutional acts to intimidate and impede the media is infuriating.
Yet the Media is largely silent about it all.
Further, it reads: "A law enforcement official or agency of this state or a county, city, or town or other political subdivision of this state may not consider race, color or national origin."
He said he would not raise taxes for anyone making less than $200,000 (at times he said $250,000).
