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CounterPunch
December
6, 2002
Photograph
Cheney's Hotel; Get Arrested
The Kafkaesque Police State of the USA-Patriot Act
by KURT NIMMO
Yesterday afternoon I read a story on the 2600
site about a photographer in Denver. He made the mistake of taking
pictures in his hometown, Denver, where the usually hidden Dick
Cheney was staying at the Adams Mark Hotel. The photographer,
Mike Maginnis, was arrested for the crime of taking pictures
of Cheney's hotel and surrounding area, which was crawling with
storm troopers, otherwise known as the Denver police, Army Rangers,
rooftop snipers, and SS agents.
It's precarious these days if you're
a "street" photographer. I've had police and custom
agents grill me over my camera. One customs agent on the US-Mexico
border threatened to steal my camera if I took a picture of him.
He was so stupid he couldn't understand I was rewinding film
at the time he issued the warning. By the time he came over I
had the back of my 35mm camera open and was removing the film
canister. "Put that camera away," he barked, and I
did, quickly, because I can't afford to have my camera confiscated.
These guys are supposed to protect us from terrorists? Who will
protect us from them?
Local police here in Las Cruces, New
Mexico, have "pulled" me over for walking around with
a camera. One time two police cars surrounded me. What was I
doing? What was I taking pictures of? I told them I take pictures
of old buildings. They looked at me like I was from Mars. Most
people take pictures of their aunt Gertrude or their dog Sparky.
It's highly unusual, and apparently suspicious, to take pictures
of old buildings. I've had storeowners come out and confront
me.
Everybody is paranoid these days. Dick
Cheney wants to make sure we're paranoid for the rest of our
lives. Some people believe that's how long the so-called war
on terrorism will last. How long was Oceania at war with Eurasia
and Eastasia? If Cheney and Bush didn't have their Emmanuel Goldstein
in Osama bin Laden, they would have to create him. Or maybe they
did.
But I digress.
After the photographer Mike Maginnis
took his pictures in downtown Denver near Cheney's hotel, a cop
confronted him. He demanded Maginnis hand over not only his film,
but also his camera. When he refused, Maginnis was thrown down
on the pavement and arrested. He was taken to the police station
and locked in an interrogation room for two hours. Finally an
SS agent arrived and told Maginnis that his "suspicious
activities" made him a threat to national security, and
that he would be charged as a terrorist under the USA-Patriot
Act. The agent tried to get Maginnis to admit he was taking photos
of Cheney's hotel as part of some nefarious terrorist plot intended
to "cause terror and mayhem." The photographer refused
to admit this. The SS agent responded by calling Maginnis a "raghead
collaborator" and a "dirty pinko faggot." No doubt
it would've been great for the SS agent's career if Maginnis
had admitted he did something wrong.
Maginnis was eventually allowed to make
his phone call. Instead of calling a lawyer, he called the Denver
Post and asked for the news desk. When the desk sergeant overheard
this, he hung up the phone and put the photographer in a holding
cell. He was released after three hours -- minus explanation,
arrest report, or a receipt for his confiscated photo equipment.
He was told he probably wouldn't get his camera back. It was
evidence. When Maginnis had a lawyer call the Denver police,
they denied ever having him in custody. It simply didn't happen.
It was like a scene out of a Kafka novel.
This is the America we live in now. You
can be arrested for taking pictures, or for simply being the
wrong place at the wrong time. The police can lie, the Secret
Service can call you a faggot or make racist comments about Arabs,
accuse you of being a terrorist or a "pinko" without
any evidence, and there is nothing you can do about it. If Mike
Maginnis had been less cooperative, or had resisted arrest, he
might be in the hospital right now -- or sharing a brig with
Jose Padilla who, after all, did nothing more than engage in
a thought crime and type the wrong words in the search query
line at Google or Yahoo.
So-called "no fly" lists are
now being used at airports to trample the civil liberties of
antiwar and human rights activists, even innocuous Green Party
members. They are on a "watch list" compiled by the
CIA, FBI, INS and State Department under the Aviation and Transportation
Security Act, passed after 9/11. Federal agents have set-up "surprise"
checkpoints to supposedly ferret out all the "strands of
al-Qaida and Hezbollah and Hamas" in Michigan, according
to the FBI. In other words, anybody who looks vaguely Arab, or
has an accent, will be racially profiled, pulled over and searched,
maybe end up in the aforementioned cell with Jose Padilla or
approximately 1,500 other "disappeared" Arabs in America.
The people appointed by the rigged and
corrupt "democratic" political system to "represent"
us have passed laws allowing the same police who threw the photographer
Mike Maginnis down on the pavement for the crime of operating
a camera within a hundred yards of Cheney and the national security
state to enter your house without informing you, to look through
your underwear drawer, copy the contents of your computer --
or simply take the whole computer with them -- like a common
criminal who sneaks through a window while you're away (Section
213 of the Patriot Act). They can tap your phone or computer
without probable cause (Section 216). They have essentially shredded
the probable cause provision of the 4th Amendment. Who's to say,
if they consider you a "raghead collaborator," they
will not plant some drugs or blueprints for a dirty bomb in your
house? Can you trust cops who steal cameras and then lie about
it? Can you trust SS agents who envision al-Qaeda fifth columnists
when they look at amateur photographers? All of this nonsense
is encouraged now thanks to Bush's undebated and expeditiously
passed USA-Patriot Act.
Section 802 of the anti-constitutional
and fascist Patriot Act creates the crime of "domestic terrorism."
In essence, this section criminalizes almost all political activity
organized against the government -- with the possible exception
of writing letters to your bought and paid for "representative"
or to the editor of the corporate newspaper syndicate in your
town. Section 802 makes activities that "appear to be intended"
to "influence the policy of the government by intimidation
or coercion" or to "intimidate or coerce a civilian
population" illegal and punishable. So much for the tradition
of civil disobedience. If you participate in a sit-down strike
or block traffic -- or take pictures of public buildings -- you're
a "domestic terrorist," or maybe a "raghead collaborator"
or a "dirty pinko faggot." Seventy-three year old Methodist
pastors protesting the School of the Americas get more time in
federal prison than cops guilty of taking kickbacks from drug
dealers. Ken Lay will get less time. If he gets any.
Put Section 411 together with Section
802 of this tyrannical bill and you get a government able to
designate any activist group as a "foreign terrorist organization."
Any group or person who endorses so-called "terrorist activity,"
which under 802 may be otherwise lawful protest activity, can
be designated a terrorist organization or person. That means
Earth First! co-founder Mike Roselle, who was arrested for failing
to leave a building in Portland where Senator Mark Hatfield maintains
an office (Roselle has been arrested more than fifty times for
such things) could be designated a "domestic terrorist"
and share a cell with Yasser Esam Hamdi or the Lackawanna Six.
America is swiftly morphing into a fascist
nation and too may people are simply too complacent or frightened
-- that is if they even pay attention -- to do anything about
it. If a photographer can be abducted, have his camera stolen,
be accused of political crimes by an SS agent who acts like a
KGB interrogator, well then any of us can suffer the same. Now's
the time for more people -- hundreds of thousands, millions --
to fill the streets and tell the Bush junta they want their Constitution
back. Nothing less than millions of concerned citizens marching
on Washington demanding the Bushites return the government to
the people will suffice. I might add that the Bushites should
be run out of town lashed to poles, tarred and feathered -- as
our forefathers were inclined to do when gang-robbers attempted
to run scams on the people or betrayed their trust in the name
of profit and war.
But then, saying that, there's a good
chance I will be designated a "domestic terrorist."
Photographer Arrested for Taking Pictures
of Vice President's Hotel: http://www.2600.com/news/display/display.shtml?id=1441
Kurt Nimmo
is a photographer and multimedia developer in Las Cruces, New
Mexico. He can be reached at: nimmo@zianet.com
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