Tuesday, November 15, 2011

The Disturbing Silencing of the Press in Last Night’s #OWS Raid | FDL News Desk

The Disturbing Silencing of the Press in Last Night’s OWS Raid | FDL News Desk:

The Disturbing Silencing of the Press in Last Night’s OWS Raid

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I’ve heard legal theories that the city of New York has the right to impose restrictions on the time, place and manner of the exercise of free speech. This will obviously play out in a court of law. I don’t know how anyone can reasonably look at the laws and say that the wholesale shutdown of the press, not only from the ground but from the air, is in any way a legal exercise.

As New York City police cleared the Occupy Wall Street campsite in Zuccotti Park early Tuesday morning, many journalists were blocked from observing and interviewing protesters. Some called it a “media blackout” and said in interviews that they believed that the police efforts were a deliberate attempt to tamp down coverage of the operation [...]

At a news conference after the park was cleared Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg defended the police