25 years ago Amy Goodman very narrowly avoided execution while covering the Indonesian occupation of East Timor.[1] Her brave reporting brought attention to one of the worst atrocities relative to population of our lifetimes, in which perhaps a quarter of the population were killed by Indonesian forces with weapons supplied by the United States. Prior to this any mention of East Timor was pretty much mocked and there was a total media blackout on the U.S. role in supporting Indonesia's brutal government.
First of all, the Fallacy of Relative Privation most definitely applies. (LMGTFY: "not as bad as" is fallacious.)
But, far more importantly, this isn't about how "hard" or "dangerous" it is for her. It's about the deep threat to a Free Press that this prosecution represents.
That's kind of an unnecessarily rude and condescending reply. The funny thing is, in your rush to showcase your command of logical fallacies you perpetrated a straw man fallacy. I merely said she is brave, worthy of our deep respect and likely to persevere in the face of adversity, not that we shouldn't be deeply concerned about this case.
How do the reporters from the larger networks know that this kind of reporting is off-limits?
Is it common sense? And, if so, does that suggest Ms. Goodman was in the wrong here?
Were they told by the pipeline developers? Wouldn't that threat/restriction in itself be worth some amount of reporting? Would that be wise for the developers to do? Might not such behavior merely further attract the interest of journalists with the legal resources to combat the charges?
A very good analysis of these very questions is Manufacturing Consent by Chomsky and Herman.[1] It is fairly scientific, supported by case studies of mainstream coverage of roughly similar atrocities committed by U.S. allies or the U.S. itself, and official U.S. enemies.
In fact it reviews the very case of East Timor. It compares the near total silence of coverage of that (Indonesia's brutal dictator was an ally) to the coverage of the Communist Khmer Rouge atrocities in Cambodia, which was extensive and impassioned.
They discuss a few simple mechanisms that help explain how this bias happens in our otherwise democratic society, which they call the Propaganda Model.[2] A key factor is that major media is funded by advertising, which imparts a kind of natural selection for viewpoints that favor the class interests of the business elite (which extends to foreign policy that favors a powerful American state). So by the time you get hired as a reporter for major media, you've already been selected. You don't have to be told to do the right thing, because you already believe what you're doing to be right.
Interesting. I knew about the journalists who broke the story about East Timor, but I didn't connect that with Amy Goodman. Was that the start of her career (or the big break, so to speak)?
While she can handle it, I wonder about other journalists, those without the fame to get nationwide attention on their plight, including articles in the Nation and on the front page of HN. How many local journalists died in East Timor, without anyone knowing their names?
Freedom is a Light for Which Many Men Have Died in Darkness
I am ashamed that this is happening in my country to both Goodman and another reporter. The corruption here is a deep and festering sore. Officials who play lackies to corporate interests are the ones who should go to jail.
The only thing that I can suggest is that we contact our congressional representatives and ask them why reporters are being arrested for doing their jobs.
From what I know, contacting your representative in the U.S. works, especially calling them. As I've heard more than one political operative explain, your representative knows most people don't vote and therefore their responses to pollsters, etc. don't have much impact. But they know anyone who bothers to call is highly motivated and may represent or influence other voters.
FYI: Your link 404s, although the error page contains links to the list of representatives, and there's a zipcode search at the top of the page.
Concerned citizens should also consider contacting their US Senators as well. I can't help but think that people needing to look up their representatives is part of the problem.
Contacting my Senators would only incite them to pass a law giving oil companies a right to prior restraint of publication. They could tell from my address that I'd never vote for them.
thyrsus didn't say they didn't vote; they said they didn't vote for their senator. Presumably the address is in a rural area (if Senator is a Democrat) / urban area (if Senator is a Republican).
In 29 years of eligibility I've missed two elections - and I'm including all primaries, city, and county elections in that tally; one of the two I missed was a local runoff election that got almost zero media coverage - I heard about it after it happened.
Senators Burr and Tillis will see a Chapel Hill address and high five each other that they're diametrically opposed.
Your congressperson in California won't be able to do anything. She is in a county correctional facility in North Dakota for violating a local law, not in federal prison.
Wouldn't allegations of journalists being arrested fall under federal jurisdiction since it could be reasonably argued that jailing reporters is a civil rights violation?
> Goodman tries the hardest of any reporter I know to be objective about the facts.
I think Democracy Now! is one of the most biased programs out there. However, it's in a unique position where that bias is effectively necessary to do the kind of reporting they do. Moreover, their position doesn't align well with the current "left-wing" and "right-wing" mainstreams. That's also valuable. In nay case, this has nothing to do with being arrested. Biased journalism is not grounds for arrest.
She is part of an established reporting outfit. She was recording and asking questions. Shed didn't lead the crowd or yell slogans. I don't see how you can call her behavior "rioting". Am I a rioter if I ask someone a question when a riot is going on?
I agree they are biased. However, there are no unbiased sources covering the stories that they do, unfortunately.
Editorialists are both journalists and opinionated; Bill O'Reilly and Paul Krugman are journalists too. Taking a side doesn't exempt her from first amendment protections.
You think it's a stretch to call her a "protester"? I think in ten years she might qualify for an even worse crime, "having thoughts."
This is from the article:
>When asked to explain the grounds for arresting a working journalist, Erickson told the Grand Forks Herald that he did not, in fact, consider Goodman a journalist. “She’s a protester, basically,” Erickson told the newspaper.
Imagine in ten years where it said: "It's a huge stretch to call her a journalist. She's a thinker, basically. She came and she formed her own views, and then shared it online. She didn't just share the corporate story, this wasn't a press conference and she's not a journalist. She formed her own thoughts, and that's what she chose to share. I hope she gets locked up and the judge throws away the key."
Luckily for us, the Internet doesn't work that way. :) It's a nice view on what happens if projects like Tor don't succeed, or if the agencies who rightfully backdoor them allow any crack of evidence of the same to leave outside of actual imminent terrorist plots and the like. It is super scary for anyone to use the word 'protester' as in the article or the way you've just used it.
Bob Dylan just won a Nobel prize, but now protesting is grounds for arrest, apparently, as quoted from the article above. (By the way, I am outraged at this phrasing, even though I consider Democracy Now to be extremely left-leaning, it is like talking to Chomsky. That doesn't make it illegal.)
The US has a long history of county officials doing things they shouldn't. This case deserves attention, but it's hardly consequential evidence that freedom of the press is under some new threat.
Your statement isn't logical and the conclusion doesn't flow from the first statement. By the same token, every country has a history of officials doing things they shouldn't. So this case doesn't deserve attention.
The bit about it deserving attention was a tersely stated opinion, not a carefully laid out logical argument. I wasn't trying to support it in the comment.
you rather misunderstand my point. The thing that really outraged me is that the parent comment (which I read before reading the article) wrote:
>It's going to be a big stretch to call her a "protester".
which is absolutely outrageous phrasing, and it happened here, on HN, not in an article comment section or youtube comments, or in some backwater county courthouse somewhere. Right here, someone says, "it's going to be a big stretch to call her a 'protestor' " as though that were any kind of crime whatsoever.
Imagine if it had said nonchallantly, "It's going to be a BIG stretch to call her guilty of thinking. I checked her writing, looking through her blog and facebook, and I didn't find any contraband thoughts. If she's a criminal guilty of thinking then she's hiding it very well. To me, she seems like an actual journalists: she sat in the press conferences, wore her badge, quoted official soundbytes, and I hope got prior restraint approval from the corporations she was covering before she decided to go live with it. If they didn't like her viewpoint they should have expressed it at that point or simply asked her not to write her opinion - I'm sure she would have complied. She doesn't strike me as a criminal or thinker at all!"
I'm not exaggerating.
That's how bad it is to have someone here on HN write
>It's going to be a big stretch to call her a "protester".
It's really, really bad. We have to push back very hard against this idea here. There is absolutely nothing wrong about being a protestor. Having protestors is in a very, very real and direct sense the exact and arguably "only" thing that separates us from North Korea. (Which I just watched a documentary on.)
By the way, this is despite the fact that reading Democracy Now is like reading Chomsky or, for that matter, Trotsky. I don't read Democracy Now, I don't consider it particularly objective, and I don't agree with their political views.
Our country is literally, not in some metaphorical sense, founded on principles of freedom that this phrasing of calling someone a "protestor" or defending that oh no, they're not a protestor, not Amy! She's a good and loyal Citizen --- goes completely counter to.
In the context of the story, "protester" means "one of the people arrested on private property for obstructing someone authorized by the property owner to work on a pipeline". It's not some dire slippery slope to talk about it being a stretch to lump a journalist in with those folks.
Well, it might be, if the commenter you replied to was being incredibly literal with the word they put in quotes to signify that they weren't being entirely literal...
I don't buy your reading, sorry. It doesn't make sense.
Sarcastically: How do I know you're not a protestor too? Are you one of them? Where is your "refuse to belong to any union petition" signature? Who did you vote for?
Protestor doesn't mean "someone who illegally obstructs or damages property'. This word doesn't mean that. It is impossible to read the quote this way,
> Erickson told the Grand Forks Herald that he did not, in fact, consider Goodman a journalist.
Because it specifically talks about her status as a journalist, rather than participation or non-participation in what you call obstruction. It doesn't tallk about whether she obstructed anything - or was guilty of any crime. It talks about whether she's a journalist.
As a matter of fact I would like you to reread it and agree with my reading. Thanks.
-
Edit to your reply: ok. we read it differently. I can agree that there's a bit of interpretation involved here.
So, I understand what the prosecution is trying to say. And what they are trying to say has merit, but not in a legal sense. Journalism without objectivity is not journalism. Presenting facts in a partial manner is not informative (which is a pillar of journalism), it's influential, which should at most be a byproduct of journalism. Does the person that purposefully leaves out relevant information from a story to influence people in the direction they want deserve the title journalist? I think not. (To be clear, I am speaking generally. I am not saying Amy Goodman falls into this category).
So, what does this have to do with Amy Goodman? Nothing. Except in the most egregious of cases, it's nigh impossible to tell whether a journalist was purposefully shaping the facts to their narrative, and to allow accusations and prosecutions over this may have such a chilling effect on what is a vital aspect of our democracy, that we should all stand against this.
So, in summary, support Amy Goodman in this, protect journalistic rights, but hold them to a high standard, as with those rights should come responsibility, as it should with all rights.
I read your comment very very carefully to see if we disagree about anything. You're saying the same thing as me, but I think others in this thread are misinterpreting.
So, here is what you and I agree on, I think: we both think that Democracy Now is pushing an extremely strong agenda and is not objective journalism.
Where you add "but not in a legal sense" -- we also agree. But the person I quoted was the prosecutor!! He can't say, you know, this woman just strikes me as being politically different, and I'd like to lock her up for it. That's not okay!
Since he's the prosecutor, he can't just mix his political opinions willy-nilly in with throwing someone in prison for their writings. That's Stalinism.
So while reading carefully, you and I on a personal level actually agree politically, where you lightly add "though not legally" this is actually a really really heavy distinction and you shouldn't be adding it lightly. You should be making a BIG deal about it. People can publish whatever even wrong or even biased crap they want with very few exceptions, and this is absolutely, 100% not one of these exceptions.
You don't need a license to be a journalist. The license to write reports is based on "has America been overthrown and there's a Stalinist dictatorship", and if you Google that the answer is nope, hasn't happeened. She might as well be a licensed journalist, and isn't held to any standards because she can write whatever she wants. It's called America.
if she committed a crime (which she didn't) it's not practicing journalism without a license or practicing biased journalism - which aren't crimes. That's the point.
------------
EDIT for your reply:
this clarifies (thanks) but I don't see why you feel "journalism" is a legally protected status. (I don't know much about this.) What protections do journalists have that I don't if I write wherever I want? What obligations do they have that they can be criminally prosecuted for? (albeit in 'egregious' cases). you seem to imply both.
> I don't see why you feel "journalism" is a legally protected status.
Because the first amendment both stipulated freedom of speech and specifically the rights of the press. It's core to how our democracy functions. Without an informed populace, there can be no democracy.
> What protections do journalists have that I don't if I write wherever I want?
That question belies an assumption (or uses it for effect) that you aren't a journalist if you write what you want. This is a controversial assumption that is getting more attention as the hurdles to publishing have been lowered with the internet. Everyone has the capability to be a journalist now, even if it's only for a moment. What you specifically get as a journalist (meaning you are partaking in journalism) is specific protection in some cases[1], and general protection from your general actions being legislated against through the first amendment.
> What obligations do they have that they can be criminally prosecuted for? (albeit in 'egregious' cases).
They cannot break the law. That said, they are protected automatically from laws that target journalism through the first amendment. In this case, a law about being part of(?) a riot has been leveled against her, but she has clear constitutional rights to protect any actions that were for the benefit of the populace by reporting on the incident. Just being present is not enough.
On the other hand, if she were found to have been suggesting that people take action at the location, rather than just reporting on what they were doing, I think that is something they could legally and constitutionally attempt to prosecute, as she was not just reporting the situation, she was causing the situation (presumably not through informing the people present of the facts). Not that I've seen any evidence to suggest this is the case, beyond the charge itself. I am not a lawyer though, so take what I say as opinion and as I understand it.
> we both think that Democracy Now is pushing an extremely strong agenda and is not objective journalism.
Well, I don't specifically think that, as I have far too little information to make that judgement. I have very little exposure to Democracy Now (like a couple minutes of one episode, then the occassional snippet repeated elsewhere over the years) . What little exposure I have had had a feel of being a bit less objective than it could be, but I specifically was not trying to make my point dependent on that, as I think it's important and should stand on its own. It should make sense without Amy Goodman or Democracy Now taken into consideration at all. Journalism needs protection, some people profess to be journalists but aren't by any stretch, it's a slippery slope to go after them since we don't have an objective way to qualify journalism, nor a legal framework that I know of to make it workable without trampling rights.
> where you lightly add "though not legally" ..
I don't think that was lightly added. That was the point of the comment. Journalists are protected because they provide a vital service, and while it can be confusing and subjective as to whether someone thinks some piece of writing qualifies, the fact that it's so subjective and yet journalism in general is so important means we should not try prosecuting people for it in any except the most egregious cases (such as where the reporter is later on record saying they were purposefully misrepresenting the situation to cause a problem). Anything else is an erosion of our rights as a people, since journalism is for our benefit.
I think you may have been looking at my comment as though I was someone agreeing or disagreeing with you specifically, and that may have colored your interpretation slightly. My intent was actually to make use of your pulpit to make what I thought was a related point, and wasn't specifically meant as a direct response to you. I mention this because I'm not entirely sure the point you are trying to convey in the last couple paragraphs, and how it relates.
The prosecutor couldn't care less what the definition of journalism is or isn't, except insofar as it applies to winning the case.
He is acting as an arm of the state government, trying to protect moneyed interests by using his prosecutorial power to punish Goodman and intimidate other reporters from getting clever ideas about covering the protests. To that end it's not even worth considering the argument he has presented; it's just a thin veneer of legality, a diversion, and not worth the paper it's printed on.
Yes, I agree. I'm also saying that even if that wasn't the case, it's almost impossible correctly identify what is journalism and what isn't from a professed journalist and freedom of the press is protected under the first amendment, so the charges are ludicrous on those grounds alone. But because of that we, as the populace, should hold journalists to a high standard and call out what we see as misconduct, since the legal system is ill suited to do so. That's not to say this is a case of that, I'm just trying to make a general point about journalism, which I was spurred to do by the charges leveled (even if they are baseless in this case).
If you want your congresscritter's attention, don't write, don't email, call. Get one of their staffers on the phone, and occupy that person's time until they squirm their way off the call, or understand your position.
Source: my cousin and his wife were US Senate staffers (and now lobbyists, go figure) for many, many years.
So, I was going to write mine as well, holy ish is it difficult to get all of your state's Senator's and Representative's email addresses without giving out your address, phone number, email, etc. Absurd.
Hacker News could be a cooler version of AARP. An easily mobilized group of individuals able to coalesce around issues important to the group. We need an app that allows me to write out a message to my representatives and, after I pay a dollar or two to handle stamps, will auto generate physical letters to each individual representative. Imagine 5 thousand of these showing up at roughly the same time all sharing the same "RE:..." line. It would be powerful. I have other ideas as well, but right now I'm going to work on getting these email addresses available.
At current prices, sending out physical letters isn't a cheap process. A dollar or two to handle stamps is only going to send out two to four letters, and that's before counting paper, envelopes, printing, and handling.
To some extent, it doesn't have to stand up, that isn't the point of the arrest and prosecution (or in a civil context, suing).
The point is making news orgs spend scarce resources on legal defense, or more precisely for them to FEAR such expenses, and thereby self-censor (so, you rarely have to demonstrate your willingness to do so in order to cause a widespread chilling effect). Not to mention that while she's arrested or in court she conveniently can't cover the confrontation.
The civil lawsuit version of this is called a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, or SLAPP.
It is quite effective, especially in states that don't have anti-SLAPP legislation (and North Dakota doesn't).
In any case, the criminal version is usually called malicious prosecution, and the bar is set rather high (you have to prove that the prosecution wasn't just unjustified by the evidence, but caused actual damages beyond the ordinary costs of the defense such as lost wages, and reputational damage doesn't count), not to mention that prosecutors (and judges) are usually specifically immune to lawsuits alleging malicious prosecution in the first place.
The media can write stories about the spurious prosecutions (to wit). It's going to be hard to gin up charges to suppress those stories. So I think the media is well positioned to deal with the problem, and I think the prospect of breaking a story is a lot more top of mind for reporters than the financial resources needed to fight potential prosecution.
> I think the prospect of breaking a story is a lot more top of mind for reporters than the financial resources needed to fight potential prosecution.
True as far as it goes, but publishers (and indirectly, editors etc.) have the opposite incentives except when the story is so sensational that if they don't cover it, some other news org will.
And believe me, reporters definitely get the message through such means as assignments, promotions, raises, etc.
A North Dakota judge today refused to authorize riot charges against award-winning journalist Amy Goodman for her reporting on an attack against Native American-led anti-pipeline protesters.
Only partially sarcasm, those that are actually after the truth and not controlled by either money or political forces are dangerous. Truth is an agenda worse than politics and money, it stands by itself.
That's quite an argument to engage in only a line. First, I say, except for logical truths every "truth" is subjective, and thus does not stand by itself but rather stands within context of the subject that holds it (i.e. bias). Second, personally I think this is so rare as to be almost always a non-issue. Everyone has an agenda, and one's argument can and should be evaluated accordingly.
I find the word "agenda" overused as a slur against anyone wanting to change the status quo. Is there a more positive wors that can be used to describe, for example, someone whose "agenda" is to find and expose government corruption?
“Why are you letting the dog go after the protesters?” Goodman could be heard shouting at a security contractor as a woman screamed in the background. “It’s covered in blood!”
While I disagree with the filing of charges in this case, it can hardly be said that she wasn't participating in the protest/riot. Impartial journalists generally don't scream at the opposition during a protest. The state believes she crossed the line from journalist to rioter, and I don't think the very specific circumstances of this particular case will have the chilling effect implied by this clearly biased article and sensational headline. If anything, the lesson to journalists is: report, don't participate - something most journalists already know.
Actually, I think a really good case could be made that asking that was specifically an act of journalism. She asked the reasoning behind their action of using the dogs. That's better than not asking and attributing an assumed reasoning. Asking a question is what journalists do. People aren't required to like those questions.
> According to Erickson, a woman who appeared at a protest carrying a microphone emblazoned with the name Democracy Now! and trailing a video crew; who can be heard in the resulting video report identifying herself to a security guard as a reporter; and who then broadcast the video on the daily news program she has hosted for 20 years is not actually a journalist. She is not a journalist, because she harbors a strong perspective, and that perspective clashes with his own.
Sooner or later regular citizens are going to apply this same logic, and realize that uniformed, badge carrying police are not actually police, but are actually terrorists.
I shudder to think what will happen when that day comes.
My analysis is as follows: everywhere around the world big corps are pushing their agenda against the environment, freedom and the people. You can see it happening in the US, in Canada, in France, in Germany, in Gabon, in Brazil, everywhere. But people realise more and more that the global ecosystem is on the brink of collapse, that no "value for shareholders" can justify literally destroying the world.
This is fucking disgusting. I've watched Amy for years on Democracy Now! look her up on Wikipedia. She has gone through some serious shit reporting in her lifetime. She deserves a Pulitzer prize IMO. The thug state brandishes its billy club on her AGAIN. Appalling.
While I agree that journalists should have protections, and think Amy Goodman should not be prosecuted, I have some issues with how this article is presented.
The scene was full of movement. Overhead, a helicopter hovered, circled, while back on the ground, protesters began to report burning eyes, and dogs—dogs lurching at protesters, dogs straining against their leashes, dogs with mouths open, mouths biting.
Is that what the protesters were reporting, that dogs were straining, dogs had their mouths open, that dogs were biting, or is this a bit or artistic license? If it's the former, it's just sloppy writing, as it's hard to parse. If it's the latter, it appears to be a blatant attempt to influence through emotion. This case is sound based on it's importance and the law, and there's no need to fictionalize an account in an informative piece, so I hope that's not what this was.
Thus far, the North Dakota authorities remain committed to their own embarrassment
It's not embarrassment if they think they should do it. They are committed to their course. Wording such as this implies they know they are wrong but are doing it anyway, as there's no reason to be embarrassed about doing what you perceive to be right.
I understand the author is a friend of Amy Goodman, and wants to help, but I prefer my journalism to at least attempt to preserve the facade of objectivity. Without that, my natural inclination is to recoil (and thus the impetus for this comment is explained). I doubt I'm the only one, and what's more, people naturally inclined to take the other side now have something to point at as an indication that this whole piece is not objective and should be discounted.
Edit: I wouldn't mind an actual reply from someone that disagreed enough to down vote. At least then I would have an idea of why what I said (or at least how it was interpreted) was in any way controversial.
> "Is that what the protesters were reporting, that dogs were straining, dogs had their mouths open, that dogs were biting, or is this a bit or artistic license?"
You don't have to take the protesters word for it, the footage is available on YouTube. I'll dig up a link for you to see it for yourself.
EDIT: This video covers the protest, you can see the part where the dogs were used against the protesters:
I'm not calling the protester's words into question, I'm asking whether he's attributing those words to the protesters, or those are his words. That's what I meant by "sloppy", as the wording makes it somewhat ambiguous when going by this article alone. IMO it's either sloppy, or overstepping the bounds of what I consider good journalism. I would prefer it be sloppy rather than the alternative, but as I say, it's hard to tell for me.
Thanks for the link. It actually provides a lot of context, and made me reexamine the passage in question.
It's clear now that it's an accurate description of the scene in the video. I think I was thrown by what appeared to me to be a shift from a factual, matter-of-fact description of the video shifting to what seemed a more artistic expression of the events when it gets to the actions of the dogs. It's clear now that the portion about the dogs is an accurate, if stylish description of what the video showed. At this point, on reading it again after watching the video, I'm unclear whether my initial response was an odd interpretation on my part, or justified given the information at the time and presentation in the article. In any case, I think it's better to error on the side of caution and giving the benefit of a doubt, so I'll assume the problem was my interpretation, and retract my objection to how it was presented (it may still have been presented sloppily, but I'm not longer qualified to assess that).
I do have some observations regarding the video though:
1) It's undoubtedly clear she was attempting to be a journalist based on the video presented.
2) I don't think it's necessarily good journalism, but it is journalism. I would have preferred if she got a statement from the other side regarding the event, or at least attempted it and mentioned whether she was unable to get someone to respond or they responded with no comment.
3) Unless there is evidence she incited people to action in some way, this looks to be a simple first amendment defense, and will be thrown out quickly. It also probably happens a lot with reporters and local governments. She's just a larger name so it gets more press. Doesn't make it any less important that those rights are upheld though.
> "Unless there is evidence she incited people to action in some way, this looks to be a simple first amendment defense, and will be thrown out quickly."
I hope you're right. Thank you for your honesty also.
Until there are consequences for the corrupt and inhumane prosecutor behavior we see today, we'll continue to see abuses much worse than this. Hold them responsible or they will enslave you. Unfortunately, America has chose slavery yet again.
While it is pretty stupid that the state of North Dakota is issuing an arrest warrant for a journalist. I take issue with the sensational headline, she is facing 30 days in jail for misdemeanor trespassing. That isn't even remotely close to facing prison time.
Journalist don't have a right to trespass and there is precedent for criminal charges. Just a quick search brought up Arizona v. Wells. Wells trespassing seems minor in comparison what Goodman allegedly did. Goodman followed protestors into the construction area after "they broke down a wire fence by stepping and jumping on it".
I'm not defending either the state of North Dakota, the Sheriff's Department, or Goodman — just stating some facts. Also IANAL.
EDIT: I'm sure a journalist can be charged with rioting too. If they can't prove trespassing, I'm not sure how they'll prove rioting. It is bullshit, but not without precedent. That's all I'm saying.
EDIT 2: This isn't a constructive discussion anymore. I'm only trying to bring up a different way of thinking about the issue, not everything is an affront on our rights. This may be a case of that, but it is at least in the interest of everyone to discuss it objectively. IDK, I'd probably just delete this comment if I could.
You have unfortunately missed the point. If she allows herself to be put in jail, even for a "paltry 30 days" as you claim, it sets a dangerous precedent and gives the government and bureaucracy the power to determine what journalism is "balanced" and what journalism is unacceptable.
This conflicts directly with our First Amendment, which grants the people freedom of the press. It is not reasonable to give up and serve 30 days in jail for a false crime you have been charged with unconstitutionally.
You seem so nonchalant about the potential jailtime, since it's "so small." Have you ever heard this poem?
"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."
It does not matter at what scale this constitutional abuse occurs. That it is happening at all should be horrifying to you; have you seen what happens to government dissidents and journalists in 'civilized' countries like Russia and China?
I don't think I'm missing the point. You can't invoke a constitutional right for otherwise breaking the law.
EDIT: I don't want to reply to everyone, but if you could invoke the first amendment in the way you all are arguing then every murderer would just need to say the murder was their performance art.
I think you are indeed missing the point. Of course you can invoke a constitutional right as grounds for breaking a law. If Constitutional rights didn't trump laws they wouldn't be good for much of anything, would they? That is literally their entire purpose: To be invoked as justification for violating unconstitutional law.
The salient question is whether this is a matter of restraint on speech or simply a matter of prosecuting her behavior independent of any related speech. There's a much longer discussion (or court case) to be had on this point.
But as to the question of whether you can invoke a constitutional right to justify breaking the law? Absolutely, no question about it. Yes.
Uh... no you can't. The first amendment does not protect you from trespassing charges. The second doesn't protect you from bringing a gun into a court room. And so on.
The first amendment absolutely can protect from a charge of trespassing, or from any other charge. We don't know if it will in this particular scenario, but speaking categorically? Yes, it can absolutely.
A recent high profile example of trespass law clashing with the first amendment would be free speech zones.
The Constitution constrains the construction and application of all laws. Every single one.
A quick search for "free speech zone court case" only found cases effectively upholding trespass law over free speech. To what court case or law are you referring?
First amendment entanglements with trespass generally occur on public land where some local authority has prohibited some sort of activity involving speech. There usually aren't first amendment issues to be raised with trespass of private property, as rights are relevant with respect to government authority.
Laws themselves aren't inherently Constitutional. It's their application vis a vis a particular scenario which must withstand scrutiny.
In this case, the question is whether a charge of "rioting" or "trespassing" or whichever charge is currently in play withstands this scrutiny. Generally, application of these laws pass Constitutional muster. On occasion, they do not.
Yes you absolutely can. That's the point of freedom of the press being part of the First Amendment. Laws that would prevent the press from fulfilling its constitutional role lose out to the first amendment.
Journalists are allowed to protect their sources, where the rest of us might be compelled in a court to testify.
It doesn't give them blanket immunity from all laws, but it does provide them certain protections. This is a clear case where the state is overreaching.
EDIT:
> EDIT: I don't want to reply to everyone, but if you could invoke the first amendment in the way you all are arguing then every murder would just need to say the murder was their performance art.
No. That is not remotely true. You're being ridiculous.
Laws aren't absolute, they have to be put into context. You can absolutely invoke a constitutional right for breaking "a" law. "The law" isn't a single entity.
Again, with your edit, you miss the point. You can invoke any amendment you want at any point in a legal defense; whether or not you win is a matter of how you justify it.
Killing a person and calling it 'performance art' is a totally different type of case than what we have here.
Constitution is above the law because it is not the law. It cannot be changed the same way that a law can; it doesn't go into the low-level things that laws generally do. In many ways it is a repository of meta-law. It defines the boundaries of laws and rights.
The charges have been changed from criminal trespass to riot, they seemingly did not have sufficient evidence to prove trespassing, this is also a misdemeanor with jail time.
>When asked to explain the grounds for arresting a working journalist, Erickson told the Grand Forks Herald that he did not, in fact, consider Goodman a journalist. “She’s a protester, basically,” Erickson told the newspaper. “Everything she reported on was from the position of justifying the protest actions.” And in The Bismarck Tribune he later added, “I think she put together a piece to influence the world on her agenda, basically. That’s fine, but it doesn’t immunize her from the laws of her state.”
This is the important point of the article, the prosecutor says they do not consider Goodman a journalist because the 20 year journalism veteran doesn't adequately represent the point of view of their client.
Another possibility is that the prosecutor didn't consider it relevant to the case whether Goodman was a journalist or not, but chose to answer the question anyway. E.g. the quote "I think she put together a piece to influence the world on her agenda, basically. That’s fine, but it doesn’t immunize her from the laws of her state" in no way implies that her actions would have been legal if she were a journalist.
It is the article that asserts that "arresting a working journalist" requires a special explanation.
According to the article they are charging her with being a rioter (while also claiming she is not a journalist), not with trespass, and this specifically because of “legal issues with proving the notice of trespassing requirements in the statute.”
So, there was an update to the article, she was charged with inciting a riot, not trespassing, quote:
It should be noted that the original charge leveled against Goodman was not riot but criminal trespass, also a misdemeanor. However, just days days before Goodman was set to appear in court, the prosecutor, Ladd Erickson, switched up the charges because, he admitted in an email to Goodman’s lawyer, Tom Dickson, there were “legal issues with proving the notice of trespassing requirements in the statute.”
Yep. And this is the take-away. We shouldn't ask that the burden-of-proof the State must meet be something like: "Did the State eventually have a good legal argument?"
We should require that the State be using its (considerable) resources to achieve the best "public good".
It is my opinion that throwing charges until they stick at a journalist (the only constitutionally protected profession) in order to bully them from doing their job when it is not in the interest of the State, is not in the best interest of the public. That is not creating a public good.
Publishing and speaking are constitutionally protected acts. The other things journalists may decide to do (e.g., trespassing to gather evidence or threatening others) are no more protected than for any other citizen.
I find this fact quite fascinating. The pipeline certainly was controversial however if it wasnt for illegal activity, it probably wouldnt have gotten nearly as much exposure. Yes, most agree with the protesters. I also imagine that most people dont want to have their meats pumped up with hormones. Does that give the citizens grounds to break into farms and destroy/steal property? To protest offshore exploitation, is tresspassing onto private cargoboats reasonable?
Id like to know if theres a form of successful activism that doesnt have to devolve into criminal activity, even if minor. From what I gather, usually companies/parties complicit in the problem activities can simply ignore protests.
It is clear the 'international community', global media and concerned citizenry have erred in rushing to judgement and condemnation whenever Amnesty and other global NGOs file a report on protests and human rights abuse.
It appears the right approach is to debate the intricacies of the law and rules of trespassing. Since there has been a systemic failure to consider these important mitigating factors in the past, previous condemnations now stand null and void and will be reconsidered in light of these evolved methods of validating human rights abuse.
Of course some apologists would consider this as mere sophistry but its important to point out no one can defend breaking 'the law'. Is Assad really violating human rights or are protesters breaking Syrian law?
While it is true NGOs like Amnesty and Reporters Without Borders have shown an unbecoming lack of zeal when it comes to covering their home countries I have been assured it's entirely due to a lack of funds and the greater importance of defending human rights in the middle east and impoverished third world countries.
She was trespassing as she covered the news. She would've been fine if she hadn't stepped over the fence line. Look I get it freedom of the press is paramount to our democracy but you don't have the right to trespass covering a story. If that was the case think of all the trouble the paparazzi could give celebrities.
Sigh. A small jurisdiction is going to try to "put her in jail" but she will not have to stay in jail if the facts are as reported. She will make a first amendment claim, it will be upheld as it has been for literally centuries, and she will be acquitted and have a great story for her backgrounder.
Now if it comes out that the Sioux nation paid her to come out, and edited her material, and signed off on what she spoke about. Then her process will have some different tones and the story might involve being convicted of a misdemeanor.
But the story about attacking the press gets people who don't care about Native Americans or the ecological risk of pumping oil through pipelines engaged which swells the rageviews a bit on the article.
I'm not quite sure about that, I dated a journalism major at USC and she told me about a seminar the law school did for journalism majors called "what to do when you are arrested."
I will grant you that it was primarily focused on being in a foreign country (lots of stuff about what the embassy can do, what the consulate can do, and what sort of agreements countries have with the US regarding journalists) but there was a section on being arrested in the US as well.
I don't disagree with that. I absolutely agree that arresting and shooting and villifying people has a chilling effect on their actions.
At the same time, while I am not a journalist I've talked to many of them.
What has been true in all of the journalists I've met has been both a passion about their mission and a recognition about the risks to themselves about that mission. There reports that over 150 journalists have been killed covering the Iraq war[1] and issues in the middle east. One could argue that dying is the ultimate threat and the most "chilling" of any effect. And yet journalists, even now, are reporting on the heroic efforts of the "White Helmets", the human cost of the sieges and bombing, and the various factions engaged mortal combat there.
Journalists, by their own volition, go to centers of conflict. They do that to understand the conflict and to tell the story behind it. They may be idealistic or they may be pragmatic, but they know the risks.
And one of the lesser risks is one that you will get arrested and put in jail. It is a "lesser" risk because "getting arrested" already pre-supposes that there is a civil system that is operating well enough to have a notion of "arrest", "trials", and "sentencing". Covering the Contras in Nicaragua you didn't get arrested you got "disappeared."[2]
It is so common that the USC School of Journalism nominally assumed that if you were a journalist covering a story in a trouble spot you would get arrested. So anyone who has studied to be a journalist should expect that they might be arrested from time to time and prepared for it. Their parent organization should have legal resources on call, and when arrested the journalist should have a checklist of things to do and not do. Which is what the USC seminar was teaching.
As a result, having one of the expected outcomes come to pass, should not be a surprise to someone who was already expecting that could happen. And while having it actually happen might cause them to re-think their career choice, it has been my experience that people willing to go out there and get the story, it is not a disincentive that someone might arrest them.
So for the journalist, getting arrested was great thing. It gives her a headline "US Authorities Jailing Journalists!" that grabs at a very closely held American value, freedom of the press. But as a very closely held value it has been litigated extensively and the only time journalists do any jail time at all is when they are held in contempt for not turning over sources. There is a ton of case law here, and if she was just there covering the story, she won't have any issues. And look here 48 hours later, on the 17th the Judge dismisses the case (and her arrest)[3] because guess what, she's protected by the first amendment.
Case dismissed! On Monday, October 17, District Judge John Grinsteiner rejected the “riot” charge that had been leveled against Amy Goodman for her coverage of a September 3rd Dakota Access Pipeline protest. Standing before the Morton County courthouse, surrounded by supporters, Goodman said: “It is a great honor to be here today. The judge’s decision to reject the State’s Attorney Ladd Erickson’s attempt to prosecute a journalist–in this case, me–is a great vindication of the First Amendment.” And she added: “[W]e encourage all of the media to come here. We certainly will continue to cover this struggle.”
I have no problem calling politician X or Y or Z an idiot but I'd never tell someone what political party they should vote for.
If you've ever volunteered at a polling station there are some people who are so, well, let's say sheltered they will actually ask the volunteers "Who am I supposed to vote for?".
I'd vote for Stein if I was confident that my vote wouldn't matter (i.e., solid red or blue state) or (gasp) if Stein had a significant chance of winning, but I'm in a swing state, so I'd rather try influencing Hillary toward my positions than deal with a Mussolini.
The reverse could be to say the activists like Amy Goodman are exploiting the 1st amendment to push their agenda. She isn't really a reporter.
The first amendment protects both freedom of the press and freedom of speech. Pushing one's agenda, even if that's what she's doing, is definitively protected and not an "exploit".
> The reverse could be to say the activists like Amy Goodman are exploiting the 1st amendment to push their agenda. She isn't really a reporter.
The whole point of the first amendment is that you can freely express yourself without censure by the government. And Amy Goodman is most certainly a well respected journalist.
She is a reporter, and has been well respected since the early 90s when she covered the East Timor genocide which was until then ignored by western media. Seriously, before you write somebody off, at least read the first paragraph of their Wikipedia page.
She is one of the very last true reporter in the US, not a blogger , sorry a "contributor" who just write for clicks about "sexism in video games" as the majority of "journalists" out there today. She literally risks her life to get to the bottom of a story.
It would be much more productive - and I think Amy would agree - if the case that gets to the Supreme Court is one that bans construction of oil pipelines through sacred (Sioux or otherwise) lands. Not the ridiculous one where she's accused of rioting.
Are journalists immune from laws? Which laws? What constitutes a journalist? These are the kinds of questions that courts sort out. Goodman isn't in jail. She now has a legal and public platform to defend her actions and position as a journalist. If you're doing journalism that is as aggressive and brave as the article suggests this is then you'd expect to get pushback. Thankfully we have laws, the First Amendment, and public courts so Amy Goodman wasn't just whisked away to serve her time in jail.
I think that attitude is willfully naive. Nobody likes having to go to court, it often costs thousands of dollars in legal fees if you don't want to take a risk. The "Send them to court and they'll be vindicated if they're right" attitude doesn't excuse using selective or vindictive law enforcement. Do you think they're going to send every single protester to court, or just the one who got millions of views?
Also without any transparency into randomness of how judges and jurors are picked, and a absurdly large number of laws, there's definitely major room for bending the law to one's will.
One example of this, though not the worst abuse, is OJ's 2008 prosecution where he got 9-33 years, and his accomplice who brought the gun got probation.
Press freedom covers what is printed. It does not cover what is required to generate what is printed. A reporter who sells heroin to gather info for a story could still rightfully be brought up on drugs charges.
I really have no idea how this all works in terms of what's allowable as a journalist, and what we merely let them get away with to avoid bad PR.
That said, it feels like the trespass charge could be successfully prosecuted (if not for the difficulties in proving that were mentioned in the article), but riot? To call a journalist a protestor merely for being there? That seems like a HUGE stretch.
I think she can handle this one.
[1] http://m.democracynow.org/stories/7169