Undercover Agents Threaten and Attempt To Intimidate Journalists At DNC

By on September 6, 2012 in News 11

Picture: Anna Bal (CC)

Aaron Cynic writes at Diatribe Media:

Police in Charlotte, North Carolina detained and threatened two journalists covering a march outside the Democratic National Convention over the weekend. Kevin Gosztola of Firedoglake and Steve Horn, a contributor to Truthout covering the DNC for WORT-FM in Madison, Wisconsin, noticed four men taking photos of a contingent of undocumented immigrants during a march called “No Papers, No Fear.” Gosztola and Horn noticed the men, who were later revealed as undercover officers, trying to blend in with demonstrators and began taking photos.

Both Horn and Gosztola were concerned the men could be shooting photos of the undocumented immigrants for targeted deportation. After following one of the men in question, the two journalists were confronted by him, who claimed he was a protester and did not like his photo taken. During the conversation, the man threatened to punch Gosztola in the teeth, then grabbed Horn and pulled him to a street corner. Uniformed police officers chased down Gosztola after he tried to leave the scene, searched him, and asked him to hand over his phone. In order to keep his belongings, Gosztola deleted the photos. Uniformed officers informed Horn that the men the two journalists had followed were undercover officers.

Read the full post at Diatribe Media.

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  • nathan willard

    Welcome to the police state, we live in three tiers of rights, the rich and elite who make the the rules fit their needs, the enforcers who are above the rules, and the people who must comply to unfair and unjust , unrecorded. and unconstitutional abuse.

  • Frosch

    land of the free, LOL

  • Frosch

    land of the free, LOL

  • http://buzzcoastin.posterous.com BuzzCoastin

    China’s out of control and it’s police tactics are intolerable.
    It continually suppresses free speech & freedom of the press.
    Oh wait, this happened in The Land of the Free?
    They musta been troublemakers askin’ for it.

  • http://www.ContraControl.com/ Zenc

    It seems like between the threat to punch teeth and the grabbing and pulling, there would have been an opportunity to deliver a legal and well deserved smack-down on the undercover and as yet unidentified cop.

    In any case, I’m thinking that it might be a good Kickstarter project (or Crowdtilt.com) to collect these photos into a database of known undercovers.  I can imagine a handy smartphone app that uploads a pic for facial recognition processing and returns a result in real-time.

    How much fun would it be to catch an undercover cop helpless in a crowd of pissed off protesters?

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1315127049 Ryan Joseph Obeso

    So, Horn and Gosztola have a problem with American’s deporting ILLEGAL immigrants to their native countries so that those countries can fit the bill for their own citizens instead of us American’s, who are already dealing with the woes & hard times of being in our own depression, from having to pay for them out of our already underpaid and overtaxed wallets?

    • VaudeVillain

      The conflation of illegal immigration with entitlement spending is one of the many things Republicans have done to create a minor talking point at the cost of ruining civil discourse. Illegal immigrants are here to work jobs nobody wants to do and be paid cash under the table. They are not here to sponge government benefits for which they are a) ineligible and b) WOULD REQUIRE THEM TO ANNOUNCE THEMSELVES TO THE GOVERNMENT… I’m not suggesting the typical undocumented immigrant is a neurosurgeon, but pretty much all of them are smart enough not to hand themselves over for arrest and deportation.

      If you’re worried about the government spending money on illegal immigrants rather than citizens, then worry about them running time consuming and costly operations to catch and deport them. In any event, please refrain from parroting opaquely foolish right-wing drivel, it is unbecoming.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1315127049 Ryan Joseph Obeso

    FYI: I fully support every American’s right to Free Speech as well as every other right in our Constitution. But I do also however support the deportation of those here ILLEGALLY in this country. 

    • chugs Rodríguez

      how about we exile American citizens who pay illegal citizens sweatshop wages to do dangerous jobs with little training and no safety gear?

      If the illegal citizens weren’t offered work then you can almost guarantee over night south americans wouldn’t bother crossing the border.

      Best of all with the broken US criminal justice system compulsory exiling would ensure an end to the corrupt dodge of plea bargaining. We could send the US Citizens to work on widening the panama canal.

      Of course if you did this there would be a significant collapse in the US economy as millions of workers effectively “fired”. All of those jobs, productivity and dirty dirty money all swept away.damn illegals. If only they stayed in abject poverty in repressive countries then everything would be better.
      . 

  • Marni

    Fuck the police.

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwYig2CP66Q&feature=related Undercover Brother

     I do like Romney’s business experience, but his Gordon Gecko-esque
    tenure at Bain Capital concerns me. I also have a problem with him
    calling himself pro-life. In fact, Romneycare provided for taxpayer
    funded abortifacients (Pharmaceuticals that cause spontaneous abortion)
    How many evangelicals and catholics know this? He also is continually
    calling himself a christian to gain votes, when most of us learned in
    Sunday school that this is not the case.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGFAph3lWqw