Media Threatened With Arrests In Chantilly Virgina – Man Arrested For Crossing Street – Photographers Arrested For Taking Pictures

CHANTILLY, VIRGINIA – The security crackdown surrounding the Bilderberg Group confab in Chantilly, Virginia intensified today after a protester was arrested for little more than crossing the street. The incident followed the arrest of two activists yesterday for taking photographs.

The video clip shows a man in a white t-shirt appearing to cross the street in an attempt to get back onto the sidewalk. Even as he tries to walk back to the designated protest area, Fairfax cops grab the man, slap him in handcuffs and take him away.

The arrest appeared to be an intimidation tactic aimed at the hundreds of other demonstrators in attendance.

Indeed, when another protester began loudly asking what would happen if hundreds of protesters stepped onto the street, the police almost immediately left the scene.

As we reported yesterday, two protesters, one of them a veteran, were arrested last night simply for getting too close to arriving Bilderberg members’ limousines in an effort to take photographs.

The Washington Times also reported yesterday that its photographer was told by police “any attempt to get close to the building would result in arrest.”

Given the fact that the Bilderberg Group prefers their conference to be kept out of the media, arrests at the summit of power brokers are rare, but given the unprecedented security crackdown that has dominated the event this year, expect more incidents like this to occur over the next three days.

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Chicago Illinois Police Arrest Members Of Medai, Saying “Your First Amendment Rights Can Be Terminated…”

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS – Chicago police took two members of the media into custody Saturday, including an NBC Chicago photographer.

Photographer Donte Williams and WGN Reporter Dan Ponce were detained as they attempted to cover the story of a 6-year-old girl who was shot and killed. Crews were standing on a sidewalk outside Mt. Sinai Hospital, where the girl had been taken.

The hospital apparently called police, complaining of trespassers. The news crews, at the request of police officers, said they had already moved from a public sidewalk directly in front of the hospital, to a median halfway across the street.

But police disputed that, saying hospital security guards told them news crews had tried to get past them into a secure area of the hospital. Reporters say they did not go into the hospital.

“I went over to the hopsital with community activist Andrew Holmes and went up to the front door of the hospital. Family members were there and they were obviously upset,” said NBC Chicago Reporter Christian Farr. “I stared right at security guards who stared right at me and never said anything to me. I never went into the hospital.”

Ponce backed up that take of what happened.

“What upset me about last night was this was not an active crime scene,” Ponce said on WLS Radio. “This is in front of a hospital. The reporters and photographers were standing on the median sidewalk when the officer started yelling at us, telling us to get further away. We decided to take a stand.”

Police held Williams and Ponce for about 10 minutes. The officer who handcuffed them is recorded on camera warning members of the media that their First Amendment rights could be terminated.

“Your First Amendment rights can be terminated if you’re creating a scene or whatever,” the officer said.

When asked how they were creating a scene, the officer said, “Your presence is creating a scene.”

Williams and Ponce were released without any charges. The Chicago Police Department’s media relations office, known as News Affairs, later released the following statement:

“The Chicago Police Department did not charge anyone with criminal trespass in connection with yesterday’s incident, which involved the unfortunate and senseless loss of a young child. We removed two individuals from the hospital at the request of hospital security guards, who asserted that the individuals had tried to go past them into secure and private areas of the hospital. The security guards declined to press charges and the individuals were released.

Our members were attempting to protect and respect both the grieving family members of the child, and the memory of the child herself during a very stressful time for all parties involved.

As always, we will carefully review the allegations in the event further action is warranted.”

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U.S. Federal Government Spied On New York Times Reporter

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Federal investigators trying to find out who leaked information about a CIA attempt to disrupt Iran’s
nuclear program obtained a New York Times reporter’s three private
credit reports, examined his personal bank records and obtained
information about his phone calls and travel, according to a new court
filing.

The scope and intrusiveness of the government’s efforts to uncover reporter James Risen’s sources surfaced Thursday in the criminal case of Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA officer facing federal criminal charges
for allegedly disclosing classified information. Sterling is accused of
giving Risen details about what Risen describes as the CIA’s plan to
give Iran faulty nuclear blueprints, hoping to temporarily thwart the
regime’s ambitions to build an atomic bomb.

In a motion filed in federal court in Alexandria, Sterling’s defense
lawyers, Ed MacMahon Jr. and Barry Pollack, reveal that the prosecution
has turned over “various telephone records showing calls made by the
author James Risen. It has provided three credit reports—Equifax,
TransUnion and Experian—for Mr. Risen. It has produced Mr. Risen’s
credit card and bank records and certain records of his airline travel.”

The revelation alarmed First Amendment advocates, particularly in light of Justice Department
rules requiring the attorney general to sign off on subpoenas directed
to members of the media and on requests for their phone records. And
Risen told POLITICO that the disclosures, while not shocking, made him
feel “like a target of spying.”

“We’ve argued that I was a victim of harassment by the government. This
seems to bolster that,” Risen said. “Maybe I should ask them what my
credit score is.”

Sterling’s attorneys and a Justice Department spokeswoman declined POLITICO’s request for comment.

The government’s interest in Risen’s sources for his 2006 book, “State of War,” has been known since 2008.
In particular, investigators have zeroed in on a chapter which details
what Risen describes as a botched CIA effort to trip up Iran’s nuclear
program. The scheme involved using a Russian
defector to deliver the faulty blueprints to the Iranians, but the
defector blew the CIA’s plot by alerting the Iranians to the flaws —
negating the value of the program, and perhaps even advancing Iran’s
nuclear ambitions.

Risen was twice subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury to testify
about his sources, but the first grand jury dissolved before a judge
acted on Risen’s motion to quash the subpoena. Last year, U.S. District
Court Judge Leonie Brinkema sided with Risen and quashed the second
subpoena, though details of her reasoning haven’t been made public.

Soon after that decision, Sterling was indicted.

First Amendment advocates said the Justice Department’s use of business
records to find out about Risen’s sources was troubling. Those records,
they argue, could potentially expose a wide array of Risen’s sources and
confidential contacts — information that might fall beyond the initial
investigation that led to Sterling’s indictment.

“To me, in many ways, it’s worse than a direct subpoena,” said Jane
Kirtley, a University of Minnesota law professor and former director of
the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. “Third-party subpoenas
are really, really invidious…. Even if it is targeted, even if they’re
trying to just look at the relevant stuff, they’re inevitably going to
get material that exposes other things.”

Kirtley also said journalists often aren’t notified when the government
asks telecom companies, banks or other service providers for their
records.

Asked how journalists could credibly complain about such techniques when
most also refuse more direct demands for information about their
sources, Kirtley said reporters who become the focus of determined
investigators face a “Hobson’s choice.”

“It’s
the same thing as if the cops go to someone’s office with a search
warrant and say, ‘Give us the information we want and we won’t tear the
place apart,’” she said. “If you say ‘tear the place apart,’ all kinds
of confidential information that you don’t think the police should have
is going to end up in their hands.”

Lawyers tracking the case believed that both former Attorney General
Michael Mukasey, who was part of the Bush administration, and current
Attorney General Eric Holder gave the go-ahead to subpoena Risen. Under
Justice Department rules, the attorney general must approve a subpoena
for a journalist and grant permission to obtain “telephone toll records
of a member of the news media.”

It’s unclear whether the records investigators obtained about Risen’s
phone calls came from his billing records or from records of incoming
calls to Sterling or others. The Justice Department guidelines for
investigations affecting journalists don’t appear to address travel,
bank or credit card records.

Risen said the government never notified him that they were seeking his
phone records. But he said he got an inkling in 2008 that investigators
had collected some information about his calls.

“We heard from several people who had been forced to testify to the
grand jury that prosecutors had shown them phone records between me and
those people—not the content of calls but the records of calls,” he
said. “As a result of what they told us, my lawyers filed a motion with
the court as asking how the Justice Department got these phone records
and whether or not they had gotten my phone records.”

“We wanted the court to help us decide whether they had abided by the
attorney general’s guidelines,” Risen said. “We never got an answer from
the court or the government.”

The new defense filings also offer the first official confirmation that
Risen’s work was the focus of the investigation that led to the charges
against Sterling. In addition to the phone, travel and financial
records, Sterling’s defense said the prosecution handed over a copy of
the cover of Risen’s book along with receipts and shipping records
showing it was sold in Virginia.

While those familiar with the case immediately concluded that Sterling
was a source for Risen, the journalist who got classified information
from Sterling was referred to simply as “Author A” in the indictment,
and was not named. Justice Department policy generally bars naming
unindicted individuals in an indictment.

From 2004 to 2006, the New York Times fought a court battle to keep
federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald from obtaining the telephone
records of Times reporters Judith Miller and Philip Shenon. Fitzgerald
wanted the information to help find out who leaked information that
tipped off Islamic charities about federal raids on their offices.

A district judge ruled in the Times’ favor, but a federal appellate
court overturned that decision. Fitzgerald ultimately obtained the
records when the Supreme Court declined to step in; no one was ever
charged for the leak.

Sterling’s indictment suggests that Risen urged the Times to publish
details about the CIA’s attempt to stop Iran’s nuclear program, but
Times editors declined after senior U.S. government officials warned
that the disclosure could harm national security and endanger the life
of the Russian intermediary. The information later appeared in Risen’s
book.

The new details about the FBI’s investigation of Risen came in a motion
that called on the government to provide more details about what
specific information Sterling allegedly disclosed. Sterling’s lawyers
also filed a series of other motions challenging several counts of the
indictment as duplicative. Some also sought to punish Sterling for acts
he did not commit, such as Risen’s publication of the book, the defense
argued.

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