Texas City Police Detain Reporter
Galveston Daily News reporter was detained Monday for 45 minutes after he refused to show police the pictures he had taken of workers tending to an oil spill. Most of the pictures were taken from a street corner.Cpl. Tom Robison of the Texas City Police Department, who is also the city’s contact with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, said the police department’s policy is to detain anyone photographing the city’s chemical plants. Police then review photos to see if they pose any threat but do not confiscate cameras or photographs.There is no law because the pictures were taken from a public place, and we have a constitution that is supposed to provide freedom of the press, and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. Perhaps what was really going on is that the Texas City Police were working harder protect the embarrassment of the big refinery, at the expense of the rights of the photographer.
“There’s no law that says you can’t take pictures from a public roadway, but the issue becomes: Are any of the shots compromising security measures?” Robison said.
Daily News photographer Kevin M. Cox said he took all but nine of his 36 photos of the oil leak on Marathon Oil Co. property while standing near 14th Street at Eighth Avenue. The remainder he shot a couple feet within an unsecured grassy field, he said.
One might be curious how these things are handled in nearby communities:
Steve Gonzales, director of photography for the Houston Chronicle for the past three years, said his staff has never been stopped by law enforcement asking to see pictures of breaking news events, including the recent crane collapse at a Pasadena plant.But the Galveston daily news is a small local paper and can't put up the same big fight that the Houston media can. The Texas City Police know this.
Officials with Houston affiliates NBC, CBS and ABC said police haven’t asked to review video footage and they haven’t shown raw video to police before broadcast.
“We’re pretty strict about that in the newsroom,” said Rick McFarland, assistant news director for KPRC Local 2, the Houston NBC affiliate. “No one from law enforcement can see it without a subpoena, and even with a subpoena, we’ll have our First Amendment attorney fight it in court.”
To protect and to Serve? Yeah sure, as long as your a big refiner they will do all they can to protect their privacy in an embarrassing moment.
Labels: News
posted by Liberty @ 10:56 AM
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