Pending: Coverage from the NATO Protests in Chicago

May 19, 2012 by Free Concord · 7 Comments
Filed under: Copwatch, Free Concord, Free Press, International, National, News, Occupy NH, Photos, Police

After a 27 hour journey with activists from around Massachusetts and New Hampshire, early yesterday morning we arrived in the windy city. Expending almost every battery for the recording devices that I own, there is now upwards of 14 gigabytes of video, image, and audio files waiting to be processed. Throughout the day I filmed scenes from a scheduled rally in Daley plaza (where a cell phone jamming device was being used), an unpermitted march throughout downtown Chicago, and an evening assembly in Grant park. The Chicago Tribune has published photos from Friday’s festivities. Today crowds are expected to continue swelling. Here’s a juxtaposition preview of some of the coverage you’ll soon be seeing at Free Concord. The first image was a much more common sight than the second.

This post originally published at freeconcord.org.

Concord PD Restricting Arrest Information?

April 30, 2012 by Free Concord · 6 Comments
Filed under: Data, Free Concord, Free Press, New Hampshire, News, Police, Politics

From freeconcord.org:

Japanese Kempeitai officer, secret police

The Concord Monitor’s Felice Belman writes on her blog from the newspaper’s website that the Concord police have stopped including narratives of the events surrounding an arrest in releases to the press. Recently, they began only including the name and charges against an individual who has been seized by their organization. This is to have stemmed from complaints filed by an attorney on behalf of city councilor Fred Keach, who was arrested for attempting to drive while intoxicated in October 2010. Keach was unhappy with the amount of detail provided by the police in the account of the arrest as published in the Monitor.

The article also overviews that a statutory change pending in the NH legislature will specify the amount of information to be released by police following an arrest. It is hard to imagine anyone would support a more secretive local police force that didn’t work for the police or prosecutor’s office. In case you may be curious as to what a typical arrest narrative given to a defendant would look like, here’s a scan of the report I received with my discovery packet from the Chalking 8 trial.

Union Leader to Sue ICE Secret Police

April 8, 2012 by Free Concord · 1 Comment
Filed under: Data, Free Concord, Free Press, Issues, National, New Hampshire, News, Police

From FreeConcord.org:

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement are apparently now operating under a policy of not disclosing information about those that they arrest. Making their arrests and ultimate deportations essentially disappearances, ICE operations have progressively degraded the civil rights of those deemed to be undocumented immigrants. When even the nativist NH newspaper, the Union Leader, criticizes the practices of the federal paramilitary organization, it is worth taking notice.

An unsigned editorial published today wanted to clarify that it was not advocating for the rights of those arrested to not be disappeared. In obedient praise of federal immigration policy, the newspaper so subjectively reported, “We are all for getting illegal bad guys off the street.” Language focused against a targeted demographic couldn’t get more presumptuously loaded than “illegal bad guy”. But while the UL is happy to report the word of the federal government that the immigrants arrested were all dangerous criminals, they will not idly accept news of NH arrests without the most basic unit of information attached: the name of the arrested party. Read more

Censorship: Hopefully Not Contagious

April 3, 2012 by Free Concord · 1 Comment
Filed under: Free Concord, Free Press, Issues, New Hampshire

From freeconcord.org:

The issue of censorship has recently been raised in the Concord Monitor, in pieces by Felice Belman which appeared last week as well as today. In a March 27 article, the editor discussed how some individuals who had been quoted from stories in the past wished to conceal themselves from a search query, as they no longer wished to be associated with their statements. While addressing their concerns, the matter is concluded flatly that, “The Monitor isn’t in the business of rewriting history. Our online news archives are an important historical resource, for the public and for the newsroom staff.”

In a story published today titled The Letter You Won’t Read, we learn about a retracted letter to the editor. The letter included a name in the attached contact information, but was signed as anonymous. With the Monitor having a policy against publishing unsigned articles (except when someone is able to sign their article as ‘Monitor Staff’), they contacted the author, informing her that they would be willing the publish the article with an authentic name attached. On those conditions, she withdrew the letter. Read more

Army Pulls Prior Coverage of Alleged Spree Killer Soldier

March 19, 2012 by Free Concord · 6 Comments
Filed under: Free Concord, Free Press, International, National, News

: Robert Bales

A soldier accused of having gone on an unauthorized killing spree in an Afghan village was identified by the military yesterday. On the night of March 12, 2012, it is alleged that Staff Sergeant Robert Bales sneaked out of Camp Belambay in the Kandahar province and gunned down 16 civilians in their homes, nine of whom were children. The 38 year old soldier was on his fourth tour since enlisting after 9/11/2001, and is noted to have suffered at least two injuries on duty. One of the injuries resulted in a concussion, though no brain damage was detected after a military health screening. He was identified after being flown to the United States to await trial in the Fort Leavenworth detention center.

The Army had an article posted on their site which had quoted Bales after a January 2007 battle in Iraq. The detached description of combat feels as though it could have been penned by Matthew Modine’s character Private Joker from Full Metal Jacket. The article, dated February 9, 2009, vanished from servers at army.mil days ago. A cached copy provided an archived version of the story, which thanks to the power of the internet did not disappear. One of the more circulated quotes from Bales in the article is the following, “I’ve never been more proud to be a part of this unit than that day, for the simple fact that we discriminated between the bad guys and the noncombatants and then afterward we ended up helping the people that three or four hours before were trying to kill us. I think that’s the real difference between being an American as opposed to being a bad guy, someone who puts his family in harm’s way like that.”

In the interest of combating censorship, below is the full text of the Don Kramer’s original article, since removed from the army’s public information site. Read more

Obama Pressures Yemen to Keep Journalist in Prison

March 16, 2012 by Free Concord · 6 Comments
Filed under: Corruption, Free Concord, Free Press, International, Issues, Jailed Activist, National, News, Thuggery

From freeconcord.org:

Abdulelah Haider Shaye

Abdulelah Haider Shaye is a name most in the western world aren’t familiar with, and Barack Obama would like to keep it that way. Shaye is a Yemeni independent journalist who was covering the impact of military activities in Yemen. He was daring enough to interview some of the most wanted men in the world. Anwar Al-Awlaki met for an interview with Shaye which later broadcast on Al-Jazeera, prior to it becoming known that Awlaki was the first US citizen added to a CIA kill list. In the same month that the interview was aired, Shaye took the initiative to investigate a missile attack claimed by the Yemeni government to have been orchestrated by their military. It was December of 2009 when the village of Majala was targeted as the alleged site of an Al-Qaeda training camp. After the bombing, Shaye traveled to the area and took the pictures which were broadcast by news media around the globe. His report revealed remnants of tomahawk cruise missiles and cluster bombs. Neither of these weapons being in the Yemeni national arsenal, the Made in the USA stamp emblazoned on the debris revealed the true source of the attack. The pentagon refused to comment on the photos and Yemeni officials denied all involvement by the US government. Wikileaks later published a US diplomatic cable which documented Yemeni officials admitting to lying to their parliament about US military coordination. Fourteen women and twenty-one children were killed in the strike (the number of males killed is not known, and assuredly all are automatically assumed to be Al-Qaeda terrorists). The Majala bombing was the first of what would be an ongoing deadly string of aerial assaults by the US military in association with Yemeni state militants. Read more

Derrick J Assaulted by Crossing Guard

March 3, 2012 by DerrickJ · 110 Comments
Filed under: Free Press, New Hampshire, Thuggery, Video

Friday afternoon, I went out to record some scenes of the new indoctrination center for Keene’s young adults. There I found this violent woman who, unprovoked, attacks me with her sign. She wouldn’t give her name.

9-Second Version in which she attacks.
53-Second Version in which she explains.
3-Minute Version in which I forgive her.
Raw Version featuring the Keene Police rejecting the Police Hugging Squad coming soon!

Three Arrests for Trespassing at Keene Superior Court

February 28, 2012 by Free Concord · 13 Comments
Filed under: Civil Disobedience, Court, Free Concord, Free Press, Issues, Laugh at the Aggressors, New Hampshire, Video

The cheshire county superior courthouse was the scene of two arrests early yesterday. A third arrest took place down the street from the courthouse after deputies followed Derrick J to his car to arrest him for trespassing, for having gotten too close to the building. This occurred some time after a comical and inspiring foot pursuit Derrick led deputies on as he inched farther away from their approach.

Miami journalist Carlos Miller was in the area following the NH Liberty Forum. He visited Keene on Monday to survey the status of right to record issues plaguing courts in the southwest portion of the state. For a while, a camera ban had been enforced in Keene courthouses but surprisingly today, bailiffs allowed Ademo Freeman through security with a video camera. Read more

Carlos Miller Arrested At Occupy Miami Eviction

February 2, 2012 by Free Concord · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Free Concord, Free Press, National, News, Police

Photo journalism activist Carlos Miller was arrested Tuesday evening while he was attempting to cover the police’s eviction of Occupy Miami. Carlos is no stranger to arrest for photography. He has beaten two separate prior charges for photographing police. This most recent arrest sounds very similar to what occurred during the Chalking 8 incident in Manchester, in which the police criminalize a group and then arrest all those they associate with the group. In my case, though it came up at one point, I did not need to address whether I was acting as press at the time of my arrest to demonstrate that the seizure was unfounded. In this case, protesters were ordered away from an area where press were allowed to remained. Carlos was swept up after the protesters had already been cleared despite identifying himself as press when addressed and being near other reporters.

Photo: Carlos Miller

The police have deleted the footage he had taken in the moments leading up to his arrest. Another journalist is believed to have captured footage of Read more

In Defense of Amateur Journalists

January 27, 2012 by Free Concord · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Free Concord, Free Press, New Hampshire, News, Politics, Response, Video

Since it was posted the day following the New Hampshire primary, a video by a watchdog group showcasing exploits of election security has reached over 350,000 views. I remember seeing several friends sharing the video on Facebook, and although I didn’t find it stimulating enough to watch from start to finish (it needed more editing for my taste), I found it to be an interesting piece of investigative journalism bound to start some heated debate over election security.

The video is briefly prefaced with text stating, “If a person walked in to vote in the 2012 New Hampshire Primary, and said the names of multiple DEAD people…Could he receive a ballot to vote without showing any ID?” “© Project Veritas” is watermarked on the screen. If you watch for the entire ten minutes, you’ll see the same scene repeated multiple times. A man walks into a polling location wearing an inconspicuous camera on his person. He says, “Do you have a (name) on your list?” When asked to confirm the address and party registration, he says, Read more