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Meet your government, ladies and gentlemen. Josh Fox, the Academy Award-nominated director of the fracking documentary Gasland, was arrested today on Capitol Hill for attempting to film a public hearing.
In a stunning break with First Amendment policy, House Republicans directed Capitol Hill police to detain a highly regarded documentary crew that was attempting to film a Wednesday hearing on a controversial natural gas procurement practice [...]
Josh Fox, director of the Academy Award-nominated documentary “Gasland” was taken into custody by Capitol Hill police this morning, along with his crew, after Republicans objected to their presence, according to Democratic sources present at the hearing. The meeting of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment had been taking place in room 2318 of the Rayburn building.
Approximately 16 officers entered the hearing room and handcuffed Fox amid audible discussions of “disorderly conduct” charges, according to Democratic sources present at the arrest.
In the initial Gasland documentary, there is a long sequence near the end documenting a House committee hearing. Now that Fox has critical acclaim and a wider audience, and when Republicans hold the gavel, they throw out cameras and detain filmmakers. Fox was charged with “unlawful entry” into the hearing.
Fox applied for credentialing and never received it, but Democrats on the committee attest to the fact that journalists very rarely get thrown out of hearings in Congress.
The rules requiring pre-approval for film crews are designed to prevent hearings from being disrupted by hordes of camera operators. That was not the case for this hearing. Only two cameras requested entrance to the event, which was not crowded.
Subcommittee Chairman Andy Harris (R-Md.) was unavailable for comment, but several Democrats on the committee voiced outrage with the GOP’s press blackout.
“I was chair of the Subcommittee for four years, and we frequently had people show up the day of a hearing to film,” Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.) told HuffPost. “We asked for their name, but they were told if they would not disrupt the hearing, they were free to record. A couple of times staff said, ‘You’re getting in the way, don’t stand there,’ but other than that, I do not ever recall anything like this. We certainly never turned anyone away for not providing 24 hours’ notice.”
“It’s an outrageous violation of the First Amendment,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) told HuffPost. “Here we’ve got an Academy Award-nominated filmmaker, and it’s an important subject and the subject that he did his prior film on for HBO. And they put him in handcuffs and hauled him out of there. This is stunning.”
The Republicans would not even let another crew film on Fox’ behalf at the hearing. C-SPAN did film the event, which concerned fracking.
I suppose the good news here is that Fox is making a sequel to Gasland, and seeing how autobiographical the first film was, he will probably use this arrest as part of the documentary.
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The whole conservative enterprise works best when no one knows what’s going on. Note that conservatives are scared spitless of the Fairness Doctrine and liberals are not.
Gasland v. Gasbags.
The Republicans showing their true colors. If they win the Congress and the WH in November anyone that doesn’t agree with them may will hear a knock at the door. Today it was a journalist. Tomorrow it could well be you!
O’Keefe could have done…forgot he only films his own script contrivances
Slightly off topic there was an earthquake outside of Yorkton, Saskatchewan today. What the frack?
(only slightly off topic b/c they are fracking like crazy up there.)
THEIR gov’t in action – doesn’t belong to us any more.
Hmmm. a few more notches down on the human rights record for freedom of the press.
Flee, get the hell out while you still can. This is Berlin 1935.
That’s how they do it in, “The People’s House.”
There’s video of his arrest at FluffPo. From the audio it sounds like he was given the opportunity to leave and refused. Who was filming, and were they arrested?
“This is stunning.” yep
A government Of, By, and For whom?
Not us.
“Hold still while I put these handcuffs on you. All because you started to film the names and faces of a particular crop of ethically moribund puppets in the action of selling out America. Here. In the land of the Free.”
Yeah, those effing republicans:
“We have a good track record of this on our public lands. Fracking can be done safely and in environmentally responsible manner,” a senior Obama administration official told reporters Wednesday night, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Another fail from O
from 350.org
Maybe if he promised a Nuclear plant it would be installed by now.
‘Cause everyone knows you defend good track records anonymously.
Yes, O’Keefe is permitted, encouraged and highly compensated to gin up some kind of fictional drivel that the 1% can then use to close down programs they don’t like, such as ACORN, which legally & legitimately used to (gasp shudder) help minorities, esp to register to vote.
That’s why O’Keefe gets away with his bad behavior.
But the 1% hates anyone like Fox, who essentially is a whistleblower shedding light on facts and telling the truth.
Question? Where are the uber wealthy who want America to be a Constitutional Democracy? I don’t see anyone rich standing up at all. All we have is Susan Sarandon? No offense but …shiit.
Some bold and enterprising democrat should have gone over and said, “Could I hold that camera for ya?”
OOPS! Oxymoron…..Sorry about that.
Obama is nothing more than a silver tongued bullshit artist playing the American people for rubes.
“But the 1% hates anyone like Fox,…”
Guy needs to change his name.
So if the Republicans in Congress wanted to get rid those pesky Democrats in Congress, what’s to stop them from having the police just come on in and arrest them all? Since the police appear to be perfectly happy to illegally arrest people on the thinnest of pretexts, what would stop the Republicans from that?
From WI to DC elected members of the Republican Party have repeatedly shown their disdain for both constitutions and statutes. They seem hellbent on achieving their political agenda no matter the niceties of rules or laws, so what will stop them from achieving their dream of a Permanent Republican majority?
Our electoral system is so shockingly rigged by the two parties, that it is no longer possible for the public to elect anyone outside of those parties.
I don’t think any of this will end well…
heh… my thoughts, too!
You are correct! I agree it will have to get worse to get better. Sadly.
He should change it to Firedoglake
I realize my question at 20 reads as if it is rhetorical, but it is also a literal question. When the police are no longer acting within the bounds of the law, but rather as personal security thugs for politicians/corporations, who could put a stop to it? I honestly don’t know the answer to that.
We are witnessing a complete disintegration of the rule of law in this country and I don’t know who has the power to stop it.
From lobbyist to oligarch. From pundit to politician, there will be blood.
Frog boil cliche. Gotta get us used to the new water temp before upping it. Otherwise they’d just turn up the heat to boil right away.
If history is any guide (and it usually always is) it’s people power that will put a stop to it. We seem to cycle as a species this way.
They are showing Citizen Kane at the Hearst Mansion. Someday they will show Gasland at the Koch Mansion.:)
More partisanship isn’t needed in condemning these actions. Remember that it was Carl Levin (D) who authored the NDAA with the 1031 provision at Obama’s request. Obama also lauded our wealth of natural gas that could be tapped and exploited in the SOTU address. It’s a good thing Fox didn’t do this after March 3rd, or Obama would have disappeared him. None of these “haves” in (s)elected positions is for the 99%.
Quite correct. “First they came for …..”
You needn’t remind me of the duplicity of the Democrats. The 1%ers, regardless of party, will have to atone for their sins. That’s the “bipartisanship” that is needed in today’s world.
Exactly. Bit by bit we are losing our rights and no one in elected office is doing anything about it.
That’s because those in elected office are the ones doing it. This is all being done in the interests of the 1%ers and aside from Bernie Sanders and a few others they are all 1%ers.
This might cause an uproar, in reverse, with morans demanding congress to allow FOX to film them.
First Amendment “policy?” Since when it is a “policy”? It is the law of the land!
If this travesty is allowed to stand, what happened to Josh Fox will happen to all of us.
Was everybody on that committee an oil industry lap-dog? Must have been.
Haven’t they done that already cause it sure hell feels like we’re on HIGH, even though, on the dial, it says o ?
It sure is funny that its always the republicans(the socalled protecters of of freedom)are the ones throwing the public out of public hearings,are they that afraid of the public seeing what they are doing.have yet to here of democrats with problems of people vidioing them.
Yes, it’s the Republicans showing their true colors, and the Democrats showing their false colors: It’s after all President Obama who just lied in SOTU about the need for and safety of Fracking, just like the safe & needed Nukes he’s been touring to promote, just like the safe & needed Clean Coal he made a commercial for, just like his claim that there are not Oil spills anymore.
The exact same thing could just as likely happen if the current regime is re-elected.
Like rats in the dark.