On Saturday afternoon, I was one of the many journalists who got an email from Eileen Clancy. She’s co-founder of a New York-based organization called I-Witness Video, which was in town to document police conduct during demonstrations against the Republican National Convention.

“The house where I-Witness Video is staying in St. Paul has been surrounded by police. We have locked all the doors. We have been told that if we leave we will be detained,” Clancy wrote. “The police say that they are waiting to get a search warrant. More than a dozen police are wielding firearms, including one St. Paul officer with a long gun, which someone told me is an M-16.”

The confrontation Saturday afternoon at 949-951 Iglehart Avenue made for a bizarre scene, according to my colleague, reporter Bill McAuliffe, who was there. Nine or so people sat on benches in the backyard, hands cuffed behind their backs. Reporters shouted questions to them from the neighbor’s yard. Officers were asking questions at the same time, while others were going through the house or standing guard.

After a few hours, the videographers were released. Nothing was confiscated. The St. Paul police didn’t find any of the bombs and guns they were looking for. They said nothing to the media throng about why they thought these people were a threat. As of Tuesday afternoon, the search warrant that might offer some explanation still hadn’t been filed in Ramsey County.

I had already been disturbed by the Minneapolis police’s seizure of cameras and computers last week from members of the Glass Bead Collective, a New York group also in town to document the RNC demonstrations. By Saturday, it was obvious that the aggressive effort by law enforcement to head off the promised ruckus was sweeping up plenty of people who had nothing to do with it. Among them were people who wanted to practice a Constitutionally-protected right to report what happens on public streets. On Saturday, three other people associated with I-Witness Video were stopped and questioned by police elsewhere in St. Paul.

I confess to being particularly sensitive about government intimidation and suppression of journalists. Too many of my colleagues in the “corporate media” (as we’re often labeled) foolishly believe it could never happen to them, because they consider groups like I-Witness Video something different altogether, advocates masquerading as journalists.

Are the I-Witness Video workers journalists with a bias? Yes, in the sense that they train their cameras on police during protests, with the knowledge that officers in the heat of a demonstration can overstep the law by arresting and mishandling innocent people. But it’s a bias informed by their experience.

During the Republican National Convention in 2004, demonstrations that dwarfed Monday’s march in St. Paul jammed the streets of New York City. The New York police made 1,806 arrests during the convention.

While most of those charges ended in dismissals and acquittals, 400 of the cases were dismissed on the basis of video evidence that showed those arrested had been obeying police orders, offering no resistance or merely looking on as bystanders. Stories in the New York Times and Philadelphia Inquirer, among other news outlets, credit I-Witness Video and Clancy, one of its founders, for their role in compiling those videos.

During Monday’s protests on the streets of St. Paul, three journalists with a nationally syndicated public TV and radio program called “Democracy Now!” and an Associated Press photographer were detained by police. Two of the “Democracy Now!” employees were arrested on suspicion of felony riot, while host Amy Goodman was charged with a misdemeanor.

I await an explanation as to why cameras and notebooks have suddenly become evidence of malicious intent. Until I get one, I’ll assume that practicing a First Amendment right can be considered a threat to public order for the duration of the RNC.

UPDATE: Still no search warrant filed as of Thursday. St. Paul police spokesman Tom Walsh said the agency has 10 days to file it, so the RNC and its protests will likely be gone by the time the rationale for the raid is made public. Walsh said he couldn’t discuss it because it was an open investigation.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 at 5:56 pm and is filed under Civil liberties. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.