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FEATURE ARTICLE |
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The Worst Part of Censorship Is ------
Terry Bressi Website: Checkpoint USA Blog: Roadblock Revelations Date: Subject: Homeland Security In mid-December 2008 it came to my attention that YouTube had removed several videos from my YouTube channel
highlighting a few of my encounters at an internal suspicionless
Homeland Security checkpoint. This was done without notice or
explanation. Nor did it result in any of the formal 'warnings' or
'strikes' on an account that normally accompany such action. A review
of YouTube's posting policy showed that I was not in violation of the
site's Terms of Use but I did find a link to the following reference that shed some light on what happened: How do we implement YouTube's content policies? "...In some cases a video may be removed for the safety and privacy of the user who posted the video, due to a third-party privacy complaint,
court order or other unintended issues. In these instances, the user
will not receive a strike and the account will not be penalized." Given
that several Tucson Sector Border Patrol agents have been in an uproar
regarding these videos for over a year, I can only assume YouTube
invoked the above clause to remove the affected videos (appearing
below) due to pressure from Border Patrol agents who think they have a
right to anonymity while operating within the public sphere in their
capacity as public servants. Indeed, an Open Records request
I made last year to state entities regarding several Border Patrol
complaints against me resulted in the disclosure of the following
hand-written note from January 8, 2008: This
note was associated with additional demands from Border Patrol agents
that my website and blog be shut down for daring to criticize internal
Border Patrol enforcement operations while highlighting my personal
experiences at the hands of these agents. Given that YouTube
community ratings on the three videos removed averaged 4.5 on a scale
of 5.0, it's pretty clear YouTube's decision to remove the videos was
the result of pressure from Homeland Security agents and/or the
department itself. Before continuing, I'd like to acknowledge
the fact that ultimately YouTube is the property of a non-government
entity and as such has a right to set whatever posting policies it
chooses. I'm also appreciative of the opportunity YouTube has provided
me, and many others over the years, to tell our stories to a large
online audience. With just about 50,000 channel views and nearly 500,000 video
views in the past year, my YouTube videos of federal agents seizing individuals absent suspicion
at Homeland Security checkpoints away from the border have informed,
concerned, motivated and disgusted countless individuals. Many of whom
didn't even realize the federal government was conducting such
operations against the American people so far away from the country's international borders. With
that said however, it should concern all of us when private or
corporate entities are pressured into censoring online content by
government actors - especially when such content is perfectly legal and
protected by the First Amendment from government intrusion. While
some have claimed the videos violate the agent's right to privacy, such
criticism is absurd on its face. Public officials operating on the
public's dime in the public sphere (in this case seizing traffic along
a public highway), have no expectation of privacy in either their words
or their deeds. Indeed, it is only by shining the light of day on
abusive and aggressive enforcement activities directed against the
public absent suspicion that we can ever hope to realize redress and
ultimately change. We are constantly told by government
officials that we as individuals have no expectation of privacy while
we are in public. That if we have nothing to hide then we have nothing
to fear. This reasoning however works both ways and applies equally to
powerful government officials operating in the public sphere as it does
to the rest of us. Claiming otherwise is the height of hypocrisy. Yet
this same government that ultimately only exists through the consent of
the people, appears to abhor transparency and constantly seeks to deny
the public information regarding the conduct of its agents. Fortunately
with the advent of the internet, the monopoly big business and big
government used to have over the distribution and interpretation of
'news' has shifted ever so slightly away from the controlling hand of
self-anointed gatekeepers and towards the freedom of speech, press,
assembly and redress envisioned by the founders. After
discovering that YouTube removed several of my videos in December, I
distributed them to several other sites to compensate for the
intrusion. One of these sites, LiveLeak,
has the added feature of allowing viewers to download the media to
their local computer to further distribute as they see fit.
DHS Checkpoint Blog Entry 13: What A Riot November 5, 2008: While
Eastbound on SR86 in Southern Arizona, over 40 miles North of the
Southern border, I was stopped, seized and searched by armed Homeland
Security agents at an internal suspicionless drug checkpoint. The
agents know who I am so had no basis to seize me at what is allegedly
an immigration checkpoint. Nonetheless that didn't stop Agent C.
LeBlanc from conducting a search by running his drug sniffing
dog on and around my vehicle absent consent or probable cause. Additionally, the stopping agent at primary was carrying an FN 303 'riot control' semi-automatic projectile launcher. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_303 Since
such a weapon makes little tactical sense at the primary stop location
of an interior checkpoint along a public highway, I figure its primary
purpose must be for general intimidation and harassment. Unless of
course the Border Patrol has intelligence regarding a planned riot in
the middle of the Arizona desert miles away from the nearest community
sometime in the near future. The map referenced in the video,
along with the 100 mile Constitution-free zone, is related to an ACLU
campaign to draw attention to such DHS abuses. More details are
available here. The
K9 handler, Agent LeBlanc, was perfectly willing to violate my rights
with his drug sniffing dog during the encounter but wasn't willing to
identify himself at the checkpoint. He even went so far as to rip his
nametag off so that I wouldn't be able to read it. Fortunately, the
camera was a little faster than he was. Another video of my adventures with Agent LeBlanc is available at: DHS Checkpoint Blog Entry 12: The Sniff of Approval On
October 15, 2008 while driving Eastbound on SR86 in Southern Arizona,
four armed Homeland Security agents stopped me at an internal
suspicionless DHS checkpoint long enough for a drug sniffing K9 unit to
sniff my vehicle absent suspicion or consent. No immigration questions
were asked during this brief seizure despite the claim by the Border
Patrol that these are immigration checkpoints & U.S. Supreme Court rulings requiring the purpose of such checkpoints to be limited
in scope to brief immigration queries. The location of this
checkpoint was 40 miles North of the border along an East-West highway
never intersecting the border. It's unknown how much illegal contraband
and how many illegal border crossers entered the country to the South
while the attention of four Border Patrol agents was on domestic
traffic miles to the North. The
first time I was stopped at a Homeland Security Checkpoint was on April
14, 2005. Having been stopped and arrested at an illegal joint task
force roadblock conducted by tribal police, U.S. Customs, and the
Border Patrol several years earlier - merely for asking a few
questions, I always make sure to carry a camera with me when traveling
along this road. After the 2002 arrest, I fought the charges in court and had them dismissed 'with prejudice'. I then
sued the tribal police for malicious prosecution and civil rights
violations in federal court. That case is currently in the 9th Circuit
Court of Appeals with details available at: https://checkpointusa.org/roadblock/roadblock.html On
the day of this video, I wasn't expecting to be stopped at a checkpoint
but my camera allowed me to record the details of the stop. A complete
write-up of the 2005 incident is available at: |
