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First Amendment upheld in Border Patrol video case (video)

by on Oct. 01, 2011, under Arizona, democracy, Free Speech, Immigration
CREDIT: loneprotestor
CAPTION: Border Patrol in the Bushes Part Dos

A few weeks ago, I posted a story about a border activist who captured the Border Patrol scouring her property and adjacent land and the eventual arrest of one man. Less that 24 hours after posting her video on You Tube (and publication of the video on the TucsonCitizen.com), the videographer began receiving notices from YouTube that they had received privacy complaints about her video.

As you can see from the blank spot in my blog post, her video was pulled from YouTube.

Unfortunately for the Border Patrol who wanted to suppress loneprotestor’s video, the American Civil Liberties Union said she had the right under the First Amendment to film their actions and publish her video on You Tube. Above is the remake of her original video.

Here is her statement about Part Dos…

BANNED FROM YOUTUBE. Was it the dogs and chickens? The plainclothes agents with the latex gloves? Or was it the young detainee with the bloody nose? First Amendment protections were designed to keep the government and its officers from abusing absolute power. This video contains a remake of a benign video that was removed from YouTube at the request of Border Patrol. The original video was intended to show that life on the U.S.-Mexican border is not the ‘war zone’ as is portrayed in the corporate media. However, the new video is now properly censored and annotated, with a left-wing liberal bias.

Hurray for the First Amendment.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 1st, 2011 at 6:00 am and is filed under Arizona, democracy, Free Speech, Immigration. Tags for this post: , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  • R

    http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/10/01/reports-hispanic-students-vanishing-from-alabama-schools-after-immigration/?intcmp=trending

    Interesting video, often say anyone who hides what they are doing is guilty of something, since if one is doing nothing but a legitimate job then one has nothing to hide from! I do believe the anti-immigrant crowd will end up like the proverbial man cutting off his own nose to spite his face, we saw it with the massive self deportations of undocumented folks who some fled home to Mexico giving the white supremacists amongst us a unnatural tingle down their “right wing legs”, some merely moved to other states, or became nomadic, but end result was businesses which formerly flourished, paid taxes, brought prosperity to Arizona shut their doors, one saw massive empty aprtment complexes desperate for renters offering all manner of incentives such as free 2/3 month rent, free fringe benefits etc. to try and fill them empty apartments which empty or filled have to pay property taxes to the city, county, state! Look how Alabama has shot themselves in the proverbial foot, the school administrators no doubt in fear of lost federal funds due to its based on student numbers terrified of being defunded, having to lay off unneeded teachers, principles and administrative folks due to also their need is based on student numbers!:-) Guess karma is a funny thing, now the white supremacists will be in glee getting them unnatural tingles down thier right wingers legs, but guess when their taxes go up to help pay all them unemployed teachers, principles, school staff/administrators their glee will turn to anger but then they stay angry 24/7 at someone anyway!:-)

    • usmctrucker

      Your willful ignorance an hypocrisy are maddening.  The purpose of the law was to bring pressure on unscrupulous employers to do things right and hire people with legal standing and presence to hold employment in the State of Alabama.  The Feds won’t prevent mass migration and illegal employment, so the states now must.  Especially with Black Unemployment in this country being around 25% in such areas.  But I guess we should just ask Vicente Fox, eh?  Blacks are just lazy and won’t work anyway, so they may as well be replaced.  Remember the Mexican comic book with the black character, Memin Pinguin?  Black Americans are not held in very high regard down there.

      The hypocrisy of this whole thing though is that Mexico has much stricter laws, why do you think the Mexican Consulate must issue a Mexican birth certificate to a child born of Mexican parents, in Arizona, to a returning family?  Because without a Mexican birth certificate, even Mexican kids are legally forbidden from enrolling in Mexican schools.  What you are advocating is one set of rules for us and another, more lax and permissive set of rules, for your protected classes.  THAT is Unconstitutional!

      • R

        Your one of them dreamers who think they can tie black unemployment to illegal immigration, with no connections!:-) I guess come 2030 when the non-white population, asian, black, hispanic and mixes of all the possible combinations put you in minority status you will be thanking your lucky stars the US constitution prohibits such folks as you from abusing a minority for some twisted ideology or theological belief of their numbers making them righteous and superior!;-) I find a bit of humor in that, am white and I am not terrified of being a minority one day, since our founding fathers drew up a document which saw what happens when “mob rule by majority happens”, mob mentality! Your intellectual feelings of superiority are a illusion in your head and don’t impress me at all!:-) The fact you waste your time reading my comments, stalking me all over this web site trying to engage me is humorous, I don’t have time for cyber trolls!;-)

  • http://www.facebook.com/pages/Three-Sonorans/144198198931412 DA Morales
  • R

    I still say watch how the trickle down economic effect of these few xenophobe’s and their terror of folks of non-white status is like the old corny saying of “cutting off ones own nose to spite ones face”, it leaves a very ugly face and harms ones own self! Arizona has already been seeing the negative economic effect, one can look around Tucson, see them former grocery stores doors shut, closed, apartments desperate for renters that don’t exist, offering every concievable incentive one can and still they are not at full capacities or even the normal 10% vacancy any land lord would normally wish for, so keep on letting the xenophobes drive the agenda and they will drive the state into the poor house!:-) Alabama is not famous for geniuses, George Wallace stood on state capital threatening to disobey federal troops, Sheriff Bull Conners beat peaceful demonstrators, turned attack dogs on them and he truly honestly believed it made him a big tough man, he was very loved by his fans much as Sheriff Arpaio is loved by his fans, majority of folks during that time believed in segregation in Alabama, did not make it right nor willl might make right in the end, the good thing about life is we live, then we die, and everyone gets to meet Jesus, now the question is will he know you or not, did you ignore the poor, hungry, naked those sick and in prison, will you spend all eternity whining, crying a place you did not expect to be or will you go to a place where no pain, no hunger, no misery, no sadness exists! I am taking no bets on Arpaio or Brewer and their ilk, my best guess is they will be joining the unrepentent “tough Alabama Sheriff Bull Conner’s” and they do say “birds of a feather tend to flock together” them goats will go to one flock and the sheep to another!:-)

  • R

    The reason they call the 3rd world the 3rd world is its primitive compared to us, folks are not risking death in the desert via heat, dehydration etc., to go to Mexico, only a few rich fat cats buy real estate down south of the border, and even then the Mexican government has tons of restrictive laws on where one can buy it and how etc., one can retire down there on the cheap, if one liked to eat them goat meat taco’s, drink that cheap beer, etc.! In America and every nation on this earth we have “Xenophobes”, some are white, brown, red, yellow and a mixture of all possibilities, the sad mental illness of xenophobia does not know one culture or the other, some of the most xenophobic folks I ever met were in Asia, they have one common denominator all suffer from a “superiority complex” see everyone else not like themselves as below them, not deserving of anything but ability to breath air, exist! Pity them since their fate is worse than anyones who exists on this old earth, since they are “blind biblical goats” their flock will go to a place where they can in death be with their own kind whom they desired in life to be with, but their eternal misery is not to be envied!:-)

  • Pamela Powers

    Well, this story about loneprostor and her video is heating up on the Living on the Border blog, after blogger Karl Hoffman inappropriately posted the private citizen’s personal information (full name, address, phone number, and e-mail address)– inviting harm to her.

    I made a comment on his free speech post– which was ironically deleted by Hoffman. Hmmm… I guess free speech has its limits. Since he deleted my comment from his post, I will put it here:

    Comment from Tucson Progressive to Living on the Border…

     Related to this story, many people on the TucsonCitizen have pointed out that the US Border Patrol agents work for us and if they were not doing anything wrong, they shouldn’t be so paranoid about loneprostor’s video, and they shouldn’t have aggressively worked on You Tube to shut it down. That is a violation of loneprotestor’s first amendment rights and an affront to the public’s right to know.

    Border Patrol agents are like cops or military. They wear uniforms around town, and people know who they are. Loneprotestor was not outing secret agents; she was filming Border Patrol agents doing their jobs– on and near her property.  

    Karl Hoffman (Living on the Border blog) acted inappropriately when he published personal information beyond loneprotestor’s name and hometown. Publishing the street address, telephone number, and now e-mail address of a private citizen is irresponsible. He is inviting harm and harassment on a single mother who lives on the border with underage children.

    Her personal information adds nothing to his story and should be removed from the TucsonCitizen.com. Would the Arizona Daily Star, the New York Times, or even the Huffington Post publish personal information (beyond name) of a private citizen? NO.

    How will Hoffman, the Citizen, or Gannet respond if something happens to Alison?  

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The Tucson Progressive

Pamela Powers Hannley writes the Tucson Progressive blog on the TucsonCitizen.com and contributes articles to the Huffington Post and Salon.com. She has had more than 30 years of experience in written, visual, and electronic communication—including freelance writing, photography, graphic design, and consulting. In addition to blogging for the Citizen, she is the Managing Editor of an international medical research journal.

Hannley has authored medical research articles, print magazine and newspaper stories, and numerous cancer prevention and self-help publications.

She has been a blogger since 2006, joined the ranks of Tucson Citizen bloggers in October 2010, and started contributing to the Huffington Post in 2011 and to Salon.com in 2012.

Hannley holds a masters’ degree in public health from The University of Arizona and a bachelors’ degree in journalism from The Ohio State University. She is a native of Amherst, Ohio but has lived in Tucson since 1981.