Your Right to Photograph

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
December 2, 2009

Infowars has posted numerous stories and videos documenting police and security guards harassing photographers and videographers in public spaces. In the United States, it is entirely legal for you to photograph people, buildings, infrastructure, and even criminal activity in public, so long as you do not interfere with the police. You don’t need permission and the cops cannot legally stop you or confiscate your camera, film, or video tape.

Earlier this year, Aaron Dykes was threatened with arrest in downtown Kansas City, Missouri after filming the local branch of the private Federal Reserve building. Security guards working for the Fed approached Infowars reporters at a city park that houses the National WWI memorial and demanded that they provide their names and disclose why they were filming the building.

Dykes and the Infowars crew were legally photographing the Federal Reserve building but this did not stop over-zealous rent-a-thugs from threatening them.

Infowars posted a video of the confrontation, but YouTube removed it claiming it violates their terms of use. Apparently Google (who owns YouTube) does not want people to know Americans are denied their right to photograph in public, especially when they are photographing buildings where criminal activity is planned and carried out.

In February, an independent videographer attempted to photograph the Federal Reserve building in Washington from a public sidewalk and was told he was violating the law by a Fed cop. See the video:

Video Link Here: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a15_1234390062

In 2007, WeAreChange founder and activist Luke Rudkowski was threatened with arrest by New York police for refusing to stop filming on a public sidewalk outside the offices of Larry Silverstein. Cops dressed in street clothes accused Rudkowski of having a gun and a bomb in his backpack. “It is a serious federal and state crime to publicly state that someone has a bomb and is a terrorist when not true — like extreme example of yelling fire in a theater — and needs to be prosecuted,” Alex Jones and Aaron Dykes wrote for the Jones Report on April 27, 2007.

In Britain, under section 44 of the Terrorism Act, citizens taking photographs can be stopped, have their film or digital media confiscated or deleted, and can even be arrested and charged as terrorists.

The police state is not as advanced in the United States. For now, a photographer has the right to photograph in public, but that may change.

Below is a link to an information sheet that details your rights as a photographer. It is based on the Bust Card and the Know Your Rights pamphlet that used to be available on the ACLU website. According to Bert P. Krages II, who distributed the sheet, you may distribute the guide to others, provided that such distribution is not done for commercial gain and credit is given to the author.

“The right to take photographs in the United States is being challenged more than ever,” writes Krages. “People are being stopped, harassed, and even intimidated into handing over their personal property simply because they were taking photographs of subjects that made other people uncomfortable. Recent examples have included photographing industrial plants, bridges, buildings, trains, and bus stations. For the most part, attempts to restrict photography are based on misguided fears about the supposed dangers that unrestricted photography presents to society.”

Ironically, unrestricted photography by private citizens has played an integral role in protecting the freedom, security, and well-being of all Americans. Photography in the United States has an established history of contributing to improvements in civil rights, curbing abusive child labor practices, and providing important information to crime investigators. Photography has not contributed to a decline in public safety or economic vitality in the United States. When people think back on the acts of domestic terrorism that have occurred over the last twenty years, none have depended on or even involved photography. Restrictions on photography would not have prevented any of these acts. Furthermore, the increase in people carrying small digital and cell phone cameras has resulted in the prevention of crimes and the apprehension of criminals.

As the flyer states, there are not very many legal restrictions on what can be photographed when in public view. Most attempts at restricting photography are done by lower-level security and law enforcement officials acting way beyond their authority. Note that neither the Patriot Act nor the Homeland Security Act have any provisions that restrict photography. Similarly, some businesses have a history of abusing the rights of photographers under the guise of protecting their trade secrets. These claims are almost always meritless because entities are required to keep trade secrets from public view if they want to protect them.

The Photographer’s Right. Click image to download as PDF.

URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/your-right-to-photograph/

Henrico Medal of Honor winner, 90, ordered to remove flagpole

Richmond Times-Dispatch
December 2, 2009

Col. Van T. Barfoot, a local Medal of Honor winner, is under the gun from his Henrico County community’s homeowner association.

In a five-paragraph letter to Barfoot that he received yesterday, Barfoot is being ordered to remove a flagpole from his yard. The decorated veteran of three wars, now 90 years old, raises the American flag every morning on the pole, then lowers and folds the flag at dusk each day in a three-corner military fashion.

In a priority mail letter, the Coates & Davenport law firm in Richmond is ordering Barfoot to remove the pole by 5 p.m. Friday or face “legal action being brought to enforce the Covenants and Restrictions against you.” The letter states that Barfoot will be subject to paying all legal fees and costs in any successful legal proceeding pursued by the homeowner association’s board.

Read entire article

URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/henrico-medal-of-honor-winner-90-ordered-to-remove-flagpole/

Minnesota County Conducts “Operation Big Shot” Mass Vaccination Drill

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
September 29, 2009

In preparation for the distinct possibility of a mandatory vaccination of the American public, a county in Minnesota will hold a mass vaccination drill today dubbed “Operation Big Shot.” County officials expect “300 volunteers to conduct the drill alongside about 200 health department staff members. They emphasized that staffers will not dispense actual vaccinations,” according to The Star Tribune.

“Operation Big Shot is one of several training exercises health officials in Ramsey County conduct each year and was scheduled prior to the emergence of the H1N1 flu pandemic,” the newspaper adds.

A number of sources have indicated the government may require mandatory vaccinations this autumn. “Nearly $8 billion will be spent to address a ‘potential pandemic flu’ which could result in mandatory vaccinations for no discernible reason other than to enrich the pharmaceutical companies that make the vaccine,” Ron Paul wrote on June 24, 2009.

According to the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, 42 states have mandatory vaccine policies. “Rampant conflicts of interest in the approval process has been the subject of several Congressional hearings, and a recent Congressional report concluded that the pharmaceutical industry has indeed exerted undue influence on mandatory vaccine legislation toward its own financial interests,” the AAPS notes.

The UN’s WHO supports mandatory vaccinations. On July 13, a World Health Organization (WHO) Global Alert suggested universally mandated vaccines are coming.

“During a pandemic, it may be necessary to overrule existing legislation or (individual) human rights,” states a 2005 WHO document. “Examples are the enforcement of quarantine (overruling individual freedom of movement), use of privately owned buildings for hospitals, off-license use of drugs, compulsory vaccination or implementation of emergency shifts in essential services. These decisions need a legal framework to ensure transparent assessment and justification of the measures that are being considered, and to ensure coherence with international legislation (International Health Regulations).” (Emphasis added.)

WHO “recommendations” are binding on all 194 member countries in case a pandemic emergency is declared under the 2005 International Health Regulations Act and April 2009 WHO pandemic plan.

In August, the WHO recommended a mandatory global vaccination. “The global pandemic vaccination program will begin somewhere around the end of September and last about two months. Many countries are in the process of acquiring from Baxter, Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline and other pharmaceutical companies enough doses of vaccine to vaccinate their entire population twice. They remain quiet about mandatory vaccination, simply saying they will make vaccination ‘available’ to all on a priority basis,” the Columbia Valley News reported.

“We hope that the whole world will have some access to the vaccine,” Marie-Paule Kieny, director of WHO’s Initiative for Vaccine Research, told the Washington Post today. “In some countries it will be possible to vaccinate the whole population and in some countries only 10 percent.”

In the United States, any mandatory vaccination program will likely be the responsibility of the states. “Historically, the preservation of the public health has been the responsibility of state and local governments, and the authority to enact laws relevant to the protection of the public health derives from the state’s general police powers,” explains a CRS Report for Congress. “With respect to the preservation of the public health in cases of communicable disease outbreaks, these powers may include the institution of quarantine or the enactment of mandatory vaccination laws.”

Massachusetts recently passed the “Pandemic Response Bill.” It suspends virtually all Constitutional rights of Massachusetts citizens and forces anyone “suspected” of being infected to submit to interrogations, “decontaminations” and vaccines, according to Mike Adams. “It’s also sets fines up to $1,000 per day for anyone who refuses to submit to quarantines, vaccinations, decontamination efforts or to follow any other verbal order by virtually any state-licensed law enforcement or medical personnel.”

Infowars and Prison Planet have documented numerous instances of the states preparing for mass vaccinations.

Judge Andrew on the Massachusetts martial law bill and the Constitution.

In the last few weeks, states and municipalities around the country have mandated seasonal flu vaccinations for health care workers. In response, health care workers in New York are taking to the street in opposition. “Under what circumstances can government officials order mandatory vaccination? And could the general public be ordered to roll up their sleeves for injections, even if there might be side effects beyond a sore arm or mild fever? The concern in New York also comes as skepticism of vaccination in general seems to be on the rise,” Declan McCullagh writes for CBS News today.

The drill in Minnesota is yet another indication the government is ramping up to vaccinate the entire population, either through a massive propaganda campaign and scare tactics now well underway through the corporate media, or through legal mandate backed up by the cops and the military.

“Get ready because that’s precisely what’s coming — universal orders to risk toxic vaccine hazards. In the coming weeks, the dominant media globally will get into high gear fear-mongering mode to convince people voluntarily to submit to jeopardizing their health and well-being. It’s essential to refuse and be safe and international law absolutely allows it,” warns Stephen Lendman.

URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/minnesota-county-conducts-operation-big-shot-mass-vaccination-drill/

Military and Riot Thugs Detain, Dehumanize and TORTURE American Citizens

Jason Bermas
Prison Planet.com
Sunday, September 27, 2009

In what was possibly the most surreal, horrific, and unimaginable thing I have ever witnessed in my life, 1200 Riot Police and Military Personal rabidly attacked a group of well under 300 American citizens, many of them just students that were unaware there was even a protest going on.  They then expanded their perimeter and shut large areas of Oakland down.  This is how my last experience at the G20 in Pittsburgh went down, out of control authorities mercilessly attacking an unarmed crowd with batons, tear gas, pepper spray, sound weapons, and rubber bullets.  Around 10pm on Friday night, long after the vast majority of dignitaries and protesters had left, it became evident that the outrageous show of force by the Military and Police was not enough to stave off their thirst for blood.

When I first arrived on the scene Luke Rudowski of We Are Change and a small group of protesters were peaceably assembling among a much larger number of college students just out for another weekend of fun in Schenley Plaza.  Around ten minutes later Rob Dew arrived and we began filming the entire scene, it was evident that the number of police already in the area and the amount who were massing and surrounding the perimeter was extremely alarming.

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As Luke bull horned that the people in this park meant the police no physical harm, and that they were simply exercising their right to free speech, a couple of masked individuals began to scream “He doesn’t speak for us”.  These few provocateurs and well meaning idiots could have been easily dealt with by a handful of regular police officers dressed in their standard uniform, however that solution does not offer the pretext for over a thousand heavily armed psychotics to encircle and engage the American people.

I began to become extremely frightened as to what the outcome of the situation was going to be as I began to witness LRAD weapons showing up, dogs beginning to circle the perimeter, and then everyone putting on their gas masks.  During all of this I was threatened with arrest three times and physically charged and chased by one of the officers.  At that point I realized they were about to attack, and they did.  Hundreds of armed to the teeth trained professionals began their march towards innocent young men and women, and then took it much further by launching tear gas canisters, battening people trying to leave, and firing rubber bullets randomly into the crowd.  Luckily I was able to slip through the cracks of a blockade of only 6 or so riot thugs as they tried to amass more in that area and form another brutal line.

I personally witnessed a young man on a bike being beaten for no reason whatsoever and as he fled the officers then beat his bike.  When the young man tried to retrieve his bike his knuckle was broken.  Another man was gassed so badly he had to be taken to the hospital.  This is how “Peace Officers” treat us?

During the very quick first burst of the madness I lost touch with Infowars Producer and Cameraman Rob Dew, I immediately thought he had been arrested, and I was correct.  He was illegally detained and digitally fingerprinted in a separate process for “protesters”.  Rob was cuffed all evening in a room full of other detainees, and was not released until 10:20 am the next morning with no charges being brought against him.  Military and Police mocked them as Americans were being detained and processed often laughing at college students that had been beaten for no other reason for being in the wrong place around their campus that evening.

Luke Rudowski received multiple battens to his back and legs as the jackals descended on him with force, even though he had made it clear to all of them he wished them no violence.  For his peaceful efforts Luke and Lee from We Are Change were separated from the rest of the more than one hundred detainees and sent to State Prison.  Luke was strip searched, mocked, and charged with Disorderly Conduct and Unlawful Assembly, and will have to go back to Pittsburgh Wednesday to face charges.  The Military and Police laughed as they took note of the “Superstar” that had been all over the news on channel 11 and even National NBC, taking a sick pleasure in the torture of another human being.

Welcome to the New Amerika.

URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/military-and-riot-thugs-detain-dehumanize-and-torture-american-citizens/

Video From G20 the Corporate Media Will Never Show You

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
September 25, 2009

In the videos here, we get an idea of what the federalized and militarized police in Pittsburgh really think of the First Amendment. The victims shown below are not government provocateurs or anarchists, but middle class students.

URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/video-from-g20-the-corporate-media-will-never-show-you/

Military Attacks American Citizens With Sound Weapons & Tear Gas At G20

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, September 24, 2009

REUTERS UPDATE: Secret Service confirms that police are shooting #g20 protesters with “bean bags.” But check out what they look like. Via Keepshooting.com:

A 12 gauge round that direct fires a 26 gram or 40 gram bean bag projectile. Designed for single target engagement allowing escalation of force from a close distance prior to use of lethal means. It’s $9.95 per round.

A Effect on target: Incapacitation caused by loss of breath, psychological effect, and/or pain and extreme discomfort.

B. Time to Effect: Instantaneous

C. Duration of Effect: Seconds to Minutes based on power factor, distance and location of strike.

D. Effective Range: 7 yards (heavily clothed subject) to 20 yards

G20 Pittsburgh LIVE Coverage: http://reuters.scribblelive.com/Event/G20_Pittsburgh

LIVE: G-20 Protesters In Pittsburgh Streets:

http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/video/21105097/index.html

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National Guard, police, and other military units attacked American citizens with tear gas and deployed sound cannons today in response to an “unpermitted protest” as bedlam hit the streets on the first day of the G20 summit in downtown Pittsburgh.

The First Amendment is officially dead in the United States. If this isn’t martial law then we don’t know what is. Associated Press photographs show National Guard troops in full fatigues with active duty military running checkpoints that make the roadblocks in Iraq positively friendly. Like Iraq, America is now a conquered nation occupied by troops whose primary function is to oppress anyone who tries to express the freedoms that they once enjoyed.

It all unfolded live on The Alex Jones Show as the Infowars crew called in to the program as sound cannons were turned against protesters who police were attempting to force out of the immediate area.

“According to news agency reports, officers made their announcement over a loudspeaker telling people to leave or face arrest or “other police action,” reports the London Times. These words were broadcast live on the Alex Jones Show today along with police orders that the “unlawful assemblies should immediately disperse”.

“Protesters at one flashpoint reported the use of tear gas to disperse the crowds,” reports the Press Association.

Citing Pittsburgh criminal code, police bellowed through loudspeakers that unpermitted protests were a serious offense, an official death knell for the First Amendment.

Corporate media reports will obsess about anarchists causing nuisance without mentioning the fact that the You Tube video below clearly shows police terrorizing neighborhoods with ear-splitting sound weapons that are clearly a violation of all kinds of town ordinances related to public health and noise pollution.

Infowars correspondents reported live how police were “kettling” protesters into confined areas in an attempt to subdue them. Jason Bermas reported seeing mask wearing anarchists, who have been caught before on numerous occasions provoking violence as a pretext for the police to crackdown, throwing objects and tipping over garbage cans.

As we have previously reported, 2,500 National Guardsmen along with Marines and the Air Force are stationed in Pittsburgh to provide “security” for the G20 summit. Their primary training routine revolved around “crowd control” and dealing with civil unrest. The sight of troops on the streets of America, even for routine traffic control and “security” is now commonplace as the land of the free sinks into a militarized police state.

Watch this space for more coverage from Pittsburgh over the next few days. Images and videos appear below.

LRADS being used against protesters caught live on The Alex Jones Show.

Numerous videos of G20 protests and police actions can be viewed on You Tube as they roll in here.

URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/military-attacks-american-citizens-with-sound-weapons-tear-gas-at-g20/

Barack As Christ: Obama Worship Song Adapted From “Jesus Loves The Little Children”

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, September 24, 2009

A shocking caveat to the Obama worship video now doing the rounds on the TV news talk shows, first reported by Prison Planet nearly a month ago, is the fact that the lyrics to the song that children of a New Jersey school are forced to sing are clearly adapted from a religious hymn called “Jesus Loves The Little Children,” which is one of the first songs that small children learn in church.

The idea of kids being forced to worship Obama in schools across America is no longer just a chilling example of Maoist style political brainwashing – children are literally being trained to religiously worship Obama via adapted versions of Christian hymns!

Jesus Loves The Little Children Lyrics

“Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red, yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight…”

Obama Worship Song Lyrics

“Barack Hussein Obama. He said Red, yellow, black or white all are equal in his sight…”

As one of our readers comments, “For me it sounded VERY familiar in tune…Sick how they are twisting the words. Soon there will be the Ten Commandments of Obama up in schools, and something new on our currency dealing with Trust. Total waste of Tax payer dollars. No wonder the kids don’t know who the first president of the US is. This is child abuse.”

In another video we showcased how the 21st century Obama Youth movement now being practiced in American schools has chilling parallels to the Hitler Youth of Nazi Germany.

For numerous other video examples of kids singing songs of praise to Obama in school, visit our previous articles.

URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/barack-as-christ-obama-worship-song-adapted-from-jesus-loves-the-little-children/

“You Have to Learn Lessons from History”

Cindy Sheehan
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox
September 16, 2009

I was just watching a report on CNN and after the commentator said that support for Afghanistan is rapidly dwindling (58 percent now think it’s not worth fighting), an interview with Obama was shown.

The interviewer asked the president if he was afraid that because war-weary America is growing impatient with the wars, that failing to withdraw and, in fact, sending more troops would look like what Johnson did in Vietnam, and therefore make Obama a “One term president.”

Well, I have been saying that whoever won in 2008 would not do the right thing and would send the USA even farther down the path to ruin (because every president has to follow orders from his masters, the corporations) and be a one term president.

But, Obama incredibly answered the interviewer with: “You have to learn lessons from history.” Somehow, Obama believes, he’s going to stain his hands darker with blood, but he’s not going to pay any political consequences.

That Obama is talking about “history” in relation to trying to subdue Afghanistan is fraught with irony. First of all, the Afghanistan that was invaded in 2001 has very little resemblance to the Afghanistan of today. Many analysts say that our rationale for being there: al Qaeda has long ago moved on. What about the history that Jimmy Carter’s administration was responsible for arming, training and otherwise supporting (and creating) al Qaeda in the first place and that Jimmy Carter signed an order supporting the Mujahadeen against the USSR in 1979 which spurred the Soviet Union’s invasion that resulted in a decade long bloody war that defeated the USSR’s military empire.

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Let’s go back to Genghis Kahn and Alexander the Great and Great Britain…no empire has ever been “successful” in Afghanistan and it really makes me wonder what “history” Barack Obama is learning from. Not the “history” where Afghanistan has been the burial place for empire, that’s for sure.

Obviously, obviously our “leaders” are out of control and there is no mass movement of Americans who will be able to get out in the streets to stop the homicidal maniacs.

We need to stop allowing ourselves to be used as weapons of mass destruction against each other and that is by refusing to join the Army of the Empire or by refusing to be deployed to the messes in the Middle East

All of this excess of the War Machine is getting fundamentally ridiculous. The cannon fodder of the US military should refuse to be used as these pawns for idiotic and ignorant Commanders in Chief. Why die or kill innocent Afghans for the arrogance of Emperors?

Bloody hands are bloody hands. Our president, love him or hate him, is a reflection of us, so as long as we quietly sit by and allow him to murder in our names, our hands get bloodier, too!

I will be one that stands up and is counted against Obama and his policies as adamantly as I was against Bush and his—because they are the same and they are wrong.

URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/you-have-to-learn-lessons-from-history/

Medical Staffing Company Prepares for National H1N1 Vaccinations

Infowars
September 9, 2009

An Infowars reader received the following postcard. More evidence there will be a concerted and widespread effort to vaccinate — that is, eugenicize — the American people with squalene, cancer viruses, mercury, and various heavy metals and toxins.

URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/medical-staffing-company-prepares-for-national-h1n1-vaccinations/

Media & Blogosphere React To Sheen’s Request For Meeting With Obama

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, September 9, 2009

The media and the blogosphere have begun to react to actor Charlie Sheen’s call for a meeting with President Obama to discuss the 9/11 cover-up, with even some of Sheen’s detractors praising the style of his “20 Minutes WIth The President” letter.

With big corporate media networks expected to wade in on the controversy today or tomorrow, as happened when Sheen first went public with his 9/11 questions in March 2006, the first responses have originated from online only news websites and blogs.

One of the first to react was Kim LaCapria of the Inquisitr blog, who lauded Sheen’s style of “fanfic” writing in the form of his mock meeting with the President.

“Charlie Sheen has taken questioning the official account of September 11th to a whole new level,” writes LaCapria, adding, “He’s written a fanfic about it. He doesn’t call it fanfic, but any of us who used to be addicted to Harry Potter fanfic know what fanfic is – we recognize it when we see it.”

“As a native New Yorker who thinks the 9/11 Commission Report was an insult and that the previous administration is at least guilty of criminal negligence, I don’t begrudge Sheen his fervor on the subject,” she adds.

A Gawker.com report on the story was more sophomoric than complimentary, but still acknowledges the piece as “a breathtaking piece of fantasy journalism.”

Meanwhile, over on the AfterEllen website, a poster describes Sheen’s efforts as “pretty creative” and encourages everyone to read his letter to Obama.

A World Entertainment News Network report on the story, picked up by the Houston Chronicle, presents a balanced and neutral view of the issue, noting that Sheen hopes his letter will make “the president will take note of his campaign and grant him a meeting.”

A decidedly more vicious response carried by the Associated Content website attempts to link Sheen to recently resigned Obama jobs czar Van Jones and portray 9/11 truthers as a psychologically disturbed fringe, while failing to mention the fact that thousands of credible individuals both in and out of government, military leaders, intelligence professionals, legal scholars, architects and engineers, and indeed the majority of the 9/11 Commission members have all publicly questioned the official 9/11 story.

Separately, a few other blogs were up in arms about Sheen’s letter being a “hoax” because the disclaimer clarifying that the meeting with Obama was a stylized fictional account and not a real event did not get added to the bottom of the article until a little later due to technical snafus and a bombardment of traffic that shut down servers and locked out Infowars and Prison Planet webmasters. With the Infowars version having been copied across from Prison Planet, both original versions did not contain the disclaimer until the error was brought to our attention and promptly fixed as soon as we could gain access to servers that kept crashing, as many readers noted at the time. We added the disclaimer as soon as possible as well as other information that should have been included at the bottom of the original article regarding Sheen’s appearance on the show. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused and are trying to move our servers in house to prevent this routine occurrence from happening again.

Others expressed disappointment that the announcement wasn’t big enough, but as Alex Jones stressed on several occasions, Sheen’s letter is only the start of a chain of events that will put 9/11 truth firmly at the forefront of public attention during the week of the 8th anniversary since the tragic events of that day.

The issue is set to gain more prominence today as Sheen’s brand new full 20 minute interview on the subject airs on The Alex Jones Show with a call to action video to follow on Thursday and the Sheen set to appear live on the show on Friday.

We would like to thank Charlie Sheen for his courageous stance for 9/11 truth in the face of what promises to be an establishment backlash and encourage everyone to get behind him in bringing these issues to the forefront of national consciousness in this anniversary week.

URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/media-blogosphere-react-to-sheen%e2%80%99s-request-for-meeting-with-obama/