9 ms·

Amy Goodman Is Facing Prison for Reporting on the Dakota Access Pipeline

621 points by joshfraser 10y ago

walterbell 10y ago
FAQ on Dakota Access Pipeline and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s lawsuit, http://earthjustice.org/features/faq-standing-rock-litigation http://earthjustice.org/features/faq-standing-rock-litigatio... Related legal history: "Doctrine of Discovery", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_doctrine
r00fus 10y ago
This is clearly an attack on the foundations of reporting and freedom of the press. Goodman tries the hardest of any reporter I know to be objective about the facts. It's going to be a big stretch to call her a "protester".
- sitkack 10y ago
  Spouting facts means you have an agenda. When prosecutors wield this power and violate not just a law, but the constitution, they should be fired and jailed.
  - mark_l_watson 10y ago
    Right on! I just wrote to my congressional representative asking for stronger laws punishing officials who act as corporate lackies.
    - maxerickson 10y ago
      You think the arrest will stand up to existing federal scrutiny? I sure don't. I wouldn't be real surprised if a ND state court tosses the charges.
      - seiferteric 10y ago
        But will there be any consequences for those who made up these bogus charges against here?
      - webmaven 10y ago
        To some extent, it doesn't have to stand up, that isn't the point of the arrest and prosecution (or in a civil context, suing). The point is making news orgs spend scarce resources on legal defense, or more precisely for them to FEAR such expenses, and thereby self-censor (so, you rarely have to demonstrate your willingness to do so in order to cause a widespread chilling effect). Not to mention that while she's arrested or in court she conveniently can't cover the confrontation. The civil lawsuit version of this is called a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, or SLAPP. It is quite effective, especially in states that don't have anti-SLAPP legislation (and North Dakota doesn't). In any case, the criminal version is usually called malicious prosecution, and the bar is set rather high (you have to prove that the prosecution wasn't just unjustified by the evidence, but caused actual damages beyond the ordinary costs of the defense such as lost wages, and reputational damage doesn't count), not to mention that prosecutors (and judges) are usually specifically immune to lawsuits alleging malicious prosecution in the first place.
        maxerickson 10y ago
        The media can write stories about the spurious prosecutions (to wit). It's going to be hard to gin up charges to suppress those stories. So I think the media is well positioned to deal with the problem, and I think the prospect of breaking a story is a lot more top of mind for reporters than the financial resources needed to fight potential prosecution.
        webmaven 10y ago
        > The media can write stories about the spurious prosecutions (to wit). They can, but generally don't. To wit: http://fair.org/home/charges-dropped-against-amy-goodman-no-thanks-to-corporate-media/ http://fair.org/home/charges-dropped-against-amy-goodman-no-... > I think the prospect of breaking a story is a lot more top of mind for reporters than the financial resources needed to fight potential prosecution. True as far as it goes, but publishers (and indirectly, editors etc.) have the opposite incentives except when the story is so sensational that if they don't cover it, some other news org will. And believe me, reporters definitely get the message through such means as assignments, promotions, raises, etc.
    - throwaway98237 10y ago
      So, I was going to write mine as well, holy ish is it difficult to get all of your state's Senator's and Representative's email addresses without giving out your address, phone number, email, etc. Absurd. Hacker News could be a cooler version of AARP. An easily mobilized group of individuals able to coalesce around issues important to the group. We need an app that allows me to write out a message to my representatives and, after I pay a dollar or two to handle stamps, will auto generate physical letters to each individual representative. Imagine 5 thousand of these showing up at roughly the same time all sharing the same "RE:..." line. It would be powerful. I have other ideas as well, but right now I'm going to work on getting these email addresses available.
      - douche 10y ago
        At current prices, sending out physical letters isn't a cheap process. A dollar or two to handle stamps is only going to send out two to four letters, and that's before counting paper, envelopes, printing, and handling.
        throwaway98237 10y ago
        True, true. Faxes maybe? Doesn't seem like a bunch of emails really make the same impact as a bag of mail. Any way you go, though, it's kinda like a DoS attack though, ha.
    - rosser 10y ago
      If you want your congresscritter's attention, don't write, don't email, call. Get one of their staffers on the phone, and occupy that person's time until they squirm their way off the call, or understand your position. Source: my cousin and his wife were US Senate staffers (and now lobbyists, go figure) for many, many years.
      - huxley 10y ago
        I totally agree that phoning is the optimal choice, but it does not have to be either/or, if it bothers someone enough, do it all. Phoning and letter mail are definitely way higher in the attention scale than email (or worse yet an online petition).
  - throwaway98237 10y ago
    "Spouting facts means you have an agenda." Can you please explain what you mean here?
    - rconti 10y ago
      probably sarcasm? that's the way I read it, at least.
      - throwaway98237 10y ago
        Ah, cool then. (Sarcasm, not exactly the best conversational device for short-form plain-text, though.)
        sitkack 10y ago
        Only partially sarcasm, those that are actually after the truth and not controlled by either money or political forces are dangerous. Truth is an agenda worse than politics and money, it stands by itself.
        throwaway98237 10y ago
        That's quite an argument to engage in only a line. First, I say, except for logical truths every "truth" is subjective, and thus does not stand by itself but rather stands within context of the subject that holds it (i.e. bias). Second, personally I think this is so rare as to be almost always a non-issue. Everyone has an agenda, and one's argument can and should be evaluated accordingly.
        nitrogen 10y ago
        I find the word "agenda" overused as a slur against anyone wanting to change the status quo. Is there a more positive wors that can be used to describe, for example, someone whose "agenda" is to find and expose government corruption?
- logicallee 10y ago
  You think it's a stretch to call her a "protester"? I think in ten years she might qualify for an even worse crime, "having thoughts." This is from the article: >When asked to explain the grounds for arresting a working journalist, Erickson told the Grand Forks Herald that he did not, in fact, consider Goodman a journalist. “She’s a protester, basically,” Erickson told the newspaper. Imagine in ten years where it said: "It's a huge stretch to call her a journalist. She's a thinker, basically. She came and she formed her own views, and then shared it online. She didn't just share the corporate story, this wasn't a press conference and she's not a journalist. She formed her own thoughts, and that's what she chose to share. I hope she gets locked up and the judge throws away the key." Luckily for us, the Internet doesn't work that way. :) It's a nice view on what happens if projects like Tor don't succeed, or if the agencies who rightfully backdoor them allow any crack of evidence of the same to leave outside of actual imminent terrorist plots and the like. It is super scary for anyone to use the word 'protester' as in the article or the way you've just used it. Bob Dylan just won a Nobel prize, but now protesting is grounds for arrest, apparently, as quoted from the article above. (By the way, I am outraged at this phrasing, even though I consider Democracy Now to be extremely left-leaning, it is like talking to Chomsky. That doesn't make it illegal.)
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    The US has a long history of county officials doing things they shouldn't. This case deserves attention, but it's hardly consequential evidence that freedom of the press is under some new threat.
    - logicallee 10y ago
      you rather misunderstand my point. The thing that really outraged me is that the parent comment (which I read before reading the article) wrote: >It's going to be a big stretch to call her a "protester". which is absolutely outrageous phrasing, and it happened here, on HN, not in an article comment section or youtube comments, or in some backwater county courthouse somewhere. Right here, someone says, "it's going to be a big stretch to call her a 'protestor' " as though that were any kind of crime whatsoever. Imagine if it had said nonchallantly, "It's going to be a BIG stretch to call her guilty of thinking. I checked her writing, looking through her blog and facebook, and I didn't find any contraband thoughts. If she's a criminal guilty of thinking then she's hiding it very well. To me, she seems like an actual journalists: she sat in the press conferences, wore her badge, quoted official soundbytes, and I hope got prior restraint approval from the corporations she was covering before she decided to go live with it. If they didn't like her viewpoint they should have expressed it at that point or simply asked her not to write her opinion - I'm sure she would have complied. She doesn't strike me as a criminal or thinker at all!" I'm not exaggerating. That's how bad it is to have someone here on HN write >It's going to be a big stretch to call her a "protester". It's really, really bad. We have to push back very hard against this idea here. There is absolutely nothing wrong about being a protestor. Having protestors is in a very, very real and direct sense the exact and arguably "only" thing that separates us from North Korea. (Which I just watched a documentary on.) By the way, this is despite the fact that reading Democracy Now is like reading Chomsky or, for that matter, Trotsky. I don't read Democracy Now, I don't consider it particularly objective, and I don't agree with their political views. Our country is literally, not in some metaphorical sense, founded on principles of freedom that this phrasing of calling someone a "protestor" or defending that oh no, they're not a protestor, not Amy! She's a good and loyal Citizen --- goes completely counter to.
- downandout 10y ago
  “Why are you letting the dog go after the protesters?” Goodman could be heard shouting at a security contractor as a woman screamed in the background. “It’s covered in blood!” While I disagree with the filing of charges in this case, it can hardly be said that she wasn't participating in the protest/riot. Impartial journalists generally don't scream at the opposition during a protest. The state believes she crossed the line from journalist to rioter, and I don't think the very specific circumstances of this particular case will have the chilling effect implied by this clearly biased article and sensational headline. If anything, the lesson to journalists is: report, don't participate - something most journalists already know.
  - icebraining 10y ago
    She's shouting about their use of dogs against the protesters - that's not the same as participating in the protest!
  - kbenson 10y ago
    Actually, I think a really good case could be made that asking that was specifically an act of journalism. She asked the reasoning behind their action of using the dogs. That's better than not asking and attributing an assumed reasoning. Asking a question is what journalists do. People aren't required to like those questions.
- colllectorof 10y ago
  > Goodman tries the hardest of any reporter I know to be objective about the facts. I think Democracy Now! is one of the most biased programs out there. However, it's in a unique position where that bias is effectively necessary to do the kind of reporting they do. Moreover, their position doesn't align well with the current "left-wing" and "right-wing" mainstreams. That's also valuable. In nay case, this has nothing to do with being arrested. Biased journalism is not grounds for arrest. She is part of an established reporting outfit. She was recording and asking questions. Shed didn't lead the crowd or yell slogans. I don't see how you can call her behavior "rioting". Am I a rioter if I ask someone a question when a riot is going on?
  - hackuser 10y ago
    I agree they are biased. However, there are no unbiased sources covering the stories that they do, unfortunately. Editorialists are both journalists and opinionated; Bill O'Reilly and Paul Krugman are journalists too. Taking a side doesn't exempt her from first amendment protections.
eth0up 10y ago
And then there's this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/deia-schlosberg-arrested-north-dakota_us_58004d81e4b0162c043b342d http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/deia-schlosberg-arrested...
mark_l_watson 10y ago
I am ashamed that this is happening in my country to both Goodman and another reporter. The corruption here is a deep and festering sore. Officials who play lackies to corporate interests are the ones who should go to jail. The only thing that I can suggest is that we contact our congressional representatives and ask them why reporters are being arrested for doing their jobs. EDIT: I just emailed my congressional representative. Easy to find your representative: http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/
- unclenoriega 10y ago
  FYI: Your link 404s, although the error page contains links to the list of representatives, and there's a zipcode search at the top of the page. Concerned citizens should also consider contacting their US Senators as well. I can't help but think that people needing to look up their representatives is part of the problem.
  - thyrsus 10y ago
    Contacting my Senators would only incite them to pass a law giving oil companies a right to prior restraint of publication. They could tell from my address that I'd never vote for them.
    - dorfsmay 10y ago
      So why participate in a debate about politics here if you don't vote anyway?
      - tanderson92 10y ago
        thyrsus didn't say they didn't vote; they said they didn't vote for their senator. Presumably the address is in a rural area (if Senator is a Democrat) / urban area (if Senator is a Republican).
        thyrsus 10y ago
slantedview 10y ago
The Taibbi article cited in thenation piece is well worth reading: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/taibbi-on-amy-goodman-arrest-for-covering-dakota-pipeline-story-w444754 http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/taibbi-on-amy-goodman-a...
eddieh 10y ago
While it is pretty stupid that the state of North Dakota is issuing an arrest warrant for a journalist. I take issue with the sensational headline, she is facing 30 days in jail for misdemeanor trespassing. That isn't even remotely close to facing prison time. Journalist don't have a right to trespass and there is precedent for criminal charges. Just a quick search brought up Arizona v. Wells. Wells trespassing seems minor in comparison what Goodman allegedly did. Goodman followed protestors into the construction area after "they broke down a wire fence by stepping and jumping on it". I'm not defending either the state of North Dakota, the Sheriff's Department, or Goodman — just stating some facts. Also IANAL. EDIT: I'm sure a journalist can be charged with rioting too. If they can't prove trespassing, I'm not sure how they'll prove rioting. It is bullshit, but not without precedent. That's all I'm saying. EDIT 2: This isn't a constructive discussion anymore. I'm only trying to bring up a different way of thinking about the issue, not everything is an affront on our rights. This may be a case of that, but it is at least in the interest of everyone to discuss it objectively. IDK, I'd probably just delete this comment if I could.
- swsieber 10y ago
  So, there was an update to the article, she was charged with inciting a riot, not trespassing, quote: It should be noted that the original charge leveled against Goodman was not riot but criminal trespass, also a misdemeanor. However, just days days before Goodman was set to appear in court, the prosecutor, Ladd Erickson, switched up the charges because, he admitted in an email to Goodman’s lawyer, Tom Dickson, there were “legal issues with proving the notice of trespassing requirements in the statute.”
  - sitkack 10y ago
    "We are going to charge you with something, we just haven't figured out which law yet..."
    - throwaway98237 10y ago
      Yep. And this is the take-away. We shouldn't ask that the burden-of-proof the State must meet be something like: "Did the State eventually have a good legal argument?" We should require that the State be using its (considerable) resources to achieve the best "public good". It is my opinion that throwing charges until they stick at a journalist (the only constitutionally protected profession) in order to bully them from doing their job when it is not in the interest of the State, is not in the best interest of the public. That is not creating a public good.
KevinEldon 10y ago
Are journalists immune from laws? Which laws? What constitutes a journalist? These are the kinds of questions that courts sort out. Goodman isn't in jail. She now has a legal and public platform to defend her actions and position as a journalist. If you're doing journalism that is as aggressive and brave as the article suggests this is then you'd expect to get pushback. Thankfully we have laws, the First Amendment, and public courts so Amy Goodman wasn't just whisked away to serve her time in jail.
- rfrey 10y ago
  "She now has a legal and public platform to defend her actions and position as a journalist." That's the point - she shouldn't need to defend her actions and position as a journalist, certainly not to a court. That's the point of press freedom.
  - Kalium 10y ago
    Press freedom covers what is printed. It does not cover what is required to generate what is printed. A reporter who sells heroin to gather info for a story could still rightfully be brought up on drugs charges.
- rconti 10y ago
  I really have no idea how this all works in terms of what's allowable as a journalist, and what we merely let them get away with to avoid bad PR. That said, it feels like the trespass charge could be successfully prosecuted (if not for the difficulties in proving that were mentioned in the article), but riot? To call a journalist a protestor merely for being there? That seems like a HUGE stretch.
- ebbv 10y ago
  > Are journalists immune from laws? Which laws? What constitutes a journalist? These are the kinds of questions that courts sort out. You state this as if it needs to be done. It's settled law. The state is clearly overreaching. Journalistic freedoms shouldn't have to be retried just because some large corporation is irked.
- 10y ago
the_duke 10y ago
Land of the free... Year to year, I get more and more disillusioned about the US. I think it's drifting in a very dangerous direction.
hiou 10y ago
The reverse could be to say the activists like Amy Goodman are exploiting the 1st amendment to push their agenda. She isn't really a reporter. That said, the historical interpretations of the 1st amendment are very loose in this regard and this is definitely a bit of posturing to make other smaller activist style reporters afraid to report from within protests. On the bright side, Amy Goodman has connections to take this to a higher court which would very likely set a stronger precedent for protecting camera phone temporary reporters and others who film events from the inside.
- photogrammetry 10y ago
  It would be much more productive - and I think Amy would agree - if the case that gets to the Supreme Court is one that bans construction of oil pipelines through sacred (Sioux or otherwise) lands. Not the ridiculous one where she's accused of rioting.
- icebraining 10y ago
  The reverse could be to say the activists like Amy Goodman are exploiting the 1st amendment to push their agenda. She isn't really a reporter. The first amendment protects both freedom of the press and freedom of speech. Pushing one's agenda, even if that's what she's doing, is definitively protected and not an "exploit".
- snsr 10y ago
  > The reverse could be to say the activists like Amy Goodman are exploiting the 1st amendment to push their agenda. She isn't really a reporter. The whole point of the first amendment is that you can freely express yourself without censure by the government. And Amy Goodman is most certainly a well respected journalist.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- throwow34393 10y ago
  > She isn't really a reporter. She is one of the very last true reporter in the US, not a blogger , sorry a "contributor" who just write for clicks about "sexism in video games" as the majority of "journalists" out there today. She literally risks her life to get to the bottom of a story.
najdifb838593 10y ago
What's up with all these news article titles? I can't take them seriously. "This is super important." "This matters." "ABC just XYZ." "ABC just XYZ. Here's why that matters." Like no shit, isn't explaining how something happened and why it matters how articles work? It just makes it feel like a tabloid.
abalone 10y ago
25 years ago Amy Goodman very narrowly avoided execution while covering the Indonesian occupation of East Timor.[1] Her brave reporting brought attention to one of the worst atrocities relative to population of our lifetimes, in which perhaps a quarter of the population were killed by Indonesian forces with weapons supplied by the United States. Prior to this any mention of East Timor was pretty much mocked and there was a total media blackout on the U.S. role in supporting Indonesia's brutal government. I think she can handle this one. [1] http://m.democracynow.org/stories/7169 http://m.democracynow.org/stories/7169
- rosser 10y ago
  I call bullshit. First of all, the Fallacy of Relative Privation most definitely applies. (LMGTFY: "not as bad as" is fallacious.) But, far more importantly, this isn't about how "hard" or "dangerous" it is for her. It's about the deep threat to a Free Press that this prosecution represents.
  - abalone 10y ago
    That's kind of an unnecessarily rude and condescending reply. The funny thing is, in your rush to showcase your command of logical fallacies you perpetrated a straw man fallacy. I merely said she is brave, worthy of our deep respect and likely to persevere in the face of adversity, not that we shouldn't be deeply concerned about this case.
    - Theizestooke 10y ago
      Ok maybe clarify what you mean by "She can handle this one".
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - ratsmack 10y ago
    I have to wonder if one of the big networks, CNN, NBC or ABC were there reporting, would the same thing be applied to their journalists?
ChuckMcM 10y ago
Sigh. A small jurisdiction is going to try to "put her in jail" but she will not have to stay in jail if the facts are as reported. She will make a first amendment claim, it will be upheld as it has been for literally centuries, and she will be acquitted and have a great story for her backgrounder. Now if it comes out that the Sioux nation paid her to come out, and edited her material, and signed off on what she spoke about. Then her process will have some different tones and the story might involve being convicted of a misdemeanor. But the story about attacking the press gets people who don't care about Native Americans or the ecological risk of pumping oil through pipelines engaged which swells the rageviews a bit on the article.
- noobermin 10y ago
  To be fair, even leveling charges against her and arresting her has a chilling effect on the Press.
  - ChuckMcM 10y ago
    I'm not quite sure about that, I dated a journalism major at USC and she told me about a seminar the law school did for journalism majors called "what to do when you are arrested." I will grant you that it was primarily focused on being in a foreign country (lots of stuff about what the embassy can do, what the consulate can do, and what sort of agreements countries have with the US regarding journalists) but there was a section on being arrested in the US as well.
    - forgottenpass 10y ago
      I dated a journalism major at USC And I've read the wiki article "Chilling effect" so we're probably equally qualified. Just because jurnos are taught how to resist a chilling effect, does not mean it does not exist.
      - ChuckMcM 10y ago
        I don't disagree with that. I absolutely agree that arresting and shooting and villifying people has a chilling effect on their actions. At the same time, while I am not a journalist I've talked to many of them. What has been true in all of the journalists I've met has been both a passion about their mission and a recognition about the risks to themselves about that mission. There reports that over 150 journalists have been killed covering the Iraq war[1] and issues in the middle east. One could argue that dying is the ultimate threat and the most "chilling" of any effect. And yet journalists, even now, are reporting on the heroic efforts of the "White Helmets", the human cost of the sieges and bombing, and the various factions engaged mortal combat there. Journalists, by their own volition, go to centers of conflict. They do that to understand the conflict and to tell the story behind it. They may be idealistic or they may be pragmatic, but they know the risks. And one of the lesser risks is one that you will get arrested and put in jail. It is a "lesser" risk because "getting arrested" already pre-supposes that there is a civil system that is operating well enough to have a notion of "arrest", "trials", and "sentencing". Covering the Contras in Nicaragua you didn't get arrested you got "disappeared."[2] It is so common that the USC School of Journalism nominally assumed that if you were a journalist covering a story in a trouble spot you would get arrested. So anyone who has studied to be a journalist should expect that they might be arrested from time to time and prepared for it. Their parent organization should have legal resources on call, and when arrested the journalist should have a checklist of things to do and not do. Which is what the USC seminar was teaching. As a result, having one of the expected outcomes come to pass, should not be a surprise to someone who was already expecting that could happen. And while having it actually happen might cause them to re-think their career choice, it has been my experience that people willing to go out there and get the story, it is not a disincentive that someone might arrest them. So for the journalist, getting arrested was great thing. It gives her a headline "US Authorities Jailing Journalists!" that grabs at a very closely held American value, freedom of the press. But as a very closely held value it has been litigated extensively and the only time journalists do any jail time at all is when they are held in contempt for not turning over sources. There is a ton of case law here, and if she was just there covering the story, she won't have any issues. And look here 48 hours later, on the 17th the Judge dismisses the case (and her arrest)[3] because guess what, she's protected by the first amendment. Her getting arrested was a non-story. [1] https://cpj.org/blog/2013/03/iraq-war-and-news-media-a-look-inside-the-death-to.php https://cpj.org/blog/2013/03/iraq-war-and-news-media-a-look-... [2] http://catholicherald.com/stories/We-were-disappeared,13011 http://catholicherald.com/stories/We-were-disappeared,13011 [3] http://www.democracynow.org/2016/10/17/watch_amy_goodman_speaks_after_nd http://www.democracynow.org/2016/10/17/watch_amy_goodman_spe...
kbenson 10y ago
While I agree that journalists should have protections, and think Amy Goodman should not be prosecuted, I have some issues with how this article is presented. The scene was full of movement. Overhead, a helicopter hovered, circled, while back on the ground, protesters began to report burning eyes, and dogs—dogs lurching at protesters, dogs straining against their leashes, dogs with mouths open, mouths biting. Is that what the protesters were reporting, that dogs were straining, dogs had their mouths open, that dogs were biting, or is this a bit or artistic license? If it's the former, it's just sloppy writing, as it's hard to parse. If it's the latter, it appears to be a blatant attempt to influence through emotion. This case is sound based on it's importance and the law, and there's no need to fictionalize an account in an informative piece, so I hope that's not what this was. Thus far, the North Dakota authorities remain committed to their own embarrassment It's not embarrassment if they think they should do it. They are committed to their course. Wording such as this implies they know they are wrong but are doing it anyway, as there's no reason to be embarrassed about doing what you perceive to be right. I understand the author is a friend of Amy Goodman, and wants to help, but I prefer my journalism to at least attempt to preserve the facade of objectivity. Without that, my natural inclination is to recoil (and thus the impetus for this comment is explained). I doubt I'm the only one, and what's more, people naturally inclined to take the other side now have something to point at as an indication that this whole piece is not objective and should be discounted. Edit: I wouldn't mind an actual reply from someone that disagreed enough to down vote. At least then I would have an idea of why what I said (or at least how it was interpreted) was in any way controversial.
- ZenoArrow 10y ago
  > "Is that what the protesters were reporting, that dogs were straining, dogs had their mouths open, that dogs were biting, or is this a bit or artistic license?" You don't have to take the protesters word for it, the footage is available on YouTube. I'll dig up a link for you to see it for yourself. EDIT: This video covers the protest, you can see the part where the dogs were used against the protesters: http://youtu.be/VADcWANqBp8 http://youtu.be/VADcWANqBp8
  - kbenson 10y ago
colsandurz 10y ago
What can I do about this?
joesmo 10y ago
Until there are consequences for the corrupt and inhumane prosecutor behavior we see today, we'll continue to see abuses much worse than this. Hold them responsible or they will enslave you. Unfortunately, America has chose slavery yet again.
wazoox 10y ago
My analysis is as follows: everywhere around the world big corps are pushing their agenda against the environment, freedom and the people. You can see it happening in the US, in Canada, in France, in Germany, in Gabon, in Brazil, everywhere. But people realise more and more that the global ecosystem is on the brink of collapse, that no "value for shareholders" can justify literally destroying the world.
farahduane 10y ago
Vote Green Party in November. That's what I'm doing. If you believe that voting Clinton will change any of this, you're very mistaken.
- dghughes 10y ago
  I have no problem calling politician X or Y or Z an idiot but I'd never tell someone what political party they should vote for. If you've ever volunteered at a polling station there are some people who are so, well, let's say sheltered they will actually ask the volunteers "Who am I supposed to vote for?". Just vote.
- WalterSear 10y ago
  If you think a Green Party vote is going to change anything either, you are also mistaken. :(
  - adam12 10y ago
    If Jill Stein gets 5% of the vote, she will be eligible for millions of dollars in federal funding in 2020.
- blackguardx 10y ago
  What about her stance on vaccines? Why should I support someone who is against the scientific method?
  - thyrsus 10y ago
    Snopes: http://www.snopes.com/is-green-party-candidate-jill-stein-anti-vaccine/ http://www.snopes.com/is-green-party-candidate-jill-stein-an... I'd vote for Stein if I was confident that my vote wouldn't matter (i.e., solid red or blue state) or (gasp) if Stein had a significant chance of winning, but I'm in a swing state, so I'd rather try influencing Hillary toward my positions than deal with a Mussolini.
    - deleted 10y ago
saynsedit 10y ago
Happy to a see this trending on HN.
cprayingmantis 10y ago
She was trespassing as she covered the news. She would've been fine if she hadn't stepped over the fence line. Look I get it freedom of the press is paramount to our democracy but you don't have the right to trespass covering a story. If that was the case think of all the trouble the paparazzi could give celebrities.
- magpi3 10y ago
  She is not being charged with trespassing. The charge is "riot," although I don't know what that means exactly.
aorth 10y ago
The transcript of her reporting from that day is alarming. http://www.democracynow.org/2016/9/6/full_exclusive_report_dakota_access_pipeline http://www.democracynow.org/2016/9/6/full_exclusive_report_d...
grecy 10y ago
> According to Erickson, a woman who appeared at a protest carrying a microphone emblazoned with the name Democracy Now! and trailing a video crew; who can be heard in the resulting video report identifying herself to a security guard as a reporter; and who then broadcast the video on the daily news program she has hosted for 20 years is not actually a journalist. She is not a journalist, because she harbors a strong perspective, and that perspective clashes with his own. Sooner or later regular citizens are going to apply this same logic, and realize that uniformed, badge carrying police are not actually police, but are actually terrorists. I shudder to think what will happen when that day comes.
X86BSD 10y ago
This is fucking disgusting. I've watched Amy for years on Democracy Now! look her up on Wikipedia. She has gone through some serious shit reporting in her lifetime. She deserves a Pulitzer prize IMO. The thug state brandishes its billy club on her AGAIN. Appalling.
throw2016 10y ago
It is clear the 'international community', global media and concerned citizenry have erred in rushing to judgement and condemnation whenever Amnesty and other global NGOs file a report on protests and human rights abuse. It appears the right approach is to debate the intricacies of the law and rules of trespassing. Since there has been a systemic failure to consider these important mitigating factors in the past, previous condemnations now stand null and void and will be reconsidered in light of these evolved methods of validating human rights abuse. Of course some apologists would consider this as mere sophistry but its important to point out no one can defend breaking 'the law'. Is Assad really violating human rights or are protesters breaking Syrian law? While it is true NGOs like Amnesty and Reporters Without Borders have shown an unbecoming lack of zeal when it comes to covering their home countries I have been assured it's entirely due to a lack of funds and the greater importance of defending human rights in the middle east and impoverished third world countries.
medicineturtle 10y ago
Amy Goodman did her job and has the right to speak the news on truth medicine turtle cherokee
medicineturtle 10y ago
Amy Goodman did her job and told the truth medicine turtle cherokee
medicineturtle 10y ago
Amy Goodman Is Facing Prison for Reporting on the Dakota Access Pipeline medicine turtle Cherokee she is a blessing
daveloyall 10y ago
Has anybody heard about this story from anything other than HN? Searching for her name doesn't count.
Anthony-G 10y ago
Article update: Case dismissed! On Monday, October 17, District Judge John Grinsteiner rejected the “riot” charge that had been leveled against Amy Goodman for her coverage of a September 3rd Dakota Access Pipeline protest. Standing before the Morton County courthouse, surrounded by supporters, Goodman said: “It is a great honor to be here today. The judge’s decision to reject the State’s Attorney Ladd Erickson’s attempt to prosecute a journalist–in this case, me–is a great vindication of the First Amendment.” And she added: “[W]e encourage all of the media to come here. We certainly will continue to cover this struggle.”

621 points by joshfraser 10y ago

FAQ on Dakota Access Pipeline and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s lawsuit, http://earthjustice.org/features/faq-standing-rock-litigation http://earthjustice.org/features/faq-standing-rock-litigatio... Related legal history: "Doctrine of Discovery", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_doctrine

r00fus 10y ago

This is clearly an attack on the foundations of reporting and freedom of the press. Goodman tries the hardest of any reporter I know to be objective about the facts. It's going to be a big stretch to call her a "protester".

sitkack 10y ago
Spouting facts means you have an agenda. When prosecutors wield this power and violate not just a law, but the constitution, they should be fired and jailed.
- mark_l_watson 10y ago
  Right on! I just wrote to my congressional representative asking for stronger laws punishing officials who act as corporate lackies.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    You think the arrest will stand up to existing federal scrutiny? I sure don't. I wouldn't be real surprised if a ND state court tosses the charges.
    - seiferteric 10y ago
      But will there be any consequences for those who made up these bogus charges against here?
    - webmaven 10y ago
      To some extent, it doesn't have to stand up, that isn't the point of the arrest and prosecution (or in a civil context, suing). The point is making news orgs spend scarce resources on legal defense, or more precisely for them to FEAR such expenses, and thereby self-censor (so, you rarely have to demonstrate your willingness to do so in order to cause a widespread chilling effect). Not to mention that while she's arrested or in court she conveniently can't cover the confrontation. The civil lawsuit version of this is called a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, or SLAPP. It is quite effective, especially in states that don't have anti-SLAPP legislation (and North Dakota doesn't). In any case, the criminal version is usually called malicious prosecution, and the bar is set rather high (you have to prove that the prosecution wasn't just unjustified by the evidence, but caused actual damages beyond the ordinary costs of the defense such as lost wages, and reputational damage doesn't count), not to mention that prosecutors (and judges) are usually specifically immune to lawsuits alleging malicious prosecution in the first place.
      - maxerickson 10y ago
        The media can write stories about the spurious prosecutions (to wit). It's going to be hard to gin up charges to suppress those stories. So I think the media is well positioned to deal with the problem, and I think the prospect of breaking a story is a lot more top of mind for reporters than the financial resources needed to fight potential prosecution.
        webmaven 10y ago
        > The media can write stories about the spurious prosecutions (to wit). They can, but generally don't. To wit: http://fair.org/home/charges-dropped-against-amy-goodman-no-thanks-to-corporate-media/ http://fair.org/home/charges-dropped-against-amy-goodman-no-... > I think the prospect of breaking a story is a lot more top of mind for reporters than the financial resources needed to fight potential prosecution. True as far as it goes, but publishers (and indirectly, editors etc.) have the opposite incentives except when the story is so sensational that if they don't cover it, some other news org will. And believe me, reporters definitely get the message through such means as assignments, promotions, raises, etc.
  - throwaway98237 10y ago
    So, I was going to write mine as well, holy ish is it difficult to get all of your state's Senator's and Representative's email addresses without giving out your address, phone number, email, etc. Absurd. Hacker News could be a cooler version of AARP. An easily mobilized group of individuals able to coalesce around issues important to the group. We need an app that allows me to write out a message to my representatives and, after I pay a dollar or two to handle stamps, will auto generate physical letters to each individual representative. Imagine 5 thousand of these showing up at roughly the same time all sharing the same "RE:..." line. It would be powerful. I have other ideas as well, but right now I'm going to work on getting these email addresses available.
    - douche 10y ago
      At current prices, sending out physical letters isn't a cheap process. A dollar or two to handle stamps is only going to send out two to four letters, and that's before counting paper, envelopes, printing, and handling.
      - throwaway98237 10y ago
        True, true. Faxes maybe? Doesn't seem like a bunch of emails really make the same impact as a bag of mail. Any way you go, though, it's kinda like a DoS attack though, ha.
  - rosser 10y ago
    If you want your congresscritter's attention, don't write, don't email, call. Get one of their staffers on the phone, and occupy that person's time until they squirm their way off the call, or understand your position. Source: my cousin and his wife were US Senate staffers (and now lobbyists, go figure) for many, many years.
    - huxley 10y ago
      I totally agree that phoning is the optimal choice, but it does not have to be either/or, if it bothers someone enough, do it all. Phoning and letter mail are definitely way higher in the attention scale than email (or worse yet an online petition).
- throwaway98237 10y ago
  "Spouting facts means you have an agenda." Can you please explain what you mean here?
  - rconti 10y ago
    probably sarcasm? that's the way I read it, at least.
    - throwaway98237 10y ago
      Ah, cool then. (Sarcasm, not exactly the best conversational device for short-form plain-text, though.)
      - sitkack 10y ago
        Only partially sarcasm, those that are actually after the truth and not controlled by either money or political forces are dangerous. Truth is an agenda worse than politics and money, it stands by itself.
        throwaway98237 10y ago
        That's quite an argument to engage in only a line. First, I say, except for logical truths every "truth" is subjective, and thus does not stand by itself but rather stands within context of the subject that holds it (i.e. bias). Second, personally I think this is so rare as to be almost always a non-issue. Everyone has an agenda, and one's argument can and should be evaluated accordingly.
        nitrogen 10y ago
        I find the word "agenda" overused as a slur against anyone wanting to change the status quo. Is there a more positive wors that can be used to describe, for example, someone whose "agenda" is to find and expose government corruption?
logicallee 10y ago
You think it's a stretch to call her a "protester"? I think in ten years she might qualify for an even worse crime, "having thoughts." This is from the article: >When asked to explain the grounds for arresting a working journalist, Erickson told the Grand Forks Herald that he did not, in fact, consider Goodman a journalist. “She’s a protester, basically,” Erickson told the newspaper. Imagine in ten years where it said: "It's a huge stretch to call her a journalist. She's a thinker, basically. She came and she formed her own views, and then shared it online. She didn't just share the corporate story, this wasn't a press conference and she's not a journalist. She formed her own thoughts, and that's what she chose to share. I hope she gets locked up and the judge throws away the key." Luckily for us, the Internet doesn't work that way. :) It's a nice view on what happens if projects like Tor don't succeed, or if the agencies who rightfully backdoor them allow any crack of evidence of the same to leave outside of actual imminent terrorist plots and the like. It is super scary for anyone to use the word 'protester' as in the article or the way you've just used it. Bob Dylan just won a Nobel prize, but now protesting is grounds for arrest, apparently, as quoted from the article above. (By the way, I am outraged at this phrasing, even though I consider Democracy Now to be extremely left-leaning, it is like talking to Chomsky. That doesn't make it illegal.)
- maxerickson 10y ago
  The US has a long history of county officials doing things they shouldn't. This case deserves attention, but it's hardly consequential evidence that freedom of the press is under some new threat.
  - logicallee 10y ago
    you rather misunderstand my point. The thing that really outraged me is that the parent comment (which I read before reading the article) wrote: >It's going to be a big stretch to call her a "protester". which is absolutely outrageous phrasing, and it happened here, on HN, not in an article comment section or youtube comments, or in some backwater county courthouse somewhere. Right here, someone says, "it's going to be a big stretch to call her a 'protestor' " as though that were any kind of crime whatsoever. Imagine if it had said nonchallantly, "It's going to be a BIG stretch to call her guilty of thinking. I checked her writing, looking through her blog and facebook, and I didn't find any contraband thoughts. If she's a criminal guilty of thinking then she's hiding it very well. To me, she seems like an actual journalists: she sat in the press conferences, wore her badge, quoted official soundbytes, and I hope got prior restraint approval from the corporations she was covering before she decided to go live with it. If they didn't like her viewpoint they should have expressed it at that point or simply asked her not to write her opinion - I'm sure she would have complied. She doesn't strike me as a criminal or thinker at all!" I'm not exaggerating. That's how bad it is to have someone here on HN write >It's going to be a big stretch to call her a "protester". It's really, really bad. We have to push back very hard against this idea here. There is absolutely nothing wrong about being a protestor. Having protestors is in a very, very real and direct sense the exact and arguably "only" thing that separates us from North Korea. (Which I just watched a documentary on.) By the way, this is despite the fact that reading Democracy Now is like reading Chomsky or, for that matter, Trotsky. I don't read Democracy Now, I don't consider it particularly objective, and I don't agree with their political views. Our country is literally, not in some metaphorical sense, founded on principles of freedom that this phrasing of calling someone a "protestor" or defending that oh no, they're not a protestor, not Amy! She's a good and loyal Citizen --- goes completely counter to.
downandout 10y ago
“Why are you letting the dog go after the protesters?” Goodman could be heard shouting at a security contractor as a woman screamed in the background. “It’s covered in blood!” While I disagree with the filing of charges in this case, it can hardly be said that she wasn't participating in the protest/riot. Impartial journalists generally don't scream at the opposition during a protest. The state believes she crossed the line from journalist to rioter, and I don't think the very specific circumstances of this particular case will have the chilling effect implied by this clearly biased article and sensational headline. If anything, the lesson to journalists is: report, don't participate - something most journalists already know.
- icebraining 10y ago
  She's shouting about their use of dogs against the protesters - that's not the same as participating in the protest!
- kbenson 10y ago
  Actually, I think a really good case could be made that asking that was specifically an act of journalism. She asked the reasoning behind their action of using the dogs. That's better than not asking and attributing an assumed reasoning. Asking a question is what journalists do. People aren't required to like those questions.
colllectorof 10y ago
> Goodman tries the hardest of any reporter I know to be objective about the facts. I think Democracy Now! is one of the most biased programs out there. However, it's in a unique position where that bias is effectively necessary to do the kind of reporting they do. Moreover, their position doesn't align well with the current "left-wing" and "right-wing" mainstreams. That's also valuable. In nay case, this has nothing to do with being arrested. Biased journalism is not grounds for arrest. She is part of an established reporting outfit. She was recording and asking questions. Shed didn't lead the crowd or yell slogans. I don't see how you can call her behavior "rioting". Am I a rioter if I ask someone a question when a riot is going on?
- hackuser 10y ago
  I agree they are biased. However, there are no unbiased sources covering the stories that they do, unfortunately. Editorialists are both journalists and opinionated; Bill O'Reilly and Paul Krugman are journalists too. Taking a side doesn't exempt her from first amendment protections.

eth0up 10y ago

And then there's this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/deia-schlosberg-arrested-north-dakota_us_58004d81e4b0162c043b342d http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/deia-schlosberg-arrested...

mark_l_watson 10y ago

I am ashamed that this is happening in my country to both Goodman and another reporter. The corruption here is a deep and festering sore. Officials who play lackies to corporate interests are the ones who should go to jail. The only thing that I can suggest is that we contact our congressional representatives and ask them why reporters are being arrested for doing their jobs. EDIT: I just emailed my congressional representative. Easy to find your representative: http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

unclenoriega 10y ago
FYI: Your link 404s, although the error page contains links to the list of representatives, and there's a zipcode search at the top of the page. Concerned citizens should also consider contacting their US Senators as well. I can't help but think that people needing to look up their representatives is part of the problem.
- thyrsus 10y ago
  Contacting my Senators would only incite them to pass a law giving oil companies a right to prior restraint of publication. They could tell from my address that I'd never vote for them.
  - dorfsmay 10y ago
    So why participate in a debate about politics here if you don't vote anyway?
    - tanderson92 10y ago
      thyrsus didn't say they didn't vote; they said they didn't vote for their senator. Presumably the address is in a rural area (if Senator is a Democrat) / urban area (if Senator is a Republican).
      - thyrsus 10y ago

slantedview 10y ago

The Taibbi article cited in thenation piece is well worth reading: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/taibbi-on-amy-goodman-arrest-for-covering-dakota-pipeline-story-w444754 http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/taibbi-on-amy-goodman-a...

eddieh 10y ago

While it is pretty stupid that the state of North Dakota is issuing an arrest warrant for a journalist. I take issue with the sensational headline, she is facing 30 days in jail for misdemeanor trespassing. That isn't even remotely close to facing prison time. Journalist don't have a right to trespass and there is precedent for criminal charges. Just a quick search brought up Arizona v. Wells. Wells trespassing seems minor in comparison what Goodman allegedly did. Goodman followed protestors into the construction area after "they broke down a wire fence by stepping and jumping on it". I'm not defending either the state of North Dakota, the Sheriff's Department, or Goodman — just stating some facts. Also IANAL. EDIT: I'm sure a journalist can be charged with rioting too. If they can't prove trespassing, I'm not sure how they'll prove rioting. It is bullshit, but not without precedent. That's all I'm saying. EDIT 2: This isn't a constructive discussion anymore. I'm only trying to bring up a different way of thinking about the issue, not everything is an affront on our rights. This may be a case of that, but it is at least in the interest of everyone to discuss it objectively. IDK, I'd probably just delete this comment if I could.

swsieber 10y ago
So, there was an update to the article, she was charged with inciting a riot, not trespassing, quote: It should be noted that the original charge leveled against Goodman was not riot but criminal trespass, also a misdemeanor. However, just days days before Goodman was set to appear in court, the prosecutor, Ladd Erickson, switched up the charges because, he admitted in an email to Goodman’s lawyer, Tom Dickson, there were “legal issues with proving the notice of trespassing requirements in the statute.”
- sitkack 10y ago
  "We are going to charge you with something, we just haven't figured out which law yet..."
  - throwaway98237 10y ago
    Yep. And this is the take-away. We shouldn't ask that the burden-of-proof the State must meet be something like: "Did the State eventually have a good legal argument?" We should require that the State be using its (considerable) resources to achieve the best "public good". It is my opinion that throwing charges until they stick at a journalist (the only constitutionally protected profession) in order to bully them from doing their job when it is not in the interest of the State, is not in the best interest of the public. That is not creating a public good.

KevinEldon 10y ago

Are journalists immune from laws? Which laws? What constitutes a journalist? These are the kinds of questions that courts sort out. Goodman isn't in jail. She now has a legal and public platform to defend her actions and position as a journalist. If you're doing journalism that is as aggressive and brave as the article suggests this is then you'd expect to get pushback. Thankfully we have laws, the First Amendment, and public courts so Amy Goodman wasn't just whisked away to serve her time in jail.

rfrey 10y ago
"She now has a legal and public platform to defend her actions and position as a journalist." That's the point - she shouldn't need to defend her actions and position as a journalist, certainly not to a court. That's the point of press freedom.
- Kalium 10y ago
  Press freedom covers what is printed. It does not cover what is required to generate what is printed. A reporter who sells heroin to gather info for a story could still rightfully be brought up on drugs charges.
rconti 10y ago
I really have no idea how this all works in terms of what's allowable as a journalist, and what we merely let them get away with to avoid bad PR. That said, it feels like the trespass charge could be successfully prosecuted (if not for the difficulties in proving that were mentioned in the article), but riot? To call a journalist a protestor merely for being there? That seems like a HUGE stretch.
ebbv 10y ago
> Are journalists immune from laws? Which laws? What constitutes a journalist? These are the kinds of questions that courts sort out. You state this as if it needs to be done. It's settled law. The state is clearly overreaching. Journalistic freedoms shouldn't have to be retried just because some large corporation is irked.
10y ago

the_duke 10y ago

Land of the free... Year to year, I get more and more disillusioned about the US. I think it's drifting in a very dangerous direction.

hiou 10y ago

The reverse could be to say the activists like Amy Goodman are exploiting the 1st amendment to push their agenda. She isn't really a reporter. That said, the historical interpretations of the 1st amendment are very loose in this regard and this is definitely a bit of posturing to make other smaller activist style reporters afraid to report from within protests. On the bright side, Amy Goodman has connections to take this to a higher court which would very likely set a stronger precedent for protecting camera phone temporary reporters and others who film events from the inside.

photogrammetry 10y ago
It would be much more productive - and I think Amy would agree - if the case that gets to the Supreme Court is one that bans construction of oil pipelines through sacred (Sioux or otherwise) lands. Not the ridiculous one where she's accused of rioting.
icebraining 10y ago
The reverse could be to say the activists like Amy Goodman are exploiting the 1st amendment to push their agenda. She isn't really a reporter. The first amendment protects both freedom of the press and freedom of speech. Pushing one's agenda, even if that's what she's doing, is definitively protected and not an "exploit".
snsr 10y ago
> The reverse could be to say the activists like Amy Goodman are exploiting the 1st amendment to push their agenda. She isn't really a reporter. The whole point of the first amendment is that you can freely express yourself without censure by the government. And Amy Goodman is most certainly a well respected journalist.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
throwow34393 10y ago
> She isn't really a reporter. She is one of the very last true reporter in the US, not a blogger , sorry a "contributor" who just write for clicks about "sexism in video games" as the majority of "journalists" out there today. She literally risks her life to get to the bottom of a story.

najdifb838593 10y ago

What's up with all these news article titles? I can't take them seriously. "This is super important." "This matters." "ABC just XYZ." "ABC just XYZ. Here's why that matters." Like no shit, isn't explaining how something happened and why it matters how articles work? It just makes it feel like a tabloid.

abalone 10y ago

25 years ago Amy Goodman very narrowly avoided execution while covering the Indonesian occupation of East Timor.[1] Her brave reporting brought attention to one of the worst atrocities relative to population of our lifetimes, in which perhaps a quarter of the population were killed by Indonesian forces with weapons supplied by the United States. Prior to this any mention of East Timor was pretty much mocked and there was a total media blackout on the U.S. role in supporting Indonesia's brutal government. I think she can handle this one. [1] http://m.democracynow.org/stories/7169 http://m.democracynow.org/stories/7169

rosser 10y ago
I call bullshit. First of all, the Fallacy of Relative Privation most definitely applies. (LMGTFY: "not as bad as" is fallacious.) But, far more importantly, this isn't about how "hard" or "dangerous" it is for her. It's about the deep threat to a Free Press that this prosecution represents.
- abalone 10y ago
  That's kind of an unnecessarily rude and condescending reply. The funny thing is, in your rush to showcase your command of logical fallacies you perpetrated a straw man fallacy. I merely said she is brave, worthy of our deep respect and likely to persevere in the face of adversity, not that we shouldn't be deeply concerned about this case.
  - Theizestooke 10y ago
    Ok maybe clarify what you mean by "She can handle this one".
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- ratsmack 10y ago
  I have to wonder if one of the big networks, CNN, NBC or ABC were there reporting, would the same thing be applied to their journalists?

ChuckMcM 10y ago

Sigh. A small jurisdiction is going to try to "put her in jail" but she will not have to stay in jail if the facts are as reported. She will make a first amendment claim, it will be upheld as it has been for literally centuries, and she will be acquitted and have a great story for her backgrounder. Now if it comes out that the Sioux nation paid her to come out, and edited her material, and signed off on what she spoke about. Then her process will have some different tones and the story might involve being convicted of a misdemeanor. But the story about attacking the press gets people who don't care about Native Americans or the ecological risk of pumping oil through pipelines engaged which swells the rageviews a bit on the article.

noobermin 10y ago
To be fair, even leveling charges against her and arresting her has a chilling effect on the Press.
- ChuckMcM 10y ago
  I'm not quite sure about that, I dated a journalism major at USC and she told me about a seminar the law school did for journalism majors called "what to do when you are arrested." I will grant you that it was primarily focused on being in a foreign country (lots of stuff about what the embassy can do, what the consulate can do, and what sort of agreements countries have with the US regarding journalists) but there was a section on being arrested in the US as well.
  - forgottenpass 10y ago
    I dated a journalism major at USC And I've read the wiki article "Chilling effect" so we're probably equally qualified. Just because jurnos are taught how to resist a chilling effect, does not mean it does not exist.
    - ChuckMcM 10y ago
      I don't disagree with that. I absolutely agree that arresting and shooting and villifying people has a chilling effect on their actions. At the same time, while I am not a journalist I've talked to many of them. What has been true in all of the journalists I've met has been both a passion about their mission and a recognition about the risks to themselves about that mission. There reports that over 150 journalists have been killed covering the Iraq war[1] and issues in the middle east. One could argue that dying is the ultimate threat and the most "chilling" of any effect. And yet journalists, even now, are reporting on the heroic efforts of the "White Helmets", the human cost of the sieges and bombing, and the various factions engaged mortal combat there. Journalists, by their own volition, go to centers of conflict. They do that to understand the conflict and to tell the story behind it. They may be idealistic or they may be pragmatic, but they know the risks. And one of the lesser risks is one that you will get arrested and put in jail. It is a "lesser" risk because "getting arrested" already pre-supposes that there is a civil system that is operating well enough to have a notion of "arrest", "trials", and "sentencing". Covering the Contras in Nicaragua you didn't get arrested you got "disappeared."[2] It is so common that the USC School of Journalism nominally assumed that if you were a journalist covering a story in a trouble spot you would get arrested. So anyone who has studied to be a journalist should expect that they might be arrested from time to time and prepared for it. Their parent organization should have legal resources on call, and when arrested the journalist should have a checklist of things to do and not do. Which is what the USC seminar was teaching. As a result, having one of the expected outcomes come to pass, should not be a surprise to someone who was already expecting that could happen. And while having it actually happen might cause them to re-think their career choice, it has been my experience that people willing to go out there and get the story, it is not a disincentive that someone might arrest them. So for the journalist, getting arrested was great thing. It gives her a headline "US Authorities Jailing Journalists!" that grabs at a very closely held American value, freedom of the press. But as a very closely held value it has been litigated extensively and the only time journalists do any jail time at all is when they are held in contempt for not turning over sources. There is a ton of case law here, and if she was just there covering the story, she won't have any issues. And look here 48 hours later, on the 17th the Judge dismisses the case (and her arrest)[3] because guess what, she's protected by the first amendment. Her getting arrested was a non-story. [1] https://cpj.org/blog/2013/03/iraq-war-and-news-media-a-look-inside-the-death-to.php https://cpj.org/blog/2013/03/iraq-war-and-news-media-a-look-... [2] http://catholicherald.com/stories/We-were-disappeared,13011 http://catholicherald.com/stories/We-were-disappeared,13011 [3] http://www.democracynow.org/2016/10/17/watch_amy_goodman_speaks_after_nd http://www.democracynow.org/2016/10/17/watch_amy_goodman_spe...

kbenson 10y ago

While I agree that journalists should have protections, and think Amy Goodman should not be prosecuted, I have some issues with how this article is presented. The scene was full of movement. Overhead, a helicopter hovered, circled, while back on the ground, protesters began to report burning eyes, and dogs—dogs lurching at protesters, dogs straining against their leashes, dogs with mouths open, mouths biting. Is that what the protesters were reporting, that dogs were straining, dogs had their mouths open, that dogs were biting, or is this a bit or artistic license? If it's the former, it's just sloppy writing, as it's hard to parse. If it's the latter, it appears to be a blatant attempt to influence through emotion. This case is sound based on it's importance and the law, and there's no need to fictionalize an account in an informative piece, so I hope that's not what this was. Thus far, the North Dakota authorities remain committed to their own embarrassment It's not embarrassment if they think they should do it. They are committed to their course. Wording such as this implies they know they are wrong but are doing it anyway, as there's no reason to be embarrassed about doing what you perceive to be right. I understand the author is a friend of Amy Goodman, and wants to help, but I prefer my journalism to at least attempt to preserve the facade of objectivity. Without that, my natural inclination is to recoil (and thus the impetus for this comment is explained). I doubt I'm the only one, and what's more, people naturally inclined to take the other side now have something to point at as an indication that this whole piece is not objective and should be discounted. Edit: I wouldn't mind an actual reply from someone that disagreed enough to down vote. At least then I would have an idea of why what I said (or at least how it was interpreted) was in any way controversial.

ZenoArrow 10y ago
> "Is that what the protesters were reporting, that dogs were straining, dogs had their mouths open, that dogs were biting, or is this a bit or artistic license?" You don't have to take the protesters word for it, the footage is available on YouTube. I'll dig up a link for you to see it for yourself. EDIT: This video covers the protest, you can see the part where the dogs were used against the protesters: http://youtu.be/VADcWANqBp8 http://youtu.be/VADcWANqBp8
- kbenson 10y ago

colsandurz 10y ago

What can I do about this?

joesmo 10y ago

Until there are consequences for the corrupt and inhumane prosecutor behavior we see today, we'll continue to see abuses much worse than this. Hold them responsible or they will enslave you. Unfortunately, America has chose slavery yet again.

wazoox 10y ago

My analysis is as follows: everywhere around the world big corps are pushing their agenda against the environment, freedom and the people. You can see it happening in the US, in Canada, in France, in Germany, in Gabon, in Brazil, everywhere. But people realise more and more that the global ecosystem is on the brink of collapse, that no "value for shareholders" can justify literally destroying the world.

farahduane 10y ago

Vote Green Party in November. That's what I'm doing. If you believe that voting Clinton will change any of this, you're very mistaken.

dghughes 10y ago
I have no problem calling politician X or Y or Z an idiot but I'd never tell someone what political party they should vote for. If you've ever volunteered at a polling station there are some people who are so, well, let's say sheltered they will actually ask the volunteers "Who am I supposed to vote for?". Just vote.
WalterSear 10y ago
If you think a Green Party vote is going to change anything either, you are also mistaken. :(
- adam12 10y ago
  If Jill Stein gets 5% of the vote, she will be eligible for millions of dollars in federal funding in 2020.
blackguardx 10y ago
What about her stance on vaccines? Why should I support someone who is against the scientific method?
- thyrsus 10y ago
  Snopes: http://www.snopes.com/is-green-party-candidate-jill-stein-anti-vaccine/ http://www.snopes.com/is-green-party-candidate-jill-stein-an... I'd vote for Stein if I was confident that my vote wouldn't matter (i.e., solid red or blue state) or (gasp) if Stein had a significant chance of winning, but I'm in a swing state, so I'd rather try influencing Hillary toward my positions than deal with a Mussolini.
  - deleted 10y ago

saynsedit 10y ago

Happy to a see this trending on HN.

cprayingmantis 10y ago

She was trespassing as she covered the news. She would've been fine if she hadn't stepped over the fence line. Look I get it freedom of the press is paramount to our democracy but you don't have the right to trespass covering a story. If that was the case think of all the trouble the paparazzi could give celebrities.

magpi3 10y ago
She is not being charged with trespassing. The charge is "riot," although I don't know what that means exactly.

aorth 10y ago

The transcript of her reporting from that day is alarming. http://www.democracynow.org/2016/9/6/full_exclusive_report_dakota_access_pipeline http://www.democracynow.org/2016/9/6/full_exclusive_report_d...

grecy 10y ago

> According to Erickson, a woman who appeared at a protest carrying a microphone emblazoned with the name Democracy Now! and trailing a video crew; who can be heard in the resulting video report identifying herself to a security guard as a reporter; and who then broadcast the video on the daily news program she has hosted for 20 years is not actually a journalist. She is not a journalist, because she harbors a strong perspective, and that perspective clashes with his own. Sooner or later regular citizens are going to apply this same logic, and realize that uniformed, badge carrying police are not actually police, but are actually terrorists. I shudder to think what will happen when that day comes.

X86BSD 10y ago

This is fucking disgusting. I've watched Amy for years on Democracy Now! look her up on Wikipedia. She has gone through some serious shit reporting in her lifetime. She deserves a Pulitzer prize IMO. The thug state brandishes its billy club on her AGAIN. Appalling.

throw2016 10y ago

It is clear the 'international community', global media and concerned citizenry have erred in rushing to judgement and condemnation whenever Amnesty and other global NGOs file a report on protests and human rights abuse. It appears the right approach is to debate the intricacies of the law and rules of trespassing. Since there has been a systemic failure to consider these important mitigating factors in the past, previous condemnations now stand null and void and will be reconsidered in light of these evolved methods of validating human rights abuse. Of course some apologists would consider this as mere sophistry but its important to point out no one can defend breaking 'the law'. Is Assad really violating human rights or are protesters breaking Syrian law? While it is true NGOs like Amnesty and Reporters Without Borders have shown an unbecoming lack of zeal when it comes to covering their home countries I have been assured it's entirely due to a lack of funds and the greater importance of defending human rights in the middle east and impoverished third world countries.

medicineturtle 10y ago

Amy Goodman did her job and has the right to speak the news on truth medicine turtle cherokee

medicineturtle 10y ago

Amy Goodman did her job and told the truth medicine turtle cherokee

medicineturtle 10y ago

Amy Goodman Is Facing Prison for Reporting on the Dakota Access Pipeline medicine turtle Cherokee she is a blessing

daveloyall 10y ago

Has anybody heard about this story from anything other than HN? Searching for her name doesn't count.

Anthony-G 10y ago

Article update: Case dismissed! On Monday, October 17, District Judge John Grinsteiner rejected the “riot” charge that had been leveled against Amy Goodman for her coverage of a September 3rd Dakota Access Pipeline protest. Standing before the Morton County courthouse, surrounded by supporters, Goodman said: “It is a great honor to be here today. The judge’s decision to reject the State’s Attorney Ladd Erickson’s attempt to prosecute a journalist–in this case, me–is a great vindication of the First Amendment.” And she added: “[W]e encourage all of the media to come here. We certainly will continue to cover this struggle.”