zh<>BP plc And The Administration Replace First Amendment With $40,000 Fine And Class D Felony
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/03/2010 18:54 -0500
CNN's Anderson Cooper, one of the few people who apparently hasn't or isn't leaving the troubled news network (surely Ted Turner has learned by now from CNBC that his female anchors should wear transparent body suits, show belly button deep cleavage, and install a stripper pole or seventeen for those ever more elusive Nielsen points), reports some troubling developments out of New Orleans. "The coast guard today announced new rules keeping photographers, reporters and anyone else from coming within 65 feet of any response vessel or booms, out on the water or on beaches. In order to get closer you need to get direct permission from the coast guard captain of the Port of New Orleans. Shots of oil on beaches with booms - stay 65 feet away. Pictures of oil soaked booms useless laying in the water because they haven't been collected like they should. You can't get close enough to see that. And believe me, that is out there. But you only know that if you get close to it, and now you can't without permission. Violators could face a fine of $40,000 and class D felony charges. The coast guard tried to make the exclusion zone 300 feet before scaling it down to 65 feet." While Cooper's conclusion is spot on, "we are not the enemy here, those of us down here trying to accurately show what is happening down here, we are not the enemy. If we can't show what is happening, warts and all, no one will see what is happening, and that makes it very easy to hide failure and hide incompetence", it doesn't matter, and little by little, nothing else matters, except for what the administration, the Fed, and the megacorps think it is in America's best interest to be able to see, hear, read, do, and what assets they have, where they can invest... especially if all this is done in conjunction with maxing out yet another credit card to buy the latest and greatest weekly edition of the iPhone.
by Votewithabullet on Sat, 07/03/2010 - 20:29 #451164
Rebel quit yer yellin. 65 feet is nearly close enough to smack that vanderbilt pussy. Theres nothing you can shoot here that you cant shoot from 65 feet. Back the fuck up. These ambulance chasers like to stick their camera right up in your shit. Back the fuck up.
by Mazarin on Sat, 07/03/2010 - 21:08 #451197
Agree. Any decent photographer with a 200mm+ lens (which is anyone who would be there) can get plenty of detail on just about anything from 65 feet.
by Popo on Sun, 07/04/2010 - 01:07 #451374
Agreed. This is a profound admission of journalistic ineptitude. Sorry, Anderson -- but real reporting doesn't consist of an organized event in the rose garden.
Anyone who can't take a decent shot from 65 feet shouldn't be holding a camera.
And anyone who can't figure out how to get close to something covering thousands of square miles is officially brain-dead. Generations of journalists have figured out ways to "get the shot" despite overwhelming odds.
And despite these regulations, I promise you countless bloggers will walk right up to coated birds, sunken booms and oil-soaked beaches and snap photos with their $100 pocket cams. I'm sure CNN can figure out a way to do the same, otherwise they'll just have to start raiding the blogosphere for the photos they can't figure out how to get.
by TuesdayBen on Sun, 07/04/2010 - 02:03 #451387
Yeah - exactly 65 fucking feet. Not 64. Not 66. Sixty-five. Some numb-nuts Bureaucrat spent a 7.5 hour Gubmint work day to come up with that number and document it with a ream of paper, and earn $400 in the process, plus solid benes.
Screw that joker Obama. Fuck the Gubmint.
by papaswamp on Sat, 07/03/2010 - 21:16 #451203
It's supposed to be a Constitutional Republic...instead it is clearly an Oligarchy.
by FEDbuster on Sat, 07/03/2010 - 23:34 #451337
Death by a thousand cuts.
"The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring a mark of everlasting infamy on the present generation – enlightened as it is – if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of designing men." -Samuel Adams
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