In a video published to YouTube on Wednesday, several protesters in Madison, Wisconsin are seen being dragged out of the assembly by state police, seemingly because they were filming lawmakers’ deliberations. While the protesters repeatedly insisted that it was their right to film inside the legislature, their concerns were ignored as officers took them away.
Given that the video below is edited, it’s not immediately clear whether any of the protesters had been disruptive prior to the events shown — but for all intents and purposes, it looks as if they were arrested simply for filming.
Officers would seem to be acting on the guidelines of a notice posted outside the assembly, which says that all recording equipment is banned. That would seem to contradict Wisconsin law, whichdoes give them the right to film lawmakers, although it makes an exception for “recording, filming or photographing such a meeting in a manner that interferes with the conduct of the meeting or the rights of the participants.”
This video was published to YouTube on Sept. 14, 2011.
This is exactly the kind of tyrannical state I have always feared living in. Police officers arresting citizens that were doing exactly what state law says they are allowed to do. I hope each of those individuals files a law suit against those police officers and pursues their case all the way up to the Supreme Court. Those police officers only cared about the orders their superiors gave them at the time to carry out, despite the fact that they were breaking the law themselves. What a sad and scary place this country has become.
Yeah, buddy! Scares the crap out of me. This is really bad stuff.
well there you freedom of speech is gone the mafia doesn’t want us to know what there doing behind are backs this is typical of the goverment they have made a mochery out of all of us it’s time to fight back and build an army with us and get the revolution started it’s going to get worse
I wonder what would have happened if Joe Biden was caught filming inside of this particular assembly?
Mark,
I’m wondering why filming the arrests was permitted. Strange.
Good point. I don’t think they noticed that the YouTube publisher was discretely filming them. They were a bit busy. If they’d noticed it, they would have accosted the second film maker as well.
that whole thing is fubar
But how could they possibly have missed that? I suspect there’s more under this stone. My guess is, as Henry points out, it is possible there was a behavior issue OR they are aware that arresting people for filming police is not going over and the “lawmakers” have decided to just protect themselves from scrutiny to see if they can get away with that.
Whatever the case this still stinks to high heaven as my father used to say. “Curiouser and curiouser” said Alice.