First Amendment Suspended Around BP Oil Spill?

[Zoner]

CNN's Anderson Cooper discusses how the Obama administration is limiting access by the media to areas affected by the BP Macondo well spill.

 

[Taurothar]

I'm not sure this a first amendment issue so much as a transparency issue, as they say in the video. Nobody is telling them they can't take the pictures, or write the stories. They are simply telling them they must do it from behind this line. I agree that makes their jobs difficult, and they are certainly hiding quite a bit behind that 65 foot no fly zone, but simply put, there's never full disclosure of details. I agree with the half that say you must keep a distance from the booms, because they don't need to be damaged by careless attempts to take a picture. I'm not sure why they have to be kept so far from the wildlife rescue attempts, it seems like the gov't doesn't want any more shock photos to get out so the press can belittle what already small relief attempts are being made.

And as a sort of off topic note on the subject, I went swimming in Long Island sound this weekend (aka between CT and NY, quite the ways from the Gulf) and there was a light film of oil on the surface of the water. It made this all the more real to me.

 

[K. Ishitar]

not so much a conspiracist theorist but i think there's morethan oil involved a lotta things have happened with big dollar items blowing up and this is new

 

[Halifirien]

Nobody is telling them they can't take the pictures, or write the stories. They are simply telling them they must do it from behind this line.

Transparency and the First Amendment go hand-in-hand. It's going beyond "Stay behind the line," though. BP security and local police have detained at least one photographer and threatened him with arrest if he didn't allow them to review the photos he'd taken. That's heading straight into the intimidation realm, and the government has no business aiding a PR offensive for a private company. It's beyond pathetic.