Protesters say police invading privacy - Greensboro Seven

[chat_noir]

GREENSBORO -- The police videotaped the protesters. The protesters photographed the police.

During a protest Thursday of what participants called the Greensboro Police Department's "domestic spying," it almost seemed that everyone was watching -- and filming -- everyone else.

The event followed the arrest of seven protesters last week at a rally demanding that President Bush step down. The arrests took place after a confrontation with a plainclothes detective who was videotaping license plates near where protesters had gathered.

This week's rally was designed as both a show of support for those who were arrested and a protest of the department's videotaping tactic. Some protesters said the practice amounts to intimidation and serves to dampen free speech.



http://beta.news-record.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060210/NEWSREC0101/602090332

[benburch]

1. Interview with one of them...

http://server2.WhiteRoseSociety.org/content/kincaid/KennethHarrisGreensboroSeven.mp3

[libnnc]

5. just listened to that

thank you Ben for posting.

I'm in Winston-Salem and almost went to that gathering at The Scene. The Greensboro PD is as corrupt as any in this country. People in this area don't know what took place. The local media tv media aren't covering it at all.

Kick for the Greensboro 7 :grr:

[Dunvegan]

2. Tape them...photograph them and insta-blog them from phones.

That way you're instantly publishing.

It will make for interesting problems on their side, and possible defense support for the photogs.

At the very least, it put on the web their actions before they can stop the activist from publishing.

[htuttle]

3. "everyone was watching -- and filming -- everyone else"

That brings back memories. I was involved in the hemp legalization movement in the 90's and more than once found myself in a 'camera standoff' at a pro-hemp demonstration. The DEA and the sheriffs taped us,and we taped the DEA and the sheriffs. I have tons of pictures of police agents pointing cameras at my camera.

Oddly enough, it seemed less intimidating than the current surveillance. At least then, it was more clear why they'd want to tape us. They were sure that everyone who wanted to legalize hemp was hauling around bales of pot in the trunks of their cars. A stupid assumption, but at least it was somehow logically connected to what we were protesting about. There was a certain 'revenuer/moonshiner' aspect to the interaction that you expected.

But now, taping people who want PEACE? What purported crime do the police imagine they might commit? Illegal peace? All that fits is that they consider peace demonstrators to be enemies of the state. And while it can be easily proven that one does not have a bale of pot in one's trunk (for example, by simply opening the trunk), how does one prove that you aren't an enemy of the state?

[400Years]

4. when the cops become political they give up all legitimacy

[PassingThrough]

6. There is no expectation of privacy in public. Anyone can video anyone.

Police use video for everything these days. These same people going to complain about the cameras inside police cars?

Look at it this way, the police are not going to do anything amazingly stupid while they are videoing because it could be used against them. You should get scared when they put the cameras away. :)

[libnnc]

7. did you listen to the interview?

I suggest you do so.

[PassingThrough]

8. Did... Not the greatest interviewer.

I would like to see all of the vidoes before I make any judgement. The caller contradicts himself a few times and there are other issues. Of course that could just be because he is nervous or whatever. Two sides to every story... I need facts before I make judgement.

[Kelvin Mace]

9. Gee, I missed getting arrested.

I couldn't make it to the rally, but I wouldn't have stood still for that kind of fascist behavior.

The local police department is already in hot water over a police chief who was running clandestine operations to discredit black police officers, now this.

[bobbieinok]

10. Greensboro, NC the site of the first sit-ins, the start of the Civil Right

Rights Movement

http://www.sitins.com/story.shtml

....

The story of the Greensboro sit-ins .
By JIM SCHLOSSER, News & Record Staff Writer
Originally published in 1998

On Feb. 1, 1960, the Greensboro Four, as they would later be called, felt isolated and alone as they sat at that whites-only lunch counter at the Woolworth Store on South Elm Street.

They were seeking more than what they ordered — sodas, coffee, doughnuts. They were attacking the social order of the time. The unwritten rules of society required black people to stay out of white-owned restaurants, to use only designated drinking fountains and restrooms, to sit in the rear of Greensboro city buses, in a separate balcony at the Center Theatre and in segregated bleachers during sports events at War Memorial Stadium.



The four black youths — Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, Ezell Blair Jr. and David Richmond, all still teenagers and all freshmen on academic scholarships at N.C. A&T State University — had entered the unknown. McCain, who grew up in Washington and spent one year attending Greensboro's Dudley High School, says he expected to be arrested, beaten to a pulp or worse.

All four would emerge unscathed and eventually be recognized as heroes of the civil rights movement.

more....

[bobbieinok]

11. Greensboro Massacre 11-3-1979

http://www.ibiblio.org/prism/jan98/chron.html

....

Prelude to November 3

One of the activities that was chosen to assist in both community organizing and anti-racism was a "Death to the Klan" parade and rally in Greensboro.

The march and rally were planned and duly permitted with the Greensboro Police. The rally was scheduled for the Morningside Heights housing project, one of the neighborhoods in Greensboro with an active community organization.

Two days prior to the march, which had been publicized as much as possible, of course, one of the Klan members went to the police station to obtain the map of the march and the rally.

November 3

While the march was in progress, the Klan/Nazis, with the leadership of Edward Dawson, loaded several car trunks with firearms and headed for the rally site in a caravan of nine cars. As they neared the rally site, a Greensboro Police cruiser became the tenth car in the motorcade. Meanwhile, Greensboro Police dispatcher(s) ordered the other police assigned to the rally to go on a break.

When the Klan/Nazis arrived, they pulled up to the curb in a group, alighted from the cars, calmly went to the trunks, removed their weapons, and began firing into the crowd of demonstrators. No police intervention was forthcoming. Contrary to the popular view of the incident, this was not a shootout: only one demonstrator had a firearm (a pistol), and only one round was fired from it, hitting no one. Four demonstrators died at the scene, including one who was shot between the eyes as she looked out from cover; several were wounded, including one who died three days later, and one who is paraplegic to this day. Since all of this was recorded on video tape by a local news camera operator, there"s not much doubt about who did what to whom, when.

Following the massacre (which seems an appropriate description) the Klan/Nazis got back in their cars and sped away. There was no police intervention.

more....

(in 2005 there was a Truth and Reconciliation meeting in attempt to bring closure)