There are troubling signs this week that local law enforcement officers are ready to use the Republican National Convention as an excuse to trample the constitutional rights of citizens.
Just hours after arriving in the Twin Cities, three young citizen journalists were detained by Minneapolis police. The officers confiscated their video cameras and notebooks, tools they intended to help document the proceedings during the convention. The police told them they would be charged with trespassing on private railroad property. The three "suspects" adamantly deny the charge and claim the police are merely trying to intimidate them because they represent a group that has documented police abuse in the past.
In addition, Minneapolis police forcefully prevented a KSTP-TV reporter from photographing a peaceful protest in a city office. There are also scattered reports of police stopping and questioning anyone with sophisticated camera equipment in St. Paul.
Hopefully, these are isolated instances and not an indication of how our local police intend to do their jobs during the Republican convention. In every instance where police have resorted to intimidation tactics against journalists and citizen protesters, it's only served to escalate tensions. And in the end, such efforts fail to have the intended effect.
Police clearly have a monumental task ahead as tens of thousands of people come to St. Paul for the convention. It's not a stretch to imagine that some of those people intend harm to others or to engage in violent disruption. But law enforcement officials have their priorities misplaced if they believe law-abiding citizens with reporter's notebooks or cameras pose a threat. The protection of the public is not served when the very eyes of the public are muscled out of the room or stopped and detained.
Given the vast amount of technology -- capable of distributing nearly instantaneous images to the world -- now in the hands of nearly every person in the line for coffee or walking to his barber shop, police and organizers of this convention should accept the reality that their actions will be revealed on a global scale.
It is no exaggeration to say the world is watching. How well they, and ultimately we, are portrayed depends on whether those in power respect the basic rights that are the bedrock of the democratic process we all will be celebrating next week. They have the choice of whether they're portrayed as brutish thugs trying to squelch the rights of citizens or as protectors of public safety tolerant of the First Amendment they're sworn to uphold.
Art Hughes is a board member of the Minnesota Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Free people in a free country are free to use their cameras |