Attack of the Show reports on the devastation in the gulf due to the BP oil spill. For those that don’t know, Attack of the Show is on the G4TV channel. This is a TV channel dedicated to video games and tech news and they’re doing a better job at reporting this story than the mainstream media.
You can watch Part 1 here. You can also watch the numerous videos Rachel Maddow has on the gulf spill as well. Not many media outlets are covering the truth of what’s happening in the gulf.
The video below is the effects on wildlife. It’s sickening, heartwrenching, and heartbreaking. The video is very difficult to watch. I dare you to watch it and not tear up.
Drew Wheelan, the conservation coordinator for the American Birding Association, was filming himself across the street from the BP building/Deepwater Horizon response command in Houma, Louisiana. As he explained to me, he was standing in a field that did not belong to the oil company when a police officer approached him and asked him for ID and “strongly suggest[ed]” that he get lost since “BP doesn’t want people filming”:
Wheelan: “Am I violating any laws or anything like that?”
Officer: “Um…not particularly. BP doesn’t want people filming.”
Wheelan: “Well, I’m not on their property so BP doesn’t have anything to say about what I do right now.”
Officer: “Let me explain: BP doesn’t want any filming. So all I can really do is strongly suggest that you not film anything right now. If that makes any sense.”
Shortly after, Wheelan got in his vehicle and drove away. He was stopped a short distance later by the same police officer and a BP security guard. BP security questioned Wheelan for twenty minutes while the police officer stood by.
“Then two unmarked security cars followed me,” Wheelan told me. “Maybe I’m paranoid, but I was specifically trying to figure out if they were following me, and every time I pulled over, they pulled over.” This went on for 20 miles. Which does little to mitigate my own developing paranoia about reporting from what can feel like a corporate-police state.
Wheelan never should have answered any questions from a BP security guard. I don’t care if he’s the security chief or not. He wasn’t violating any laws and BP security had no right to interrogate him. The police officer also did not have any cause to take Wheelan’s information and then call on his radio to find out who Wheelan was.
The police are public servants. They are abusing their position by acting as agents of a private company. They are violating Wheelan’s civil rights as well as parts of the Constitution by acting in this manner. The police had no right to stop Wheelan. They did not have any probable cause.
Never speak to the police and, especially, don’t speak to some lackey security guard. The least you can do is write to your representatives in Washington and explain that this type of behavior must stop.
Men hired by BP to work security on the beach in New Orleans attempt to block a reporter from the public beach and from talking to BP workers. The reporter doesn’t give up and, when the police arrive, they agree the reporter can go anywhere on the beach.
It’s a shame that every single media organization in the country isn’t doing this as well. Fortunately, the Internet is helping to keep this story alive and prevent BP from covering it up as they continue to try and do.
