Two frontline Investigative Journalists face 85 years prison sentences between them, for reporting on the North Dakota Access Pipeline, Deia Schlosberg, a documentary filmmaker and Amy Goodman were arrested on seperate occasions on felony conspiracy charges within days of one another, in the same week that celebrity and activist Shailene Woodley was arrested. Both Journalists face long sentences, Dia Schlosberg for 45 years and Amy Goodman for 40 years in prison, court cases will be commencing next week. Dia Schlosberg was held for 48 hours in Pembina County Jail without access to her attorney.
The North Dakota police who arrested both of these journalists are in violation of the First Amendment agreement, charging journalists with conspiracy rather than accepting them as they are - journalists reporting in the field. It appears that the US Judicial system and the Police are acting to protect the interests of corporations and politicians rather than the people, especially the people whose land this pipelines passes through via Sacred Native American Burial Grounds and Sacred Land of the North Dakota Indigenous People. A violation of the First Amendment can only mean that this is a warning message to any other journalists that attempt to document what is happening on the front lines at the North Dakota Access Pipeline. An outright attack on the Free Press.
Amy Goodman on the frontlines. Photo released on Facebook for reuse courtesy of Democracy Now.
Amy Goodman, award winning journalist and host on ´´Democracy Now´´, returned to report from the front lines at the North Dakota Pipeline after being arrested, despite what she is facing, which is a 40 year prison sentence. Investigative Journalists are supposed to have First Amendment Rights, they are not conspirators but bringers of acurate objective and truthful information. It is our right to that information as well. They represent the people's interests without corporate biasedness that is tainting the judicial system.
Kelsy Warren is a fossil fuel billionaire, he built up Energy Transfer Equity which manages 71, 000 pipelines, one of which includes the North Dakota Pipeline, he has invested $743,000 funnelled through lobbying to Republican politicians according to Opensecret.org
Photo by Joe Brusky via Flickr
Ecoterrorism?
The phrase was coined way back when Margaret Thatcher was still in power, I remember seeing and hearing the words that the politicians and media came up with ´´Environmental Terrorists´´, a label for environmental campaigners, animal rights activists and conservationists that were now being seen as a threat to corporate enterprises, a media campaign was swiftly implemented to make people forget that we are not protesters but protectors of the environment.
In the mid-1980s, these corporations got together and created a new word “ecoterrorist” or ''eco-terrorism'' which is ironic if you think about the word itself, the true ecoterrorists are the oil barons that want to lay the North Dakota oil pipeline across Native American land and waters in North America, or the Fracking companies that have now been granted permission to Frack the North Yorkshire countryside in the UK, or the Chinese Mining companies displacing indigenous people and destroying rural Ecuador for minerals, its the corporations that are ecoterrorists not the people defending Mother Nature.
We are environmental protectors and land defenders, not ecoterrorists, not protestors, not extremists. These protest movements involving land defenders have been growing very quickly and effectively over the decades as corporate greed has risen beyond and above environmental laws, as corporations can now buy politicians through lobbying, the raping and pillaging of nature has been beyond the extent of the legal environmental conventions and laws. While people all over the world have stepped up against corporations taking advantage of resources in protected areas there has been concern from the governments and corporations that unless public opinion shifted, there’d be a really big problem on their hands which is one of the many malevolent reasons why the Trans Pacific Partnership was created, to protect these giant corporations and their agenda to exploit the Earth's natural resources beyond the environmental protection laws.
Please sign the petition below for Deia Schlosberg and Amy Goodman
Protect Freedom of The Press
SIGN THE PETITION PROTECT FREEDOM OF THE PRESS: Drop Charges Against Journalists for Covering North Dakota Pipeline Protests http://www.thepetitionsite.com/en-gb/918/394/985/protect-freedom-of-the-press-drop-charges-against-documentarian-deia-schlosberg/?taf_id=29807350&cid=fb_na
PLEASE READ AS THIS ARTICLE IS SUBJECT TO UPDATES
Just in - a North Dakota judge today, dismissed the criminal charges that had been filed against Amy Goodman, over her reporting on a controversial oil pipeline project. "No journalist should ever be charged with a crime for doing their job," said Tom Dickson, Goodman's attorney. "We were vindicated today."
News still awaits on Deia Schlosberg's case as she faces 45 years prison sentence.
by Carlita Shaw
Further research
Dia Schlosberg & activist and celebrity Shailene Woodley
https://trofire.com/2016/10/13/documentary-filmmaker-faces-45-years-prison-covering-pipeline-protest/
Kelcy Warren Chairman of Energy Transfer Equity
https://www.facingsouth.org/2016/09/meet-texas-billionaire-and-gop-donor-behind-north-dakota-pipeline-controversy
Kelsy Warren contributions to the Republicans
http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/search.php?name=kelcy+warren&cycle=All&sort=D&state=&zip=&employ=&cand=&submit=Submit+Query
The article I published a month ago about dwindling freedom in press and environmental journalism
Activism not Terrorism, Land Defenders, 9/11 Truth and our dwindling Freedom by Carlita Shaw
https://steemit.com/politics/@carlitashaw/activism-not-terrorism-land-defenders-9-11-truth-and-our-dwindling-freedom
My book- The Silent Ecocide, a crisis of human consciousness
https://www.amazon.com/Silent-Ecocide-Environmental-Crisis-Consciousness/dp/1512365718