Posted on 04/18/2009 4:44:13 AM PDT by ebiskit
His crime? Daring to interview USC journalism students about Katie Couric’s journalistic practices. You can contact the Dean of the Annenberg School of Communications here:
Office of the Dean Annenberg School for Communication University of Southern California 3502 Watt Way Los Angeles, CA 90089-0281 tel. (213) 740-6180 fax (213) 740-3772
The school of Journalism Department (A division of the ASC) here:
School of Journalism USC Annenberg, Suite 303 tel. (213) 740-3914 fax (213) 740-8624
http://en.sevenload.com/videos/Mq9kYJs-Ziegler-Arrest
How can that be if the school receives any state and federal tax dollars?
How can 1st Amendment rights be violated on a campus that tax dollars funds?
If it is a private institution, then that will be duly noted.
Because in a fascist state, some pigs are more equal than others.
I’ve been on the USC campus without being a student or employee there. Was I trespassing? I didn’t see any no-trespassing signs.
A shopping mall is private property. Can a shopping mall institute a “no talking” policy because it is private property?
Isn’t there a difference between private property that’s open to the public, like a shopping mall, and the private property that is my own home?
Anyone a lawyer? I’d really like to know.
I saw the video yesterday and thought the same thing. USC is a public university and is significantly funded by the state of California. It’s as public as the local library. Unless a crime was being committed I don’t see how security could shut him down.
Sloppiest “arrest” I’ve ever seen. Rent-a-cops oughtn’t carry handcuffs if they don’t know how to use ‘em. It’s a god thing Ziegler didn’t have any evil intent, because it took them forever to get the cuffs on a compliant “prisoner”. Had he wanted to harm them, there wouldn’t have been a darn thing they could have done to stop him.
Couric wasn't going to say anything to earth shattering anyway, instead this guy has tons of footage of the arrest which makes his point even stronger.
Every time the left pull this crap the door springs back hard on their nose.
“Anyone a lawyer? I’d really like to know.”
You don’t need a lawyer. The 1st amendment is MORE than clear. Any time they pass a law against talking, the law is illegal. I hope he sues their butts off for this
I’m guessing his “papers” weren’t in order so the rent-a-gestapo arrested him.
The central mission of the University of Southern California is the development of human beings and society as a whole through the cultivation and enrichment of the human mind and spirit. From USC's site.
I guess they left out the part about it all being selective and relative...
I understand what you’re saying about free speech. Of course you are right.
But they won’t say “we arrested him for talking”.
They’ll say, “we arrested him for not leaving when we asked him to leave, and this is private property”.
So back to my question:
At USC or a shopping mall, can the owners or their goons ask anyone to leave anytime they want and have the force of law behind them because it’s private property?
I think they can. But as you say, they aren’t taxpayer funded
Meanwhile, Congressman Tom Tancredo tries to give a speech at UNC, and brownshirt goons break windows and scream him off the stage.
UNC is looking into it. Maybe. Someday.
Is this what Germany was like around 1930?
I read an interesting book while in college titled “How Democracy failed”. It was written by a Jewish girl whose family left Germany in the 1930s before it got really bad. It was an interesting street level view of how the small town she lived in changed. One of the chapters was titled “Freedom disappeared slowly” or something close to that.
A mall can deny your 1st Amendment rights.
It is a private business.
A tax-funded institution of higher learning most certainly can not.
If USC is privately funded, then it can.
I went to The Citadel.
I am am quite aware of what rights a person has on a tax-funded campus.
tahDeetz
Do they ever arrest the beasts who harass and intimidate speakers like Ann Coulter or David Horowitz? I rarely if ever hear of that happening.
Annenberg. Nuff said.
Greta gave unsolicited free advice.
She told the man to sue for his injuries.
NEVER. The leftist brownshirt goons are in class the next monday being praised by their profs for their “courage” in shouting down the “right wing haters.”
There is no longer freedom of speech for the right. They simply classify us as “haters” or “extremists” (the DHS report) and we are beyond protection.
Most universities have a different, unique culture, within which the law must still be enforced.
Most municipal law enforcement officers prefer not to negotiate the peace within those cultures, as they are immediately identified with outside authority, rather than an authority established by the representatives of the people forming that culture.
I suspect they are a separate security office, with more authority than most security organizations and with memorandums of understanding and agreement with the county sheriff and municipal police departments stipulating the jurisdiction and bounds of authority between the two.
In this particular case, if a film-maker was on private property, even though it serves publicly common accessways, he might fall under regulations imposed by the owner/reps.
In SoCA, where Hollywood attracts many aspiring filmmakers, and anybody who can afford to rent a camera, many municipalities have regulated film-making in public areas by requiring permits for those activities.
It wouldn’t be surprising if USC also had such a regulation for a number of reasons.
The second issue of detaining the person physically might be a separate issue.
I can think of a litany of reasons why making a film in areas perceived as ‘public’ might not be so ‘free’. If this was a School of Communications, the School also has a reputation at stake. It might have a number of vetting procedures for any correspondence originating from its facilities used to represent the School to the public.
The real issue, IMHO, especially amongst those directly involved is to identify legitimate authority and how one’s use of their freedom of speech is not encroaching upon the rights of others.
If somebody sicked the dogs on the filmmaker from the School of Communications, then I suspect they are seasoned and well understand many of the legal issues surrounding such interviews. They probably would even joke about it publicly, because they are in the same profession, but perhaps with different political views and think it funny for a junior peer to endure perhaps what they had to endure decades earlier. Chalk it up as a day of free education from a private institution of higher learning.
FWIW, USC is a ‘private’ college—though you’re right of course about the public funding.
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