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Posted on 08/24/2011 8:24:50 PM PDT by Immerito
A Concord man giving away lemonade at a farmer's market was threatened with wiretapping charges last Saturday when he refused to stop filming a police officer and a fellow vendor. Garret Ean didn't have a permit to sell lemonade, which drew the ire of the president of the Concord Farmer's Market. Ean filmed the confrontation, and continued to film when a Concord cop showed up and threatened to arrest him for wiretapping. Photojournalist Carlos Miller (who we interviewed for the November issue of Reason about the war on photography) has the story:
The man, whom Ean identified as Steve Blasdell, ordered Ean to turn off the camera.
Ean instead engaged him in a debate about what constitutes vending.
At 2:48, Blasdell shut down Ean’s camera, but Ean turns it right back on.
That was when Ean turned from lemonade activist into photography rights activist, claiming he was now “a member of the press.”
And that was when Blasdell tried to grab the camera from him after first trying to grab his cooler of lemonade.
The two men squared off with Ean accusing him of assault while Blasdell said it was not assault because he was only trying to swipe the camera without touching any part of his body.
Blasdell then ran off to call police while Ean announced he is giving away “free lemonade.”
Whoops, I failed to hit the excerpt button; the above is an excerpt
(Excerpt) Read more at Reason.com ...
http://reason.com/blog/2011/08/24/concord-cop-threatens-camera-w
gawd save us from the lemonade stands!
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to ALL:
This is that same place where it turned out the cops were setting up husbands with ho’s who would encourage them to drink, and then get PULLED OVER FOR DUI.
And then end up losing custody in a divorce, and then getting taken to the cleaners.
I’m serious.
Also up the hill a cop was dealing drugs and busted massage parlors that were competing against the one HE WAS RUNNING..!!
Rules are rules. Follow them or sell your lemonade somewhere else.
When law enforcement wishes to infringe upon the privacy of a citizen they say, “If you are doing nothing wrong, you should not mind.” Why does this not apply to law enforcement, especially regarding something as innocuous as a lemonade stand? Photographing and videotaping in public settings are not crimes. Pray for the republic.
These number of these camera confrontations with cops and politicians continue to grow. Darkness fears the light of truth...
Idaho is a one party state in this respect. As long as one party knows they are being recorded, it is all good.
Is this Massholechussetts or NH?
Nevermind.
It’s California!
(Concord is an East Bay suburb of San Francisco.)
From the first line of the article:
A Concord man giving away lemonade at a farmer's market...
Do you actually read the articles, or do you just shoot your mouth off when The Police State needs some support?
No reasonable expectation of privacy there. Keep filming...er...recording. Dang, starting to show my age...
Concord, California PD is FAMOUS right now for amazing levels of corruption. You won’t believe it:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/03/MNLS1J9OC2.DTL#ixzz1LOsmNX2l
Does not even sound like America.
“It starts when activist Garret Ean sat on a public sidewalk during a farmer’s market in Concord, New Hampshire to sell lemonade during Saturday’s Lemonade Liberation Day.”
Actually, New Hampshire.
http://www.pixiq.com/article/lemonade-protester-gets-assaulted-threatened-with-arrest
I apoligize: The officer’s name is something totally different —the Blasdell guy is just the head of the Farmer’s Market.
But the tape otherwise appears to confirm all his other details:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyfccIngq64
I hope we have not already caused John Adams to repent:
“Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present Generation to preserve your Freedom! I hope you will make good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven, that I ever took half the Pains to preserve it.” —John Adams
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