[Infowarrior] - Palast Charged with Journalism in the First Degree

[Richard Forno]

Palast Charged with Journalism in the First Degree
Published by Greg Palast September 11th, 2006 in Articles

September 11, 2006
by Greg Palast

It¹s true. It¹s weird. It¹s nuts. The Department of Homeland Security, after
a five-year hunt for Osama, has finally brought charges againstŠ Greg
Palast. I kid you not. Send your cakes with files to the Air America wing at
Guantanamo.

Though not just yet. Fatherland Security has informed me that television
producer Matt Pascarella and I have been charged with unauthorized filming
of a ³critical national security structure² in Louisiana.

On August 22, for LinkTV and Democracy Now! we videotaped the thousands of
Katrina evacuees still held behind a barbed wire in a trailer park
encampment a hundred miles from New Orleans. It¹s been a year since the
hurricane and 73,000 POW¹s (Prisoners of W) are still in this aluminum
ghetto in the middle of nowhere. One resident, Pamela Lewis said, ³It is a
prison set-up² ‹ except there are no home furloughs for these inmates
because they no longer have homes.

To give a sense of the full flavor and smell of the place, we wanted to show
that this human parking lot, with kids and elderly, is nearly adjacent to
the Exxon Oil refinery, the nation¹s second largest, a chemical-belching
behemoth.

So we filmed it. Without Big Brother¹s authorization. Uh, oh. Apparently,
the broadcast of these stinking smokestacks tipped off Osama that, if his
assassins pose as poor Black folk, they can get a cramped Airstream right
next to a ³critical infrastructure² asset.

So now Matt and I have a ³criminal complaint² lodged against us with the
feds.

The positive side for me as a journalist is that I get to see our
terror-busters in action. I should note that it took the Maxwell Smarts at
Homeland Security a full two weeks to hunt us down.

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