Rob Kall: Do the
police have the right to tell you to erase or delete what's on your camera or
your phone?
Medea Benjamin: Yes.
Er, I don't know - if they're involved in what they say is part of an
arrest or something - they usually don't say anything like that. Like in the Capital, we -- I don't think -- it
used to come up in the early days like ten years ago. When we first started they would try to stop
us, but then, I think they realized they didn't have -- I'm not exactly sure
about that. They would try to stop us
whether or not they had the right to do it, but these days they don't.
Rob Kall: I know in
some places police have literally arrested people for videotaping them. Is that ever a problem? I know in Philadelphia it was a problem. Police were arresting journalists for videotaping
them, and they were losing civil lawsuits, and the chief of police eventually
put out an order saying, "People are allowed to videotape police."
Medea Benjamin: Right.
I think the same thing happened here.
When we started doing this like ten years ago, the police would arrest
journalists. I remember at one of our
Civil Disobediences them arresting Amy Goodman when she was interviewing one of
us. There were a lot of journalists who
used to get arrested, but it doesn't happen as much now. I think during the Occupy Movement it
happened because journalists were a part of the crowd, but the police have been
better about it over the years here in D.C.
Rob Kall: OK. When you're done, what do you do with what
you did in the room?
Medea Benjamin: Well, you put out a press release so that the
press knows where they can find you and interview you, and you can tell your
side of the story. We did that just
immediately after I was released. In
this case we had a barrage of phone calls and interviews, so I went to a space
where journalists could come and find me and do interviews. Then, I think it's important to write your
side of the story, and so I did that the following day. But also, just to get as much press as
possible - you know, the old "Fifteen minutes of fame" - well, it's going to
come and go quickly, especially when it's Memorial Day Weekend and the window
of opportunity is very narrow, so we just did as much outreach as possible the
rest of the day Thursday and Friday.
Rob Kall: Have you
heard from the Obama camp since you did this?
Medea Benjamin: No, and I don't expect to, (laughs) although
somebody put up a funny petition on the White House site asking Obama to invite
me for a beer.
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