While the media has been strongly focused on the Middle East, a bombshell was set off last week with Hurricane Katrina. I posted about FEMA not allowing citizens in their trailer parks access to reporters. The only way they can talk to reporters is if a FEMA official is with them (sounds like the old Saddam “minders”). This not only infringes on the first amendment of the victims, but also the first amendment protection our free press and the very fabric of our society.
Well the story is starting to get a little more notice and even has some law makers in an outrage:
Members of Louisiana’s congressional delegation said Monday that FEMA’s policy restricting media access to residents living in FEMA-managed trailer parks is absurd, outrageous and denies park residents their rights as American citizens.
“FEMA just strikes you as a bureaucracy that’s out of control,” said U.S. Rep. Bobby Jindal, R-Kenner. “You don’t lose your fundamental rights just because you’re living in temporary housing. It’s an outrageous pattern of behavior.”
Jindal was referring to a July 15 article in which The Advocate detailed an incident in a Federal Emergency Management Agency-operated trailer park in Morgan City where a reporter and photographer were ordered off of the site.
The two had been invited into a trailer occupied by resident Dekotha Devall and her family. But during the interview a security guard ordered the reporter and photographer to leave.
The security guard called the police after the reporter attempted to give Devall a business card, an act the guard said was forbidden
Bush always brags that he is out to protect civil rights, yet this is one of the most blatant attacks on those rights yet. There is no excuse of “national security” or “executive privilege”. This is, pure and simple, an action you would expect to hear out of China or Cuba – not the United States. Bush should have shown immediate outrage over this, yet he hasn’t mentioned it. I really can’t blame him though without blaming the main stream media, who has ignored this story. They need to learn how to focus on more then one issue at a time. This story needs major play and hopefully the Democrats will take note of it.