Occupy has vowed to return to Art Walk tonight, Thursday the 9th, and “Chalkupy” the sidewalks, as well as staging

an open community art and music space in Pershing Square with a community potluck and a “Really Really Free” Market.

Occupiers also plans to have a portion of the evening dedicated to the victims of LAPD violence at last month’s event including those arrested for chalking, those injured by police projectiles and other law enforcement weaponries, small businesses and artists who had to shut down early, and residents and patrons who the LAPD kept from entering or existing buildings until early the next morning.

In advance of tonight’s Downtown Los Angeles Art Walk, members of Occupy were arrested earlier today for chalking Pershing Square. The three arrested Chalkupiers were bused in from Occupy Oakland. Two were released, and one remained in jail on an outstanding warrant.

The Los Angeles Police Department–which came down hard on  Occupy last month for chalking the sidewalks, streets and crosswalks–is taking a firm stance on sidewalk chalking, as is the city. Los Angeles Police Department Capt. Horace Frank, of the Central Division, told the Los Angeles Times that his officers plan to enforce the anti-chalking law if they see it being broken:

It’s a violation of the law, it’s vandalism, and we’re going to make an arrest,” he said, adding that he has received frequent emails from downtown property owners complaining about damage from chalk.

“My BlackBerry is burning up with pictures of businesses being vandalized.”

Meanwhile, though the city has declined to press charges on the majority of those arrested for chalking–which seems like a huge waste of everyone’s time and a form of intimidation–no permits will be issued for  chalking:

Richard Schave, a founding member of the Art Walk non-profit, asked the city if it would be possible to create a “safe space” for the group to protest, after LAPD clashed with protesters at last month’s “Chalk Walk.” The city said that it could approve a permit for protesters to congregate at Pershing Square, but not if the event included chalking, which it does not consider lawful.

The President of Public Works, Andrea Alarcon, sent Schave a letter saying that the city considers chalking illegal activity:

“Unfortunately, a request for a permit to assemble in Pershing Square for the purposes of ‘chalking’ does not fit within the parameters of our permitting structure because the use of chalk to deface public or private property is not lawful.”

9:15 p.m: According to Channel 9 News, Chalkupy is going on at Pershing Square and no arrests have been made. While there is a police presence, it’s waaaay smaller than last month’s; and police say they are taking things on a case by case basis, with no arrests so far tonight. Meanwhile, some of the chalkers are heading to Art Walk.

Will update at next news report.

Photo: Twitpic @FreshJuiceParty

HT: LAist

Monday night at 7:15 PT, the Los Angeles Police Department held a lottery to decide which media could be credentialed for the LAPD Occupy LA media pool, in anticipation of the next raid. According to a mainstream media source who was there, the LAPD only wanted to allow one media outlet per medium (print, radio, television), but was persuaded to allow three of each:

the only media eligible for pool were those who were on the LAPD press release list and able to get to headquarters with an hour’s notice. So very few were represented at the meeting. I asked about independent radio/blogs and they said that only media with LAPD-issued badges would be allowed in the vicinity. I asked about those already at the camp, and they said after the unlawful assembly order everyone who doesn’t leave will be arrested, even those who are journalists. Our attorney was looking into whether there were legal challenges to be made.

No independent/citizen media was in the grab bag of media outlets selected. The LAPD Media Relations Department declined to tell me who was in the media pool, saying it was not for publication. Someone had called earlier and had been given the names and told the POI officer that they would not guarantee non-publication, so the officer was very wary. Why doesn’t the LAPD want that information released?

However a media source not in the pool relayed to me:

ABC, NBC and AP Video are the pool.

A print media source whose outlet is in the pool told me that Reuters, the LA Times (whose offices are across the street from Occupy LA, and would likely be within the LAPD’s perimeter, so they sort of have to be included) and

I think, the Daily News.

The source told me his/her employers were consulting with their attorneys and with the LAPD about the police department’s

restrictions on how we would be operating.

He/she said that each outlet is allowed one reporter who must be designated in advance. There is a separate pool for photographers.

There is concern from media that the LAPD may want to review material before publication or broadcast.

Under the LAPD’s guidelines, the OccupyLA media team–which includes photographers, videographers, livestreamers and reporters–is not credentialed.

There is no Spanish-language media in the pool in a city where 4.7 million people are Spanish speaking. As Monday morning’s midnight-plus-one deadline drew near, there were news crews from the BBC and a Tokyo station present, as well as KMEX (Spanish language). I saw KTLA which was live streaming and had a helicopter overhead, KNBC, KABC, KCBS/KCAL and stringers in unmarked vans. Reporters I ran into included ones from the LA Times and USC’s Daily Trojan, and dozens of people live streaming and taking pictures for blogs and independent media. Oh and Andrew Breitbart was there talking to some dudes with scarves over their faces.

The media presence played a huge part in keeping things nice Monday morning. When Occupy chanted

The whole world is watching

they were pretty close to the truth. The revolution is being televised. And if it weren’t being beamed into TV and computers around the globe, would the LAPD have acted with such restraint? One would like to think so, but odds are maybe not so much.

Breitbart photo: Linda Patron, used with permission

Note: Keven Gosztola will be live blogging events through the night, so tune in at The Dissenter for updates.

we await silent tristero's empire?

Hey kids, I bet it’d be fun to print out a few cables as holiday cards, wrapping paper and decoupage! Make silkscreens for tee shirts and posters! Or use them for logomancy and Burroughs-esque cut up.  Just get ‘em while you can at any of the these of sites:

http://wikileaksmirrorlist.blogspot.com/:

• wikileaks.ch – Official Wikileaks Page [173.227.66.20, 208.65.130.26 and others]
• wikileaks.fi – Mirror Finland [46.59.1.2]
• wikileaks.nl – Mirror Netherlands [46.59.1.2]
• wikileaks.de – Mirror Germany [88.80.13.160]
• wikileaks.eu – Mirror Europe [88.80.13.160]
• wikileaks.pl – Mirror Poland [88.80.13.160]
• wikileaks.at – Mirror Austria [46.59.1.2]
• wikileaks.lu – Mirror Luxembourg [46.59.1.2]
• wikileaks.se – Mirror Sweden [88.80.6.179]
• wikileaks.no – Mirror Norway [46.59.1.2]
• wikileaks.is – Mirror Iceland [46.59.1.2]
• nyud.net – Mirror United States [129.170.214.192]
• wikileaks.ca – Mirror Canada [46.59.1.2]
• wikileaks.info – Mirror of previous leaks [62.2.16.94]

Joe Berlinger, the director of Crude–and our guest on Movie Night in August 2009–has been ordered by a federal judge to turn over 600 hours of unused documentary footage to energy giant Chevron as part of the lawsuit discussed in the film. For more about the lawsuit, which pitted indigenous Ecuadorians against Chevron, click here.

Berlinger and his attorneys will appeal the decision.

In the wake of Judge Lawrence Kaplan’s decision, 200 prominent documentary filmmakers–including 20 Academy Award winners and names like Alex Gibney, Michael Moore, D.A. Pennebaker, Haskell Wexler, Laura Poitras, Louie Psihoyos, Nick Broomfield, Morgan Spurlock, Bill Moyers, Scott Hamilton Kennedy, Robert Greenwald and Ed Zwick–have signed an open letter of support protesting the breadth of the decision by Judge Lewis A. Kaplan. The letter, which was sent from the president of International Documentary Association with support or the IDA board reads:

May 13, 2010

An Open Letter in Support of Joe Berlinger
and the Documentary Filmmaking Team of
“Crude”

As members of the documentary film community, we the undersigned strongly object to the Honorable Judge Lewis A. Kaplan’s ruling last week in the case involving our colleague Joe Berlinger, the Chevron Corporation, and Berlinger’s 600 hours of raw footage shot during production of his documentary film “Crude”.

Judge Kaplan sided with Chevron and ruled that Berlinger must turn over all of his raw footage to Chevron for their use in the lawsuit discussed in the film. Berlinger and his legal team plan to appeal the ruling.

In cases such as these involving access to a journalist’s work material, whether they involve a newspaper or online reporter, a radio interviewer, a television news producer, or a documentary filmmaker, it is understood that First Amendment protection of the journalist’s privilege is never absolute. Typically, if such privilege is successfully rebutted in court, a turn-over order demanding a document or other thing is issued and the journalist must comply or face the consequences. Therefore, it is astounding to us that Judge Kaplan demanded that all of the footage shot during the production of the film be handed over to the attorneys of Chevron, given that the privilege exists primarily to protect against the wholesale exposure of press files to litigant scrutiny.

While we commend Judge Kaplan for stating “that the qualified journalists’ privilege applies to Berlinger’s raw footage”, we are nonetheless dismayed both by Chevron’s attempts to go on a “fishing expedition” into the edit rooms and production offices of a fellow documentary filmmaker without any particular cause or agenda, and the judge’s allowance of said intentions. What’s next, phone records and e-mails?

At the heart of journalism lies the trust between the interviewer and his or her subject.
Individuals who agree to be interviewed by the news media are often putting themselves at great risk, especially in the case of television news and documentary film where the subject’s identity and voice are presented in the final report. If witnesses sense that their entire interviews will be scrutinized by attorneys and examined in courtrooms they will undoubtedly speak less freely. This ruling surely will have a crippling effect on the work of investigative journalists everywhere, should it stand.

Though many of us work independently of large news organizations, we nevertheless hold ourselves to the highest of journalistic standards in the writing, producing, and editing of our films. In fact, as traditional news media finds itself taking fewer chances due to advertiser fears and corporate ownership, the urgency of bold, groundbreaking journalism through the documentary medium is perhaps greater than ever.

This case offers a clear and compelling argument for more vigorous federal shield laws to protect journalists and their work, better federal laws to protect confidential sources, and stronger standards to prevent entities from piercing the journalists’ privilege. We urge the higher courts to overturn this ruling to help ensure the safety and protection of journalists and their subjects, and to promote a free and vital press in our nation and around the world.

For more from Joe Berlinger on this, check out his blog on the Crude website

The United States Supreme Court has said it would consider an appeal from the father of a slain Marine who hopes to reinstate a $5 million verdict against Fred Phelps’ Topeka-based Westboro Baptist Church.

At issue are rights of free speech versus the right of privacy. Richard Levy, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Kansas told the Topeka Star:

This is a hot area of First Amendment law. There are a lot of issues swirling around this type of case, and the court may feel it should step in and clarify the law.

The SCOTUS ruling could affect state laws designed to curb funeral protests and potentially affect free speech. I don’t like how Phelps protests, I don’t care for what he says in the least; it’s shoddy theology designed for maximum PR. But so what? WBC has the right to say it, in the same way Anonymous has the right to protest outside the Church of Scientology with signs that say “Holy Xenu! Stop the Cult of Greed and Lies!” or morans have the right to march holding placards depicting whoever is president now as Hitler/Stalin/Mother Theresa.

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend unto to death your right to say it

wasn’t actually written by Voltaire, to whom the above quote is oft attributed; it’s a paraphrase of Voltaire’s attitudes by Evelyn B. Hall, possibly based on a letter the French philosopher wrote to Abbe le Riche in 1770:

Monsieur l’abbé, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.

Free speech–even Phelps’ troglodyte, hate-filled screed–is a necessary component of democracy. But as groups like Steal This Protest, the Pastafarians, Sabotage & Dialogue and others show, Phelps’ hate can be diffused.

Lets Keep it Fun, Funny, Clever, Stupid, and Absurd
and avoid the mean, hateful, political, or confrontational.

This is a party not a protest.
This is a celebration not a confrontation.
This is humorous and provocative street theater where we will respond to hate with love, humor and absurdity.

At the San Diego Pride Parade, the Phelpsbots are kept in a specific area with a horse patrol keeping them apart for the parade. The “God Hates <insert noun here>” crowd can bullhorn and shake their huge signs all day as they face the rear ends of the police ponies who um, kinda poop a lot when stationery.

Meanwhile, the publicity-loving, America-hating Phelps family is eagerly awaiting their moment before the Supreme Court:

Shirley Phelps-Roper, a church leader and daughter of Westboro founder Fred Phelps, said her sister Margie Phelps is likely to argue the church’s case before the Supreme Court. Shirley Phelps-Roper and Margie Phelps are licensed attorneys.

Phelps-Roper said it’s God’s will that the church gets to appear before the nation’s highest court. Regardless of the ruling, she said it’s a “win-win” for the publicity-hungry church.

“You know how hard we’ve worked to get in front of them?” she said. “We came to the kingdom for this hour.”…

Westboro’s adherents argue that the First Amendment is designed to protect speech the majority may not want to hear. But Phelps-Roper is ambivalent, noting that man’s law won’t matter much when America meets divine wrath.

“Her destruction is imminent,” she said. Laughing, she added: “And it’s going to be marvelous.”

The Phelps are bughouse loony, and satire and humor are great uses of free speech to point out their utter craziness. With clever counter-protests, rather than matching their hate with anger, the WBC can be handled, cooled and made to go away.

Limiting speech simply because the message is uncomfy sets a dangerous precedent.

And dancing frat boys kinda makes free assembly worth keeping too.