FEMA muzzles Katrina victims

July 20, 2006

As if [tag]FEMA[/tag] hasn’t done enough already, the agency now believes it can interfere with hurricane victims living in FEMA [tag]trailer parks[/tag] doing [tag]interview[/tag]s with [tag]reporters[/tag]. If there’s a reasonable explanation for this, I can’t think of it.

Residents of trailer parks set up by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to house hurricane victims in Louisiana aren’t allowed to talk to the [tag]press[/tag] without an official escort, The (Baton Rouge) Advocate reported.

In one instance, a security guard ordered an Advocate reporter out of a trailer during an interview in Morgan City. Similar FEMA rules were enforced in Davant, in Plaquemines Parish.

FEMA spokeswoman Rachel Rodi wouldn’t say whether the security guards’ actions complied with FEMA policy, saying the matter was being reviewed. But she confirmed that FEMA does not allow the news media to speak alone to residents in their trailers.

“If a resident invites the media to the trailer, they have to be escorted by a FEMA representative who sits in on the interview,” Rodi told the newspaper for its July 15 report. “That’s just a [tag]policy[/tag].”

No, that’s just crazy. There’s no legal way for a government agency to interfere with two First Amendment freedoms, without explanation, simply because the affected Americans happen to have been victims of a hurricane.

Imagine losing your home to Katrina. You feel like your government has let you down. Left with limited options, you’re living in a FEMA trailer park, which is on public property. A reporter wants to talk to you about your experiences — but the government tells you that you’re not allowed to talk to a journalist without a FEMA representative on hand to [tag]monitor[/tag] what you say.

Asked for an explanation, you’re told, “That’s just a policy.”

Gregg Leslie, legal defense director for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said FEMA’s refusal to allow trailer-park residents to invite news media into their homes unescorted was [tag]unconstitutional[/tag].

Morgan City Mayor Timothy Matte told The Advocate that he was surprised residents were being barred from talking to reporters.

“I would think anyone who lives there would be allowed to have any visitor they wanted,” he said.

I have a hunch we’ll see this policy get “corrected” fairly soon. It’s inviting a lawsuit FEMA is certain to lose. And as a matter of common sense, it’s indefensible.

Was this “security thug” invited into the trailer by the resident—or did he just barge in? Was there a warrant involved, allowing for unauthorized entry into someone’s private home—or are we talking criminal trespass, intimidation, and aggravated menacing here?

What happens if the resident elects to speak with reporters outside the trailer? Outside the trailer park? Are we on the verge of seeing “security police” following people around? Will they be wearing trenchcoats and wide-brimmed hats?

Holy Hochstetter, Batman—it’s the Gestapo!

  • Typical Bush administration operating procedure. Do it until you get caught and then either blame the policy on a the people inforcing, say there was some miscommunication of a less obnoxious policy but still blame the enforcers, try to change the law to allow for it, or just go on like nothing happened.

  • “And as a matter of common sense, it’s indefensible.” – CB

    Actually, it might be more ‘common’ sense for the Government to conclude that they are providing all these wonderful trailers and all the residents do is bad-mouth them, so they should be able to craft a policy to insist that their representatives need to be in on the interviews.

    It just happens to be unconstitutional.

    But I say let’s play to the policy. Every cub reporter in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi needs to schedule an interview at a FEMA trailor park on the say day at the same time and INSIST that FEMA send a representative. Overload the idiots until they realize just how stupid their policy is.

  • Holy shit. And today Broder in the WaPo said that bloggers are being too strident by using words like “authoritarian.”

    Holy shit.

  • “If a resident invites the media to the trailer, they have to be escorted by a FEMA representative who sits in on the interview”

    Are you sure this is Lousiana and not North Korea you are describing? This is just insane. Does the Bush Administration have only one impementation plan for governement – impose martial law?

    I cannot wait to see who rushes to the defense of this policy. I’m sure there will be a logical and well thought out explaination like “The FEMA trailer parks are an Al Queda target” or “Some people say that the press should be able to talk to whomever they like without being censored. That is clearly pre-9/11 thinking. These people are obviously anti-American and they stand against Jesus.”

    Damn.

  • I wonder if this comes from FEMA itself, or DHS. Aside from rounding up some obviously insane people in Miami and labeling them as a terrorist cell, just about every report that even mentions DHS, has been a colossal embarrassment. Pedophiles, Duke Cunningham and the trashing of FEMA itself have left the agency tarnished to the point that it should be dismantled. This reeks of a desperate last ditch effort at damage control.
    I imagine the political overlords are terrified of a DHS implosion as we head into the midterms.

  • Remember how bad it was that Sadaam required all foreign visitors be accompanied by “minders?”
    Just askin’.

  • Saddam’s minders, the Soviet Union’s handlers–I realize it would be paranoid to wonder whether any FEMA trailers are bugged, but who knows these days?

  • This is clearly inefficient. Why doesn’t the government just set up a Bureau of Factual Reportage and require reporters to file their stories and get an OK prior to going to press, to ensure that the public is properly served by accuracy in the media?

    I’m expecting to hear next that NSA had the trailers built with wiretaps installed in case the residents should start plotting to have another hurricane.

    Why are the Republicans sounding more and more like 1950’s soviets?

  • Why is it that Repubs want the government out of their lives if their trying to make as much money as possible unless, of course, the government is giving them a big subsidy/no-bid contract or you are bad-mouthing the goverment or disagreeing with them. Stink, stank, stunk!

  • I wonder what other policies govern FEMA trailer parks. Are there curfews? Noise policies? Visiting hours? Random searches? FEMA and other government agencies have taken a decidedly uncharitable view of Katrina residents — simply because they’re poor and/or displaced. So what’s to stop the federal government from impinging on a few more rights?

    Call me cynical, but even if FEMA loses a First Amendment lawsuit over this policy, residents will find themselves evicted from their trailers if they make unflattering comments toward the agency and our Dear Leader to the press.

  • ***…residents will find themselves evicted from their trailers…***

    Which is precisely why “Dear Leader” muist be deposed. The One-Ten sits as of January 3rd—only 167 days until someone can call for real investigations….

  • I’ve lost count of the times over the past five years that I’ve read about something this administration has done and muttered, “Wow, just like the Soviet Union.”

    Patt Morrison’s column     in today’s LA Times discusses the numerous incidents in which citizens have been prevented from photographing public buildings, landmarks or artwork(!) because everything has changed since 9/11.

  • “…aren’t allowed to talk to the press without an official escort,….”

    The last time I heard that phrase was nearly thirty years ago when a demographer colleague of mine returned from a year in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. I asked him how free he was to discuss Demography with his counterparts there. He said that before he could ever talk to any of them, an “official escort” had to be present. Peter Mazur (my demographer friend) spoke fluent English, Polish (where he was born), French, German, Russian and could pretty well make himself understood in most Eastern European languages. so the purpose of the “escort” obviously wasn’t translation. Creepy.

  • I wonder what other policies govern FEMA trailer parks…-prm

    My understanding is that when an unmarried woman has a suitor calling, she must leave the trailer door open and both the woman and the suitor must have both feet on the floor at all times.

    It appears to me that the lesson BushCo. learned from Katrina is: when you screw up make sure the press doesn’t see it. Nah, I take that back. Cheney learned that back in the Watergate days. Katrina simply reinforced the lesson.

  • “So, where’s the federal government in this case?” – 2Manchu

    They can provide Media Minders for interviews but not additional marshals or local police funding to protect the inmates in their little minimum security prisons.

  • 2Manchu and the Katrina song
    I’ve never heard/seen it before but it sure reminds me of the “Stalinowe jasne slonko” (Stalin’s bright sun) song that some friends of mine (a year or two older than me; I didn’t start school until ’56, after the beginning of the “thaw”) sang every day at the beginning of the school day (much like people here pledge allegiance to the flag). The said bright sun smiled on all the children, and kept them warm and safe.

    Aaaahhh… The longer Bush rules, the more it feels like home 🙂

  • Enemy combatants in government custody have no rights. Guantanamo Bay rules apply in all FEMA camps.

    I bet blogging from a FEMA trailer is also illegal.

  • The proper response from a reporter in this situation is to refuse to leave and to demand to be arrested.

  • i dont live in one of there trailers but i stayed in one of there unofficial ha ha!! shelters on 8/07thru9/0 if your looking for someone to talk to about the last 2 years an the double talk they feed us i’m game an really feed up with the system sweeepingus under the rug,

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