CBS News crew threatened with arrest for filming Louisiana beach.

CBS News crew threatened with arrest for filming Louisiana beach.

As oil from the massive BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico approached the US coastline, a CBS News crew was threatened by the US Coast Guard with arrest if they attempted to film a beach in South Pass, Louisiana.

"When we tried to reach the beach ... a boat of BP contractors with two Coast Guard officers on board told us to turn around under threat of arrest," CBS's Kelly Cobiella reported on Tuesday.

"This is BP's rules, it's not ours," an officer can be seen calling from the other boat in the CBS video.

Unbelievable.

The article continues:

Since this initial brief report, the CBS video clip has been widely reposted, but there has apparently been no followup from either CBS or BP. The Coast Guard, however, released a statement from Rob Wyman, Lieutenant Commander, USCG, Deepwater Horizon Unified Command.

Neither BP nor the U.S. Coast Guard, who are responding to the spill, have any rules in place that would prohibit media access to impacted areas and we were disappointed to hear of this incident. In fact, media has been actively embedded and allowed to cover response efforts since this response began, with more than 400 embeds aboard boats and aircraft to date. Just today 16 members of the press observed clean-up operations on a vessel out of Venice, La.

The only time anyone would be asked to move from an area would be if there were safety concerns, or they were interfering with response operations. This did occur off South Pass Monday which may have caused the confusion reported by CBS today.

The entities involved in the Deepwater Horizon/BP Response have already reiterated these media access guidelines to personnel involved in the response and hope it prevents any future confusion.

This statement has provoked additional concerns, however, since it apparently indicates that the practice of military "embeds" is being extended to this domestic crisis.

[edit on 21-5-2010 by loam]

mod edit, to add link

[edit on Mon May 24 2010 by DontTreadOnMe]

This is major. Storms would be good for clean up. I think the whole gulf coast cities should evacuate from Texas, to West Florida. WAit it out a season and pray for alot of storms so nature cleans it out. This is beyond man's ability! We can rebuild a city, but we can't filture an ocean!

[edit on 21-5-2010 by assasinforfather]

This is BP rules, not ours.

Jeez, I wish I was down there and some Asshat attempted to tell me that a private company could tell me to do ANYTHING.

I usually carry. Would love to see someone tell me I could not go to a public place. Would love it.

I really love the deflection. Well we have allowed this many people to go with us. Yes, they allow media to come along on their tour.

Just not allow unescorted media.

Crock of feces.

Poor turtles and other wildlife! Poor us! Who knows just how much devestation we will witness.

reply to post by endisnighe


MY friend if you are in your way south to film the Louisiana coast or Florida don't hesitate to stop here in Ga and come pick me up I will go with you to film also and see who is going to tell us we can not be in US territory as Citizens in public land.

BTW I have friends in Loisiana Coast.

Great post!

Funny, I didn't think BP made laws...weird to hear an account of an actual officer saying-

"this is BP's rules, not ours".

Really? BP's rules!?

Do they have the right to be making anything along the lines of rules? Funny, I thought this was all their fault and that 11 people died because of their failure to obey rules.

Eh...screw BP.

They are so doomed...and if they get away with this, they are surly getting away with "murder".

BOO BP!!! BOOOOOOOOOO TO YOU AND YOUR SLOPPY GREED AND LACK OF MORALS!

reply to post by marg6043


No, I am sitting up north here. Hoping sooner or later I can find a yob.

Getting a little spooked on the complete lack of any yob growth with spring hitting here.

My state is one of the better off in the nation but still no real yobs.

I tell you. If I was down south, I would be filming and photographing everything. I travel everywhere with my digital cam, vid cam, and digital voice recorder. Use to use them in my old yob in construction. So much easier to send my subcontractors photos or videos than trying to explain the problem. Also for keeping track of the exact locations of the underground utilities.

Just trying to meekly ride out the storm. Damn cigarettes went up another 50 cents in taxes today.

Ooooh I hate taxes on my tobacco. Just started some tobacco seeds. I hope they produce. I would love to quit giving the gov 20% of my money I spend. $7.50/day in cigs and that is $5.75 in taxes. Oh well.

According to the MSM, everything is getting better. Including the oil spill.

Well here is a scenario:

"This is BP rules, not ours."

In other words, your film crew is being paid by CBS, CBS is being paid by large advertisers like BP! BP is spending millions of dollars in marketing for the Gulf Coast and also for themselves to counteract this disaster.

So, "This is BP rules" means if you want to keep getting a paycheck, quit messing with BP. "Not Ours" means please don't blame us Coast Guard guys, we are sickened by the orders to be here protecting these BP criminals, but we need a paycheck too!

Nice little statement slipped in there by a very savvy Coast Guard soldier!

reply to post by endisnighe


Sorry to hear that you are to far in the north and having problems due to the economy, I am going to ask my husband if he wants to take a trip to the coast this weekend just to see how it looks like.

My friends in Louisiana said that they have not see anything yet and they are just on the south of New Orleans.



[edit on 21-5-2010 by marg6043]

It's no surprise that they don't want the fact that up to 14 times the governmnet and BP quoted amount of crude is being spilled per day. It's having a far greater impact than they are capapble of containing and they have to protect the offshore drilling expansion plans.

Gulf Oil Spill - How much per day?

wow.. I live in Louisiana and I wake up to this.

See.. this is PB paying off guards to muscle people.. a very stupid move.. that's what happened with Hurricane Katrina and all the corrupt cops.

This is going to ruin the seafood industry in the area for many years to come. On the news yesterday it's said that experts now believe that 10 times the amount of oil the thought is spewing out into the water.. the estimate was 10 thousand barrels a day.. so make that 100 thousand barrels a day.

PB should be forced to pay for these peoples livelihoods not the government. They should be fined heavily for everyday they don't get the situation under control. They should have to foot the bill for all cleanup.. not a penny of government money should be used.

There are government agencies in place to enforce these types of things when companies screw up and take advantage of people. They are letting this company get away with these things and not doing their job. They are crooked and corrupt.

If we get a hurricane this summer.. this is going to get much worse.. imagine all that oil picked up and deposited all over the place even more not to mention spread more throughout the ecosystem.

[edit on 21-5-2010 by JohnPhoenix]

reply to post by marg6043


Hell yes, lets strike out. Screw BP and their rules. Lets go make a short film.

reply to post by JohnPhoenix


Everyone needs to S+F this thread because this is a big deal. Also reply so it gets a lot of views since it will be top of the recent posts! YOU CAN DO IT GUYS! Let's get this thread on the front page!

reply to post by BeastMaster2012


I've already star and flagged all 3 of them..

One of them is bound to get up there I guess.

Originally posted by BeastMaster2012
reply to post by JohnPhoenix

 

Everyone needs to S+F this thread because this is a big deal. Also reply so it gets a lot of views since it will be top of the recent posts! YOU CAN DO IT GUYS! Let's get this thread on the front page!

I agree with that.. Can ATS members take down an oil company... Let's find out!

Already posted www.abovetopsecret.com...

DEPLORABLE!!

And this cracked me up and pissed me off at the same time..."EMBEDDED"

In fact, media has been actively embedded and allowed to cover response efforts since this response began, with more than 400 embeds aboard boats and aircraft to date. Just today 16 members of the press observed clean-up operations on a vessel out of Venice, La.

[edit on 21-5-2010 by loam]

Prior to the Iraq War the Bush administation decided that they wanted to control the press covering the war...how to do that? ...The "Embedded" reporter was born. They go only where they are permitted to go and are constantly managed by the military on the ground...in essence obliterating any real freedom of movement or objectivity.

BP has learned well.....embed the reporters and keep those boats in strategic positions where the oil is able to be collected, where no real impact is visible, tell them how minor the spill is etc... if Sea turtles start washing up on shore...move the reporters!

If anyone goes "off the reservation" for the real story....like this CBS team, arrest them!!

[edit on 21-5-2010 by maybereal11]

[edit on 21-5-2010 by maybereal11]

dont' worry about the old ones, we have to focus on this thread now. This has better potential to get up on a bunch of places on ATS site because it is newer..

Everyone FLAG this thread![/headline

A duplicate thread already exists. Please continue the conversation here:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Thread Closed

[edit on 5/21/2010 by junglejake]