Press intimidation hits home

I don't know why people find it so difficult to believe our troops are intimidating the press in Iraq when intimidation of dissenting press voices happens here in the US on a regular basis. Take this latest example.

More than a dozen local law enforcement officers and Secret Service agents detained journalist Lyng-Hou Ramirez of Grupo de Diarios America for one hour Saturday at an Organization of American States meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., according to a complaint she filed with OAS. She was not told why she was detained, she said.
Ramirez is content director for the Miami-based Grupo de Diarios America, which compiles information from 11 newspapers in Latin America.

..."They said this was international territory because of the conference," she said. "They said 'we make the rules, not them.'"

The agent finally told her she could leave, but kept her press credentials and told her she would have to obtain new press accreditation.

Law enforcement authorities remarkably, claim no knowledge of the incident.

This is why we don't get anything but regurgitated White House press releases from the major US media anymore. Only the foreign press and the ever dwindling US independent journalists have the balls to stand up to this sort of intimidation.