Palast Charged with Journalism in the First Degree

Yep, you read it right and the guy who wrote one of the most hilarious and investigative books to come out, "Armed Madhouse" has been charged by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with criminal conduct.

It is happening and the nation of paranoid amnesiacs motors along in 10 mpg SUV's munching on junk food cussing liberals; the Bloggers with a videotape, anti-war tee-shirt protesters, bumpersticker environmentalists, and now one of the last independent investigative reporters with any wide-scale exposure: arrested.

Greg Palast writes about a hilarious, but serious escapade with the doughnut eating, bored DHS gumshoes.

Read an excerpt then go to the link below and follow his advice at the end of the article.

On August 22nd, for LinkTV and DemocracyNow! we videotaped the thousands of Katrina evacuees still held behind barbed wire in a trailer park encampment a hundred miles from New Orleans. It’s been a year since the hurricane and 73,000 POW’s (Prisoners of W) are still in this aluminum ghetto in the middle of nowhere. One resident Pamela Lewis said, “It is a prison set-up” — except there are no home furloughs for these inmates because they no longer have homes.

To give a sense of the full flavor and smell of the place, we wanted to show that this human parking lot, with kids and elderly, is nearly adjacent to the Exxon Oil refinery, the nation’s second largest, a chemical-belching behemoth.

So we filmed it. Without Big Brother’s authorization. Uh, oh. Apparently, the broadcast of these stinking smokestacks tipped off Osama that, if his assassins pose as poor Black folk, they can get a cramped Airstream right next to a “critical infrastructure” asset.

Two weeks later Palast delves into the criminal complaint by calling the "victim" - poor old Exxon energy ...

So I rang America’s top petroleum pusher-men and asked their media relations honcho in Houston, Marc Boudreaux, a simple question. “Do you want us to go to jail or not? Is it Exxon’s position that reporters should go to jail?” Because, all my dumb-ass jokes aside, that is what’s at stake. And Exxon knew we were journalists because we showed our press credential to the Exxon guards at the refinery entrance.

The Exxon man was coy: “Well, we’ll see what we can find out… Obviously it’s important to national security that we have supplies from that refinery in the event of an emergency.”

Really? According to the documents our team uncovered from the offices of Exxon’s lawyer, Mr. James Baker, the oil industry is more than happy to see a limit on worldwide crude production. Indeed, the current squeeze has jacked the price of oil from $24 a barrel to $64 and refined products have jumped yet higher — resulting in a record-busting profit for Exxon of nearly $1 billion per week.

So this silly “criminal complaint” has nothing to do with stopping Al Qaeda or keeping the oil flowing. It has everything to do with obstructing news reports in a way that no one would have dared attempt before the September 11 attack.

Greg may be a bit off on the "Peak Oil" issue, but he doesn't deserve any of this harassment. Read the whole article to the bottom where he passes important support information to readers.

Click below:
Palast Charged with Journalism in the First Degree Greg Palast