Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
Sacramento journalist R.V. Scheide recounts his experience with an overzealous National Guardsman, who took him into custody for taking photographs at the airport. "When a half-dozen different cops tell you you've done something wrong for two hours straight, there's a tendency to start believing them, even if you haven't done anything," he writes. "That shadow of a doubt regarding my rights as a citizen and a journalist in the so-called sterile zone kept telling me that considering the 'war' was on, I should have known better, that I deserved to have my photographs erased, my notebook confiscated. The enormous pressure to 'stand united' with the country in the War on Terrorism added to my feelings of guilt. But how could I stand united when the very freedoms we were supposedly defending from the terrorists were being stripped away before my eyes--not by terrorists, but by fellow Americans?"
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