Garry Reed reports at the Examiner:
Last fall, Antonio Musumeci, membership director and webmaster of the Manhattan Libertarian Party, was forced to the pavement by federal officers, had the video card from his camera confiscated, arrested, detained, ticketed, and further harassed and threatened with arrest on two successive occasions.
On Thursday, the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a civil rights lawsuit on Musumeci’s behalf against the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Protective Service, Inspector Clifford Barnes of the Federal Protective Service, and an unnamed federal officer.
The suit charges the agencies and individuals of “unconstitutionally restricting photography on federal property, including public plazas and sidewalks.”
Musumeci, known to his friends as “Bile” from his online “Blog of Bile” was manhandled by the federal officers on November 9, 2009 while he was recording an interview in front of the courthouse steps in Manhattan with Julian Heicklen, well known to Libertarian News Examiner readers as a libertarian activist who frequently attempts to distribute Fully Informed Jury Association (FIJA) pamphlets at the site.
A week later, Musumeci was again harassed and threatened with arrest by the same Inspector Clifford Barnes and a “John Doe” officer while again trying to record Heicklen at the federal courthouse.
This past Monday, Musumeci was harassed a third time by the same federal officers.
yep, Hitler and the Berlin Reistag excuse all over again! Been there, done that!