These days you’d think that perhaps — maybe from reading this blog — free expression, commercial or otherwise, were solely an Internet issue, and the MSM is mostly on the other side of it, hiding behind some pretextual body of law or another. (And perhaps you’d think free expression were solely a suntan lotion issue!) But it’s not:
DENVER–Police in Denver arrested an ABC News producer today as he and a camera crew were attempting to take pictures on a public sidewalk of Democratic Senators and VIP donors leaving a private meeting at the Brown Palace Hotel.
Police on the scene refused to tell ABC lawyers the charges against the producer, Asa Eslocker, who works with the ABC News investigative unit. . . .
A police official later told lawyers for ABC News that Eslocker is being charged with trespass, interference, and failure to follow a lawful order. He also said the arrest followed a signed complaint from the Brown Palace Hotel.
Read the whole article (via Glenn Reynolds), which includes language we don’t even bleep out at 
LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION®, and video.
Pretty bad. It’s actually chilling when they don’t merely have lawyers send letters but use blue muscle to prevent the press from doing its job. I think they call that “prior restraint”? I don’t know what could possibly be in that “signed complaint” from the Brown Palace Hotel to justify this — should we ask them?
Maybe this is one Floyd Abrams could actually win?
UPDATE: Glenn links back to Likelihood of Success (where I cross-posted this; thanks) and to this story from the Washington Post, which includes this gem:
Jamie Glennon, a spokeswoman for Denver’s Joint Information Center, said Eslocker “was advised numerous times by the police before he was apprehended to stop blocking the sidewalk and entryway to the hotel.”
Yeah, “joint information” sounds about right! Rocky Mountain high and all. Either that or — despite how they look in the picture — those Denver sidewalks are mi-i-i-i-ighty narrow.
Originally posted 2013-08-15 15:06:11. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
Yep… first they came for the “terrorists.” Then they came for the “anarchists.” Then they came for the “offensive.”
Now they have come for the MSM.
Vote Republican! it is much easier than thinking about this kind of stuff.
Marc, do you have any idea how profound of a non-sequitur your last sentence is? — RDC