Citizen Journalist Threatened Over Youtube Videos

I don’t blame him. I’d leave them up, too, and even populate them in various accounts all over Youtube and Vimeo.

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Rebel Pundit has received the following threatening letter via our YouTube account message inbox, from a YouTube user known as stephaniepinta.

Concerning one of your videos

You have a video of a gentleman at the tea party rally in Chicago this past tax day (Monday). I am requesting that you please remove it from Youtube as well as your website “rebelpundit.com“. If nothing is to be done on your side to remove this material from the internet, actions will be taken to make sure this video is removed and negative repercussions may follow. It is quite evident that you were harassing this man, and there is no evidence of a video/photo release statement. If this video is not taken down in a timely manner, please be aware that you will be contacted again quite soon. If you have any questions or concerns, please send them to my email account: StephaniePinta@gmail.com.‬

[…]

Please allow us to be very clear. At Rebel Pundit we do not appreciate threats against our First Amendment rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution or our right to publish freely under section 4 of the Illinois Constitution. Perhaps the “gentleman” in the interview should have thought a little bit harder about his own personal choice to show up at a public protest on public property with a large sign publicly voicing his opposition to the event.

So going to a public place with a derogatory sign while shouting profanities isn’t harassment but politely asking a guy why he’s in public with a derogatory sign while shouting profanities is? Photo release statement? No. The man on the tape was engaging in public protest and by the very nature of such an act was asking for media coverage. No statement is needed, just like no statement was needed for the media when they covered the Madison protests, et al. Nice try, but no dice.

The remedy to threats against free speech is more free speech. The remedy against incessant footage of ill-behaved progressives is to ask your fellow ideologues to stop acting in such a manner, at least publicly.