{"id":118,"date":"2011-08-26T10:49:50","date_gmt":"2011-08-26T16:49:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/?p=118"},"modified":"2011-08-26T10:49:50","modified_gmt":"2011-08-26T16:49:50","slug":"its-going-to-be-a-really-rocky-campaign-trail-rep-steve-chabot-criticized-by-tea-party-activists-for-seizing-cameras-from-democrats-at-town-halls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/?p=118","title":{"rendered":"it’s going to be a really rocky campaign trail: Rep. Steve Chabot Criticized By Tea Party Activists For Seizing Cameras From Democrats At Town Halls"},"content":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2011\/08\/25\/steve-chabot-tea-party-cameras-town-halls_n_936465.html<\/a><\/p>\n

WASHINGTON — After banning and confiscating cameras at his town hall events, Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) is taking heat from all sides — including from Tea Party activists Eric Odom and Judson Phillips.<\/p>\n

At a town hall meeting on Monday, a Chabot staffer directed a Cincinnati police officer<\/a> to seize video cameras and cell phones from two Democratic activists who were attending the event.<\/p>\n

This is the first report of cameras being confiscated at Chabot’s town halls, although he has been banning them<\/a> since at least June.<\/a><\/p>\n

Chabot spokesman Jamie Schwartz said the policy was meant “to protect the privacy of constituents,” saying there were “multiple instances where constituents voiced their concern about being videotaped when asking a question that revealed private information<\/strong>.”\u00a0\u00a0 [private info\u00a0shouldn’t be shared in a public forum in the first place !]<\/p>\n

Members of the media were also filming at Monday’s event, but their cameras were not taken.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

The controversy has yielded a rare moment of agreement between progressives and Tea Party activists. Odom sharply criticized Chabot in an email to supporters on Thursday, writing, “Just when you think you’ve seen it all… a story breaks about a Republican Congressman (or his staff) instructing police to confiscate cameras from constituents in the audience of a townhall event! Yep, you read that right, at a public townhall event, in a public venue (high school gym), hosted by a public official and coordinated by public staffers, personal\/private cameras and cell phones are now being forcefully removed to keep video footage from hitting YouTube.”<\/p>\n

. . .\u00a0\u00a0 at Chabot’s next town hall meeting, scheduled for Monday, cameras will not be confiscated<\/a>and individuals will be able to ask questions directly.<\/p>\n

“We will be modifying our policy to allow individual citizens to bring cameras to our town hall events and will be instructing those in attendance that if they have a private question for the Congressman that he will be available to meet with them after the meeting concludes,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2011\/08\/25\/steve-chabot-tea-party-cameras-town-halls_n_936465.html WASHINGTON — After banning and confiscating cameras at his town hall events, Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) is taking heat from all sides — including from Tea Party activists Eric Odom and Judson Phillips. At a town hall meeting on … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political-news-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gbvdems.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}