Reporter Arrested on Orders of Giuliani Press Secretary

Charged with Criminal Trespass Despite Protest of CNN Staff and Official Event Press Credentials at GOP Debate in New Hampshire
Aaron Dykes & Alex Jones / Jones Report June 5, 2007

Manchester, NH - Freelance reporter Matt Lepacek, reporting for Infowars.com, was arrested for asking a question to one of Giuliani's staff members in a press conference. The press secretary identified the New York based reporter as having previously asked Giuliani about his prior knowledge of WTC building collapses and ordered New Hampshire state police to arrest him.

Jason Bermas, reporting for Infowars and America: Freedom to Fascism, confirmed Lepacek had official CNN press credentials for the Republican debate. However, his camera was seized by staff members who shut off the camera, according to Luke Rudkowski, also a freelance Infowars reporter on the scene. He said police physically assaulted both reporters after Rudkowski objected that they were official members of the press and that nothing illegal had taken place. Police reportedly damaged the Infowars-owned camera in the process.

Reporters were questioning Giuliani staff members on a variety of issues, including his apparent ignorance of the 9/11 Commission Report, according to Bermas. The staff members accused the reporters of Ron Paul partisanship, which press denied. It was at this point that Lepacek, who was streaming a live report, asked a staff member about Giuliani's statement to Peter Jennings that he was told beforehand that the WTC buildings would collapse.

Giuliani's press secretary then called over New Hampshire state police, fingering Lepacek.

Though CNN staff members tried to persuade police not to arrest the accredited reporter-- in violation of the First Amendment, Lepacek was taken to jail. The police station told JonesReport.com that Lepacek is being charged with felony criminal trespass.

Lepacek did receive one phone call in jail which he used to contact reporter Luke Rudkowski. According to Rudkowski, Lepacek was scared because he had been told he may be transferred to a secret detention facility because state police were also considering charges of espionage against him-- due to a webcam Lepacek was using to broadcast live at the event. State police considered it to be a hidden camera, which led to discussion of "espionage."

Wearing a webcam at a press event is not an act of espionage. Alex Jones, who was watching the live feed, witnessed Lepacek announce that he was wearing a camera connected to a laptop that was transmitting the press conference live at approximately 9:20 EST. When Lepacek announced that he was broadcasting live, Giuliani staff members responded by getting upset at his questions and ordering his arrest.

Freedom to Fascism reporter Samuel Ettaro was also dragged out after asking a question on Giuliani's ties with Cintra and Macquerie, two foreign contractors involved with the contentious Trans-Texas Corridor under development in Texas. The entire incident took place in a large press auditorium, apart from the debate stages where authorized media were able to question candidates and their handlers.

Since when do campaign operatives have the power to order state police to arrest someone on false charges or arbitrate who has the right to conduct journalism, a right guarded by the Constitution?

A warning to the press-- if candidates or police don't like your questions, you could be arrested for trespassing and even espionage in the new Orwellian America.

The state police in Goffstown, New Hampshire, where the arrest was made, confirmed that Lepacek is in custody on charges of criminal trespass. Police said information on who filed the trespass complaint was not yet available and would be filed in the police report.
It is clear from talking to multiple eyewitness, as well as the live webcam, that there could not have been a complainant who originated police action, because it happened spontaneously. The police need to be very careful about violating the Bill of Rights and falsely charging someone with a felony crime. This constitutes extreme official oppression and is a total violation of the reporter's civil rights. It would have been bad enough if the reporter would have just been thrown out, but to arrest him when he had a valid press pass and CNN protested his arrest is an outrage.

The arrest-- which clearly violated the First Amendment-- was recorded from two separate camera angles, including a live feed recorded remotely-- so the episode is on record in the event that police destroy or lose tapes seized from Lepacek in attempt to obfuscate the facts of the incident.

If you doubt that police would assault reporters, seize video equipment and act on political orders, then consider the experience Alex Jones had when Texas state troopers arrested him for asking George W. Bush a question during a press conference while he was governor. See video below.

Reporters Matt Lepacek and Luke Rudkowski, both members of WeAreChange.org , as well as freelance reporters for Infowars.com, have also been previously accused-- falsely-- of being terrorists with bombs and have undergone multiple episodes of harassment during peaceful demonstrations and attempts at exercising the right of free press .

HARPERS WEEKLY REVIEW

Thirty-seven American soldiers were killed in Iraq, ending the deadliest month for U.S. forces in the past two-and-a-half years. U.S. military commanders were negotiating cease-fires with Iraqi militants, Turkish troops shelled northern Iraq, and in Baghdad the country's preeminent calligrapher was shot to death. Iraq was found to be the world's 121st least peaceful country out of 121 countries; the United States ranked 96, below Yemen but above Iran.

The crowd at the Miss Universe competition in Mexico City booed Miss America, and in Crawford, Texas, Cindy Sheehan resigned as the "'face' of the American anti-war movement." "Good-bye America," wrote Sheehan. "You are not the country that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can't make you be that country unless you want it."

Paris Hilton went to jail and, according to family members, "breaks down crying a lot because she can't deal with the reality and the pressure." Hundreds of men serving life terms in Italian prisons demanded to be put to death. "We are tired of dying a little bit every day," said the inmates in a letter to Italian President Giorgio Napolitano. "We have decided to die just once."

Jack Kevorkian was released from prison, and Damien Hirst unveiled a diamond-encrusted human skull valued at $100,000,000. Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to point his country's missiles at Washington and Europe, China and India were preparing to race to the moon, and a Polish man who had been comatose since Communist rule awoke.

Adults and children in the European Union were getting fatter, and a judge in New Delhi ruled that government-employed air hostesses had to lose weight. "If by perseverance, the snail could reach the Ark," said Justice Rekha Sharma, "why can't these worthy ladies stand on and turn the scale"; farther south, in Agra, a mob of lawyers stripped a low-caste youth, tied him to a tree, shaved his head, spat on his face, and beat him. "No one," said Bar Council of India Vice President Rajendra Raghuvanshi, "can take law in their hands." Sex stimulants were banned in Australian prisons. Argentine researchers used Viagra to treat jet lag in hamsters, and in New York, a psychologist named Gordon Gallup announced that semen may be a powerful and addictive antidepressant for women.

An Italian doctor built vaginas for two women who lacked them due to Mayer-von Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser syndrome, Serb farmers were exchanging cows for penis-enlargement surgery, and an Egyptian jurist at Al-Azhar University was disciplined for issuing a fatwa that permitted women to breastfeed adult men.

Japanese engineers unveiled a gray-skinned child-android with the physical abilities of a toddler, and a robot was assigned to guard duty at a South Korean school. The robot, said DU Robo CEO Kang Jung-Won, "will alert officials when it detects someone trying to seduce a student." Duke University lost the the men's NCAA lacrosse championship.

Nazi-released raccoons continued to wreak havoc from the Baltic Sea to the Alps. "We like the United States of America," said retired German orthodontist Dieter Hoffmann, "but we do not like your Waschbaeren!"

Peruvian scientists were concerned that an itinerant penguin from Chile "could suffer discrimination" among Peru's penguins, a family in England claimed that they were being chased out of their neighborhood because they are redheads, and a family in Morocco were evicted from the toilet where they had lived for several years. "When he came home," said the mother of her son, "he would cry and asked me why we lived in the toilet.

"Elephants were fleeing war in Sri Lanka, while at least one elephant in eastern India was robbing motorists. Battalions of macaques were attacking the houses of Indian congressmen. "In the name of protection of monkeys," said an activist, "we cannot afford to be silent spectator to this perennial problem." Scientists in Des Moines, Iowa, talked to apes, who responded by pointing to lexigrams, and it was revealed that young sparrows learn their songs by eavesdropping. A group of men in New York City were accused of using GoogleEarth to plot a terrorist attack on underground jet-fuel lines, a hot-mud volcano in Indonesia had been erupting for one year, and in the midst of a bright, dusty lava-plain on Mars, astronomers discovered an immensely deep cavern from which no light escapes.

-- Rafil Kroll-Zaidi