Koch Brothers Hired Goons to Track and Threaten Critics and Reporters?

Koch Brothers Hired Goons to Track and Threaten Critics and Reporters?

EXCERPT...

In particular, Vogel noted the events in California over the weekend, with Koch-paid guards tracking resort guests deemed "suspicious," and erecting a blockade to prevent cameras from filming arriving guests.

Inside the resort at the beginning of the conference, "there was an atmosphere almost of paranoia," said Gary Ferdman, a Common Cause official.

Ferdman had reservations at the resort and stayed there Thursday and Friday night. He said he was told Saturday that his lunch reservations at the resort restaurant had been canceled and was urged to check out and leave promptly by a member of Koch's large security detail.

Security manned every doorway and stairwell near the ballrooms where Koch events were held, and threatened to jail this POLITICO reporter while he waited in line at the resort's cafe, after he stopped by a Koch conference registration table.

The resort grounds were "closed for a private function," the resort's head of security, James Foster told POLITICO, ushering the reporter outside, where private security guards, wearing gold lapel pins bearing Koch's "K" logo, threatened "a citizen's arrest" and a "night in the Riverside County jail" if the reporter continued asking questions and taking photographs.

CONTINUED w LINKS...

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/460155/koch_brothers_hired_goons_to_track_and_threaten_critics_and_reporters/#paragraph3

Before the zombie show, state media duly warned of "violence" ahead. "Foreigners" were blamed for the protests. The dreaded Interior Ministry ordered everybody in the streets to "go home" - and so did the Mubarak-approved Grand Mufti of Egypt. And according to an opposition source talking to al-Jazeera Arabic, the "businessmen" - that is, the billionaire cronies of Mubarakism - duly dished out the funds to smash the protests. ---Link

Journalists in Egypt – domestic and foreign – are increasingly under siege, with Egyptian authorities detaining reporters and gangs of young men roaming the streets looking for anyone with camera equipment.

Some of the pressure has come from the government: Six Al Jazeera journalists were detained for several hours earlier this week, and while they were eventually released, their equipment remains with the police.

Earlier on Thursday concerns were raised as another three reporters went missing. They have now returned, safe and well, to their hotel.

Two New York Times reporters were reportedly arrested – or "taken into protective custody", as the government termed it.

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Spotters stand outside many hotels, watching balconies with high-powered binoculars. When they see balconies with camera equipment or photographers, they use radios to call in the details.

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