When, exactly, will security guards be briefed on the First Amendment? A reporter is trying to write a story on what looks like a spectacular mismanagement of money by FEMA and starts interviewing a hurricane victim in her FEMA trailer:
[Dekotha] Devall described her experience during an interview in her trailer, saying she wanted to get some help and to let others know what it’s like living there.
But during the interview, a security guard knocked on the trailer door and ordered the reporter and photographer to leave “immediately.”
“You are not allowed to be here,” the guard yelled. “Get out right now.”
As they left, the guard refused to let the reporter give Devall a business card so she could contact the newspaper later by phone.
“You will not give her a business card,” the guard said. “She’s not allowed to have that.”
When the reporter persisted, the guard ordered Devall to return to the trailer, saying the reporter was “not allowed” to talk to her.
The guard then called the police.
Later the same day, the reporter and photographer pulled off La. 70 to talk to Pansy Ardeneaux through a chain-link fence surrounding the FEMA park. Ardeneaux said she and her boyfriend had just moved into the park.
“We had to wait about two months from the time he applied for the trailer until he got it,” she said.
As Ardeneaux talked, the same security guard pulled up.
“You are not allowed to talk to these people,” the guard yelled at Ardeneaux. “Return to your trailer now.”
A clearly flustered Ardeneaux returned to her trailer.
Oh, the anger.
More on FEMA’s idiot policy, which has apparently just been reversed.
how could we have known until now that when a major hurricane wipes out your home, nieghborhood, livelihood, sense of being, happiness, history and community, it also robs you of your civil rights?