Admiral Thad Allen, who is appointed to oversee the BP disaster site for the Coast Guard and the Obama administration, has issued a bizarre directive of Orwellian proportions: it is now a felony to approach within 65 feet of the cleanup efforts, including booms. And scarier still, we're told that they originally wanted the keep-away zone to be 300 feet. This effectively destroys the media's ability to cover the scene and to talk to cleanup workers.
Allen's rationale for this? He claims: "I actually had some personal complaints from some county commissioners in Florida and some other local mayors that thought that there was a chance that somebody would get hurt." And yet, no one investigating this story has been able to locate these alleged commissioners and mayors who supposedly complained. As far as we know, such officials want more coverage and information about what's really going on, not less.
The cognitive dissonance of issuing this absurd and un-American violation of the First Amendment here on the Fourth of July weekend is just too ironic. Already, we're hearing talk from lifelong Democrats about opposing Obama in the next election, specifically over this issue. (We here at Meta-Oceanic are as apolitical as they come, but if Obama doesn't step forward and countermand this Government-imposed media blackout order fairly immediately, he's lost our confidence as well. The "transparency" that Obama and Allen have spoken of so often has turned out to be precisely the same sort of bullying tactics and coverup activity we've seen in previous administrations.)
Several prominent citizens and members of the media, including Louisiana politician Billy Nungesser, have already publicly stated their intent to flout this new law.
Click here to view CNN's Anderson Cooper expressing outrage about being prevented from properly covering this story. Another copy of the video is here.
