FLASHBACK: Innocent arrest at the RNC (by Kyle Cheney, currently with Politico)

The Daily Free Press ^ | September 7, 2004 | Kyle Cheney

[maggief]

Hampered, trumped, infringed and violated. Even Roget doesn’t have enough words to describe the assault on First Amendment rights that I, along with thousands of others, suffered during the Republican National Convention in New York City in late August.

In this era when doomsday scenarios constantly emanate from the lips of the Bushies, when Jefferson, Washington and Adams have taken a back seat to fearing the Axis of Evil, we can ill-afford to forget for even a moment the vision of liberty and freedom of expression that our forefathers mapped out for us in the Constitution.

Yet, it seems the New York City Police Department and its henchmen in the justice system all came down with a collective case of Constitutional amnesia during the GOP convention. Even more appalling was the steady stream of outright lies and unmitigated praise for the law enforcement effort spewing from the bowels of Madison Square Garden throughout the convention housed inside.

In fact, the only thing dirtier than the Republican invective was the slick and grimy prison floor on which I was forced to sleep after being arrested near Ground Zero in New York City last Tuesday. And what happened to me could happen to anyone.

It started at 4 p.m., when Johns Hopkins sophomore Monica Wendel and I stopped by Ground Zero because we heard the War Resisters League was planning a huge but peaceful march to Madison Square Garden. We found a large crowd as expected along with dozens of police in riot gear.

The megaphone-wielding officer in charge told the crowd mixed with young and old that although they didn't have a permit to march, they could do so as long as they obeyed traffic laws and walked two-by-two on the sidewalk, staying out of the streets.

So Monica and I decided to follow the march because it seemed like the most interesting and important event of the day. Besides, as long as we obeyed the police officers simple rules we'd be OK, right?

Wrong. It was an "amBush" in waiting. A classic sucker punch from Mayor Michael Bloomberg, looking to bolster his reputation among Bush ' Co.

The marchers marched half a block and as suddenly as a Democratic Senator Zell Miller blindside, the line stopped. We heard shouting behind us and suddenly hundreds of cops doing the Texas two-step surrounded us with wire netting. In what seemed like a minute or two, we were handcuffed and sitting on the curb, some 300 of us bent, as some would have you believe, on spoiling Bush's re-coronation.

And then something happened that I'll never forget.

After sitting on the curb for more than an hour watching police casually photograph and videotape the detainees, a cop pulled me aside. He asked me why I was there and how I got involved. Without listening to a word I said, he told me to stop wasting my time and the police's time by protesting.

"You're government doesn't give a [expletive deleted] about you," he told me, adding that if I wanted my voice heard, to go vote in November.

And I wondered to myself, is this what it has come down to in this post-9/11 world? Are constitutional rights to express oneself and assemble - rights for which thousands of Americans have died to preserve - less important than spoiling the pristine view of the Bush Administration and keeping New York's mayor in good favor with the GOP?

That day, they were. And I spent my first 12 hours in police custody in Pier 57, or what it later became known as: "Guantanamo on the Hudson."

Pier 57 is a warehouse along the Westside highway specifically reconstructed to hold prisoners during the convention. There, males and females were separated, our property confiscated and we were thrown 50 at a time into barbed wire cages that could barely hold 25.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told The New York Times that most of the detainees were held for 90 minutes, and that none were there longer than eight hours and all had immediate access to toilet facilities and drinking water. Does Roget have a list of words for liar?

I was in Guantanamo for 12 hours.

Because of the overcrowding, dozens of us had to sleep on the motor oil-drenched concrete floors. Some released protesters claimed that after their Pier 57 stopover, their clothes tested positive for asbestos, a claim that may bring a hefty class-action lawsuit against the city.

My appearance before a judge took all of 30 seconds and, as I found out later, one of the city judges demanded the immediate release of 500 prisoners due to the city's intentional and unnecessary delay. The city was fined $1,000 for each prisoner that was incarcerated overtime. This judge based the decision on a 1991 law stating that the police must release anyone arrested in New York State who is not arraigned before a judge in less than 24 hours.

From my first moment in cuffs until my final jail cell closed behind me, 25 hours had elapsed.

This unequivocal and undeniable violation of civil and constitutional rights may actually inspire more protests than it deters, but either way, George Orwell's grim prophesies grow truer. And although Big Brother is only watching me for the next six months (part of a deal most protesters struck with the judge to dismiss the current charges if we stay out of trouble for half a year), I am genuinely scared.

Scared that my government can conscientiously deny peaceful protesters the right to march. Scared that strong-arming cops under orders from Republican demagogues dictate policy more than the Constitution. Scared that the America I grew up in has become a memory and the reality I live in can never claim to be what it once was: A land that cherished freedom of expression, distinguished between peaceful protesters and malicious terrorists and, most of all, upheld the Constitution honorably and completely.

Please forgive us, forefathers.

Kyle Cheney, a sophomore in the College of Communication, is a city assignment editor for The Daily Free Press.

[maggief]

A look at POLITICO's hit-piece reporter Kyle Cheney's college days mindset.

[maggief]

http://www.politico.com/staff/kyle-cheney#ixzz3qoOA55mC

KYLE CHENEY
Reporter

Kyle Cheney is a reporter for POLITICO’s Campaign Pro.
Cheney came to POLITICO in June 2012 to cover health care and spent two years covering the implementation of the Affordable Care Act and its political implications – from the Supreme Court decision upholding the law to the rollout of HealthCare.gov and the coverage gains that ensued. He came to POLITICO after five years reporting on Massachusetts government and politics for the State House News Service, an independent wire service. Coverage, which appeared daily in The Boston Globe, Boston Herald and others, included the implementation of a near-universal health care law; the indictment, trial and conviction of the state’s third felonious House speaker in a row; the rise and reelection of Gov. Deval Patrick; and all matters of public policy.

Cheney, a New York native and unabashed Yankees fan, graduated from Boston University in 2007 with a journalism degree after a semester as editor of BU's student paper, The Daily Free Press.

[Ouderkirk]

It’s interesting how they pendulum has swung the other way where there is absolutely NO DISSENT from the democRAT media complex about Bath-house Barry or Killary.

[M Kehoe]

I'm guessing Kyle's mom and dad weren't at the convention.

5.56mm

[G Larry]

Hey Kyle,

Go march with a Pro-Life group if you want to find out what kind of abuse is tolerated. First from the Pro-Abort hate groups, then from the cops, then from the judge.

As for your Roget’s, try to find behavior at the RNC convention that corresponds to your claimed “invective”.

[Jeff Head]

This says all you need to know about the guy...then, and now.

“Kyle Cheney, a sophomore”

[Candor7]

And thus we now have “ Black Lives Matter and “Kill the Pigs!”

Poor Kyle, wanting to disrupt a GOP Convention and he was unable to do so. Poor , poor little ash hat.

[maggief]

http://dailyfreepress.com/2007/04/19/letter-good-coverage-is-worthwhile/

LETTER: Good coverage is worthwhile

Written by - April 19, 2007 12:00 am

n Adan Berkowitz’s disdain for the very media that gives him a voice is an alarmingly narrow-minded generalization. (”A campus in grief distracted by media attack,” April 18, p. 9). While sensationalism is all too prevalent in certain segments of the press, to ignore examples of remarkable, in-depth coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre is equally egregious.

Tragedies such as this are the rare moments in U.S. history when the country collectively holds its breath, anxiously waiting for the newest fact or detail to emerge. In these cases, we rely on reporters on the ground to ask tough questions and capture the horror and pain that sent shock waves around the world.

It surprises me that amid the supposed “swarm” of reporters marauding like vultures on the Virginia Tech campus, Berkowitz failed to notice the intrepid coverage by the Roanoke Times, a local outlet that has the most comprehensive, to-the-minute coverage and became a virtual bible for out-of-town reporters. The paper currently features a moving tribute to the victims on its main web page.

Berkowitz also curiously missed the fantastic USA Today coverage, and even his hometown Boston Globe made a fine showing.

To be sure, the Talking Heads do have a way of obscuring issues and turning them into partisan talking points, and they certainly make a lot of noise. But they are hardly representative of the media as a whole, which, at least on this story, performed masterfully.

Kyle Cheney

COM ‘06

Former editor-in-chief of The Daily Free Press

[BradtotheBone]

He look’s like your typical left wing agitator.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Kyle Cheney, a sophomoric loser.

Fixed! :)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Jeff! Post #10, LOL!

[AlphaOneAlpha]

There is something definitely wrong inside this boy's head. No surprise that he now works for the Politico rag

[Jeff Head]

Amen to that.

Kyle is a graduate cum laude of the Dan Rather school of journalism.

[TexasCajun]

Even more appalling was the steady stream of outright lies and unmitigated praise for the law enforcement effort spewing from the bowels of Madison Square Garden throughout the convention housed inside.

Sounds like he's related to cop-hater, Quentin Tarantino.

[georgiarat]

The liberal went to work at Politico. Who could have guessed that! Sarc.

[thouworm]

Posted this yesterday on the Rush thread.

Kyle Cheney is a reporter for POLITICO's Campaign Pro.

Cheney came to POLITICO in June 2012 to cover health care and spent two years covering the implementation of the Affordable Care Act and its political implications - from the Supreme Court decision upholding the law to the rollout of HealthCare.gov and the coverage gains that ensued.

He came to POLITICO after five years reporting on Massachusetts government and politics for the State House News Service, an independent wire service.
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Politico's Kyle Cheney Swallows Obama Fiction on When It Figured Out CGI's Healthcare.gov Failure

[The_Media_never_lie]

I can see Kyle spending most of his life as a disgruntled, leftist agitator loser.

[Desron13]

After viewing this miscreant's photo I'm left wondering if that's just prepubescent facial hair on his chin or is it also combined with a purple beard of acne scars. Nothing says looser like a whining libtard who set out to get arrested, succeeded and then blames “The Man”.

[maggief]

http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/playbook/2014/10/20-days-to-midterms-playbooks-winner-loser-of-the-day-dems-shrink-house-map-as-bleak-abc-wp-poll-records-record-low-obama-rating-cbs-campaign-team-bdays-lis-smith-rick-berke-212543#ixzz3qpLguBRu

ENGAGED – Politico Campaign reporter Kyle Cheney to Hannah Lauterback. He writes : “We met in Boston in 2011 while she was in grad school at Emerson College and I worked just across the Common covering the State House. She came with me to D.C. and after a stint at National Geographic, she’s now an editor at Living Social. We got engaged in the pouring rain in Concord, Mass. about a mile from Walden Pond. Picture is from right after — we’re wetter and less comfortable than we appear.” Pic http://bit.ly/1sKuxCA

https://www.theknot.com/us/hannah-lauterback-and-kyle-cheney-aug-2015#our-wedding

https://www.facebook.com/kyledcheney?pnref=story

[AllAmericanGirl44]

bkmk