APS press conference goes bad.

An otherwise uneventful press conference at AHS, turned into
a PR nightmare for the Albuquerque Public Schools.

Mark Bralley, link, and I were thrown out of the AHS press
conference in retaliation for our effort to investigate and report
upon the truth.

It is important work;

"The Press was protected so that it could bare the secrets
of the government and inform the people.
Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose
deception in government. And paramount among the
responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent
any part of the government from deceiving the
people."
(emphasis added)
Justice Hugo L Black

After the most of the conference was over, a group of four of
APS' Praetorian Guard* confronted us, telling us that we
had to leave because the press conference was "... not a public
event".

(Which begs at least one question; why not? Why do press conferences
with a mayor and a school superintendent need to be secret from the public?)

In any event, we established that we were not among the great
unwashed, that we were in fact "the press". In the most comic
part of the interaction, Mark showed them a press pass for the
White House. To which, the armed Praetorian responded;

"... never heard of them."

We decided to have a little fun with them, so we took them up
on their offer to escort us to the administration.

As Mark and I were establishing
the facts, Monica Armenta
barged in. She has exactly zero
authority at the school but,
took control of the situation
any way.

She informed us that her
"23 years" as a news reader
made her an authority
on the First Amendment.

She wanted to see "our press credentials". Of course, there is
no such thing as press "credentials". What Armenta was looking
for was something issued by a media outlet that met her
personal approval.

A free press is credentialed by the United States Constitution.The right to be a free press is a constitutionally protected
human right. There is no piece of paper, badge, trinket, or secret
handshake that must be learned in order to exercise
a constitutional right.

She later suggested that such a credential is available through
the NM State Police. It is not, of course. The NNSP has
neither the authority, nor any apparent interest in,
"credentialing" members of a free press.

Armenta's suggestion proves only that she was asking to
see "credentials" that she had never seen before gained
through a process about which she knows nothing.

When I asked her to cite the rule, regulation, or policy
that she was "enforcing", she told me that she "didn't have
the time" to tell me.

Seeing that they were getting nowhere with that tack, they
moved on the the fact that we didn't have "visitor passes".

We didn't, because the principal had earlier made it quite
clear to us that we didn't need one. A fact that he admitted
to, on the record.

No one else at the press conference was wearing a visitor pass.

Monica Armenta is laboring under two false assumptions;

1. That there is in fact some "credential", without which, one
cannot exercise their constitutionally protected human right
to be a free press, and

2. that she has the authority to demand to see those
credentials. She does not.
Her position as APS' Executive Director of Communications
does not provide for her, a warrant to invade our privacy.
Who we represent as members of a free press is none of her
business. A free press is not accountable to Monica Armenta.

The United States Supreme Court has ruled that
a guy in a basement with a Xerox machine is a free press.

Does Monica Armenta really suppose that
the First Amendment doesn’t apply to bloggers?

Does anyone really suppose that there are credentials,
without which, a citizen cannot exercise their constitutionally
protected human right to be a free press? And further that,
that credential is issued to them at the whim of the government?

It wouldn't be a right, if you have to have Monica Armenta's
blessing in order to exercise it.



* APS' Police Department is not accredited, certified, or
certificated by anyone. They report directly to, and only to,
the leadership of the APS.

Any complaint against them, would have to be filed with the
same people who ordered them to harass us in the first place.




photo Mark Bralley