Facts Matter: Obama didn't sign law to 'snatch' protestors
Following President Donald Trump's deployment of federal agents to Portland, Oregon, and talk of sending other agents to Chicago, social media users falsely claimed it was former President Barack Obama who signed legislation allowing troops to detain peaceful protestors, according to PolitiFact.com.
"When everyone just blames Trump but forgets who actually signed the law authorizing federal agents to snatch protestors off the streets in Portland,” read a recent Facebook post.
The post appears to stem from the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, signed by Obama, PolitiFact said.
The legislation includes provisions for the military to detain terrorism suspects, but it doesn't reference peaceful protestors and has nothing to do with the situation in Portland, University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck told PolitiFact.
Vladeck said some Facebook users have incorrectly cited Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act as allowing the president to detain anyone for any reason. It only applies to suspected terrorists or people breaking the law.
Section 1315 of the Homeland Security Act, a provision for protection of public property cited by Trump, was signed by former President George W. Bush in 2002, PolitiFact said.
"So, federal agents cannot snatch any protestor off the street, only those threatening federal property or personnel, or who are also committing some other federal crime such as drug trafficking or national security laws," Vanderbilt University law professor Christopher Slobogin told PolitiFact.
A photo circulating recently on social media shows House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and three fellow Democrats standing in close proximity to one another while not wearing face masks.
The photo was shared by conservative media sites as an example of Democrats not following face mask and social distancing guidelines, according to the Associated Press.
#8220;Do as I say, not as I do,#8221; a Facebook user wrote while sharing the image. Another July 15 Facebook post declared, #8220;This photo is from this week. They are in private and don't know they are being photographed. SOMETHING IS MISSING. WHAT IS IT?? (And ask yourself WHY?)#8221;
The photo is real, but it's not from this week.
AP photographer Andrew Harnik took the photo of Pelosi, Rep. Adam Schiff, Rep. Eliot Engel and Rep. Richard Neal in December, months before the coronavirus had spread in the U.S., the AP said.
Harnik photographed the group on Dec. 18, 2019, reflected in a mirror, as they were having a discussion in a private room near the House floor after the House of Representatives had voted to impeach President Trump.
Pelosi and other representatives have since been photographed wearing face masks during the pandemic, the AP said.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson recently told his viewers the New York Times was planning to give out his home address.
"Why is the New York Times doing a story on the location of my family's home?" Carlson asked during the July 20 broadcast. "Well, you know why. To hurt us. To injure my wife and kids so I will shut up and stop disagreeing with them."
But the Times didn't publish Carlson's personal information, according to PolitiFact.com.
"@nytimes does not plan to publish Tucker Carlson's residence, which Carlson was aware of before his broadcast tonight," the New York Times tweeted on July 20.
Carlson did reveal the name of freelance reporter Murray Carpenter, who writes for the Times. The next day Carpenter's photo and address were shared online and some social media users were calling for people to harass him, PolitiFact said.
A photo recently making the rounds on social media shows Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lying in a hospital bed. The post claims King was recovering after being shot because the bullet didn't kill him. He was later smothered and killed by someone in the hospital, the post claims, and his widow sued the state and the U.S. government was found guilty of conspiring to kill him.
#8220;Nearly everything about this post is wrong or misleading,#8221; according to Snopes.com.
The photo is not from April 4, 1968, when King was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., but rather from 1958 after he was stabbed during a book signing in Harlem, Snopes said. Doctors removed a seven-inch letter opener from his chest.
In 1969, James Earl Ray was sentenced to 99 years in prison after pleading guilty to killing King. Thirty years later, the King family brought a wrongful death lawsuit against Memphis business owner Loyd Jowers who claimed he was paid to hire a hit man to kill King, Snopes said.
#8220;After a rather farcical, one-sided trial that allowed for no other result, the jury returned a verdict in favor of King's family,#8221; Snopes said. The decision also claimed governmental agencies were part of the conspiracy.
#8226; Bob Oswald is a veteran Chicago-area journalist and former news editor of the Elgin Courier-News. Contact him at boboswald33@gmail.com.