LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Detaining Blade staffers was wrong

The electrical grid outside General Dynamics Land Systems plant in Lima.

What is the world coming to when folks take photos of things in plain sight and get detained by military police (“Military police detain journalists from The Blade, hold equipment; Photographer’s cameras seized outside Lima tank plant,” March 29)? I cannot fathom that the military would sully itself with such actions.

Our congressional representatives and the military should be told about the gross inappropriateness of the detention of journalists taking pictures of what any passer-by could see.

LORI KARASEK

Monclova Township

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Unquestionably, question officials

Since 9/​11, the unquestioned sense of authority by anyone in a uniform has been a great concern of mine. While I recognize that safety officers and military personnel have tough jobs, I have seen too many examples of abuse of authority.

This country was founded on the idea that power and authority can and should be questioned. Since 9/​11, too many of us automatically think that anything a person who wears a uniform and is in a position of power might do is unquestionably right.

Unquestionably, I do have a right to question.

JOHN TRENDELL

Oregon

Blade journalists were unpatriotic

Your staff engaged in stupid and unpatriotic behavior. The refusal of your photographer to show simple identification was foolish.

The guards at the tank plant were trying to protect us all in this period of potential terrorism. If you could get the information from Google, go back to the office and do it.

The patriotic thing would have been for your staff to have contacted plant security. After all, one cannot just wander around The Blade.

DARYL BLANCHARD

Ottawa Hills

Blade wrong on plant photos

I’ve had it with the self-righteous Blade. Your journalists were next to a sensitive military installation, taking pictures of the plant’s power supply. Confronted, your photographer refused to provide a driver’s license, saying she didn’t have to because she wasn’t driving. Try that with a police officer.

After you got U.S. Sen. Rob Portman (R., Ohio) involved, who probably only helped so as not to get on The Blade’s bad side, the journalists were released after about an hour and their equipment was released a few hours after that. And now The Blade is considering legal action.

I can’t reach a real person at The Blade to complain about three weeks’ worth of newspapers that were delivered while I was on vacation, but you can call in a senator when your employees get caught playing in someone else’s sandbox.

DOUGLAS FAUST

West Gramercy Avenue

First Amendment was trampled

This incident sounds more like jackboot tactics than American police procedure.

I support the Constitution, regardless of one’s political ideology. When the First Amendment is trampled on by storm troopers, I want to see those responsible brought to justice.

If we don’t have a free press in America, we will be finished as a free society.

ROD TAYLOR

Auburn, Mich.