If you go to see the Sundance Award winning film,“Gasland” at the IFC Center in New York City, or if you saw it on HBO this past summer, watched it on PBS or saw it at last fall’s Sundance Festival, then you’re a concerned citizen exercising your right and duty to stay informed.
However if you saw the film in Pennsylvania, watch out. According to a leaked document from the State Department of Homeland Security, published by Pro Publica, since so-called “environmental extremists” pose an increasing threat to … the energy sector,” your seeing the film in Pennsylvania could get your name circulated to law enforcement officials eager to protect the gas drilling industry from ordinary citizens like you.
As reported by Rachel Maddow and in the Pennsylvania paper, the Patriot News, Homeland Security Director James Powers compared himself to Tommy Lee Jones’ character in the film “The Fugitive.” Powers said, “I don’t care” which side of the issue someone is on — or if they’re innocent. “My concern is public safety.” However, the “intelligence” in the briefings includes lists of public meetings the state has determined anti-drilling activists plan to attend.
Even with gas drilling’s mounting record of water contamination, air pollution, explosions and fires, up until now no one had ever claimed that its dangers were attributable not to the process itself, nor to a lack of appropriate federal regulations, but instead to ordinary citizens exercising their free right of assembly to watch a film.
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