"Democracy Now!" host Amy Goodman appeared on HuffPost Live on Tuesday to talk about her infamous 2008 arrest at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, and the increasing militarization of police forces across the country.
Goodman was arrested by local police along with two of her producers. The police ignored their press credentials and left them bloody and bruised. The arrest drew immediate outrage, and Goodman and her team eventually filed a federal lawsuit, for which they received a settlement.
Speaking to HuffPost Live's Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, Goodman described what the arrest was like. She noted that one of her producers later went to cover the revolution in Egypt, where nobody tried to arrest him.
"He doesn't get arrested by Mubarak when he's covering the revolution, but when he's here covering one of these conventions that are supposed to be a celebration of democracy, he's taken to the ground," she said.
Goodman said she thinks the police have become a de facto wing of the military, as a way for the government to get around the ban on having the military act like police.
"The security forces [in Tampa] have gotten $50 million," she said. "They're buying drones, they're buying tanks, the surveillance is increasing and this is a very serious issue for us in a civilian society to take on."
Watch a clip of the segment above, and the full video below:
