Dozens of people are being arrested in Minneapolis ahead of the Republican National Convention, apparently in a pre-emptive attempt to stifle protest and independent media coverage.

The people arrested appear to fall into two general group, liberal protestors and video bloggers.

The New York Times reports “Dozens Detained Ahead of Convention“:

On the weekend before the Republican National Convention, law enforcement agencies detained dozens of people and issued a series of search warrants aimed at groups believed to be organizing demonstrations while delegates and Republican officials are in town.

On Friday night the Ramsey County sheriff’s department, accompanied by the St. Paul police, detained people inside a building here that was being used as a headquarters to plan protests.

“They handcuffed all of us, said Sonia Silbert, 28, from Washington. “They searched everyone

A copy of a warrant at one house said the police were authorized to look for a laundry list of items, including fire bombs, Molotov cocktails, brake fluid, photographs and maps of St. Paul, paint, computers and camera equipment, and documents and other communications.

Attorneys for the National Lawyers Guild said the people who were detained and photographed included local residents as well as visitors in town to demonstrate at the convention.

Bruce Nestor, a lawyer at one house, said three people there were arrested on charges of conspiracy to commit a riot.

“In my mind it’s a classic preventive detention charge, Mr. Nestor said.

He said the authorities were permitted to hold those they arrested without charging them for up to 36 hours — excluding weekends or holidays — in essence detaining them for the length of the convention.

Eileen Clancy blogs at iWitness, a group of bloggers that “uses video to protect civil liberties.” She discusses their experiences in this statement:

Live from the I-Witness Video Residence

Saturday, 30 Aug 2008

by Eileen Clancy

This is Eileen Clancy, one of the founders of I-Witness Video, a NYC-based video collective that’s in St. Paul to document the policing of the protests around this week’s Republican National Convention.

The house where I-Witness Video is staying in St. Paul has been surrounded by police. We have locked all the doors. We have been told that if we leave we will be detained. One of our people who was caught outside is being detained in handcuffs in front of the house. The police say that they are waiting to get a search warrant. More than a dozen police are wielding firearms, including one St. Paul officer with a long gun, which someone told me is an M-16.

We are suffering a preemptive video arrest. For those that don’t know, I-Witness Video was remarkably successful in exposing police misconduct and outright perjury by police during the 2004 RNC. Out of 1800 arrests, at least 400 were overturned based solely on video evidence which contradicted sworn statements which were fabricated by police officers. It seems that the house arrest we are now under and the possible threat of the seizure of our computers and video cameras is a result of the 2004 success.

We are asking the public to contact the office of St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman at 651-266-8510 to stop this house arrest, this gross intimidation by police officers, and the detention of media activists and reporters.

Clancy later reported that five people from iWitness were detained all in all, but at least three had been released.

While there was a lot of discussion of censorship of dissent going on during the 2008 Olympics in China, the state of new media in the US is means that there’s video on the Internet of these events as they happen.

Here’s an example from Qik:

Here’s another video taken after a raid on peace protestors:

More coverage is available at Salon & Boing Boing.