Did a Court ban Native Americans from protesting on their own land?

Did a Court ban Native Americans from protesting on their own land?

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TL;DR Summary

  • Native Americans and others are protesting oil pipeline construction in North Dakota.
  • This “news” item says the “U.S. government bans Native American Tribe from Protesting on their own land – send in police to remove protesters”.
  • The graphic image looks scary. Except that is not a Native American and this photo is from 2012, in Rio de Janiero, Brazil and has nothing to do with the events occurring in North Dakota. That is a first clue that this may be a very poorly produced news report or possibly straight up propaganda.

Source: http://countercurrentnews.com/2016/08/u-s-government-bans-native-american-tribe-protesting-land-send-police-remove-protesters/ (Update: Countercurrentnews has been identified as a for profit fake news web site).
For background on the story, please read ABC News, the Bismarck Tribune and the East Iowa Gazette.

From those reports, the protesters left a public highway and entered on to an 8,100 acre private property where the construction was underway. A Federal judge issued an order against interfering with the construction on the private property. I was not able to find evidence that a Court order has been issued prohibited protesting on “their own land”. Some use an expansive definition to say all lands, anywhere, belong to Native Americans by using a philosophical context; this is not a legal definition, however.
The point of this post is neither for or against the pipeline or the protests. I am not there and I know little about it. The point of this post is to note how the sharing of propaganda occurs on social media, and frequently uses inflammatory rhetoric, false statements, errors of logic – and stolen photographs – to achieve their propaganda goals.
Many people hold strong opinions shaped by what they read on social media, much of which is factually incorrect and/or a logical fallacy. Social media tends to make us all dumber, as this example illustrates and the next item I hope to post – confirms.

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