| RIPTIDE | ▼ MIAMI-DADE O ACTIVIST SUES GOV. DESANTIS FOR SURVEILLING HIM, BARRING HIM FROM PRESS CONFERENCES. BY JOSHUA CEBALLOS CLAP BACK ver the years, Miami-based po- litical activist Thomas Ken- nedy has been known to disrupt Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ events with shouts of disapproval and made headlines when he called DeSantis “an embarrassment” at a press conference in 2020 for his response to COVID-19. But last year Kennedy learned via a public-records request that, following those incidents, the Florida Department of Law En- forcement (FDLE) had placed him on a “situ- ational awareness” list, labeled him a “known agitator,” and were surveilling him in an at- tempt to keep him away from DeSantis, his elected representative. Now, in a June 15 complaint filed in federal court against DeSantis, the City of Miami, Miami-Dade County, and FDLE Acting Com- missioner Mark Glass, Kennedy alleges that the government violated his constitutional rights to free speech, due process, and equal protection under the law by placing him on a “situational awareness” and barring him from press conferences. Kennedy is asking for nominal damages and primarily seeking de- claratory relief. Mostly, he seeks access to FDLE’s records on him and his alleged asso- ciates to determine the scope of the govern- ment’s surveillance and to change Florida’s policies regarding access to public meetings. “If the argument is that I’ve been disrup- tive in the past, I object to that because we should be able to be disruptive if we pay the GET MORE NEWS & COMMENTARY AT MIAMINEWTIMES.COM/NEWS ▼ EVERGLADES FANTASTIC BEAST D RECORD-BREAKING 215-POUND BURMESE PYTHON CAPTURED IN SOUTHWEST FLORIDA. BY JOSHUA CEBALLOS eep in the Florida Everglades lurk invasive beasts that slither just out of sight — and they just keep getting bigger. As first reported in National Geographic, last December python trackers with the Conservancy of Southwest Florida in Naples found and euthanized the largest Burmese python ever captured in Florida. The snake, a female, measured 17.7 feet long and weighed 215 pounds. “This was good news, and the researchers were very satisfied and happy about finding her,” says Douglas Main, senior writer and editor for National Geographic, whose team met with py- thon researchers in Naples. “This one snake probably had hundreds if not thousands of off- governor’s salary,” Kennedy tells New Times. “For taxpayer-funded events, it’s not in the interest of transparency and free press to re- strict access to the public, particularly in the so-called Sunshine State where you have sun- shine laws for open government.” In April of 2021, Kennedy drove to Port- Miami to attend a press conference where DeSantis discussed his plans to sue the fed- eral government over its COVID-induced ban on cruise travel. But Kennedy had barely parked his car when Miami-Dade police offi- cers detained him and barred him from en- tering the event. The officers’ swiftness seemed suspicious to Kennedy — as if they’d been waiting for him. Kennedy and Occupy Democrats execu- tive editor Grant Stern filed a public-records request and obtained 83 pages of records that revealed that FDLE had labeled Kennedy a “known agitator” and warned local police about him in advance of the PortMiami event. FDLE agents also appear to have been track- ing Kennedy’s social media, car, address, and a list of his alleged associates as far back as July 2020. “As soon as I learned that police were looking for Thomas’ car, my journalistic in- stincts told me this was more than just a tres- passing case,” Stern tells New Times. “It took nine lawsuits to vindicate that hunch and prove that the governor’s office pursued a high-level censorship campaign against him for his postings on social media. If he doesn’t prevail in his lawsuit, then free speech doesn’t exist in Florida.” FDLE’s file on Kennedy notes that he has “no history of violence” but is known to per- form direct protest actions such as the “sleep- ing dragons” protest maneuver, which involves protesters handcuffing their arms together inside PVC pipes to make it difficult for police to move them. In June 2021, at a DeSantis press confer- ence at the National Guard armory in Miami, Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Kennedy saw Miami police officers and mili- tary personnel examining FDLE documents that pertained to him. Photos reviewed by New Times show two military officers and two Miami police officers reviewing a clipboard containing photos of Kennedy’s face and per- sonal information. The document included the faces of additional people whose identities could not be discerned from the photos. Kennedy included the City of Miami and Miami-Dade County in the lawsuit because he believes they’re in possession of FDLE’s files on him. “In this case, Governor DeSantis and the other Defendants are not only discriminating against Plaintiff’s speech based on the con- tent or viewpoint of the Plaintiff, they have also added him to a ‘No-Entry’ List based on the content or viewpoint of Plaintiff’s speech,” reads Kennedy’s complaint, which has been embedded at the end of this article. Kennedy, who has written numerous opinion columns for the Sun-Sentinel, Latino Rebels, and Occupy Democrats, is listed as an opinion columnist for Occupy Democrats. In his lawsuit, Kennedy identifies himself as a journalist and member of the press who pos- sessed credentials to attend press confer- ences held by the governor. Thomas Kennedy is known for telling off Gov. Ron DeSantis at press conferences. Howard Wasserman, a First Amendment attorney and professor at Florida Interna- tional University, tells New Times that gov- ernment officials are allowed to limit access to press conferences to select members of the press unless the event is a public forum. Flor- ida generally does not limit the definition of the press to exclude opinion columnists, Wasserman says, but government officials are allowed to keep certain people out of press events so long as their reasoning doesn’t stem from what that person has written. “They can impose some restrictions on who is allowed to attend the press confer- ence, but those restrictions have to be view- point-neutral and content-neutral,” Wasserman explains. “It can’t be based on stuff he writes and says about DeSantis.” Kennedy considers himself an “advocacy journalist” who writes to further a political cause and claims he has been persecuted be- cause his opinions have criticized the governor. “Just because you’re partisan press doesn’t mean you’re not press,” Kennedy argues. DeSantis’ office did not respond to New Times’ emailed request for comment. spring in her 15 to 20 years.” Pythons are an extremely invasive species native to Southeast Asia that were introduced to the local ecosystem via the exotic pet trade in the ‘90s. Pet owners released them into the Ev- erglades (presumably when they grew too large to be kept indoors), where they encountered no natural predators. The snakes have systemati- cally attacked native wildlife ever since, decimat- ing populations of raccoons, possums, marsh rabbits, and other mammals. The 215-pound python found in Naples had been snacking on native animals. After euthaniz- ing the snake, researchers dissected it and found hooves in its digestive tract, indicating that its most recent meal was an adult white-tailed deer. “Finding the deer inside the python shows that they’re competing with native predators like Florida panthers for food, which is very concern- ing,” Main says. “That’s why it’s important to catch huge animals like this.” The python also contained 122 proto-eggs — i.e., eggs that had yet to be fertilized but had the potential to become 122 more pythons that could have ravaged the Everglades. What’s striking about this particular python find — besides her size — was how she was cap- tured, Main tells New Times. Python hunters employed a fairly new method for finding the large and dangerous fe- males: scout snakes. With this method, research- ers place a GPS tracker on a male python and follow it until it finds a female (or females, if they’re particularly flirty). When a male has stopped moving for a while, it signals that it may have cozied up to a potential mate. That’s when hunters swoop in and bag the female. The capture of a 215-pound female was a good indication that the method is successful. Researchers and trackers have had to employ creative tactics to find the stealthy pythons, which are almost impossible to spot. “These snakes are so well-camouflaged, they tried to find it visually and they couldn’t,” Main says. “It blends in so well you could be standing right next to it and never know.” The previous record python measured 18 feet, 9 inches long and weighed 104 pounds. It was caught in 2020 by reptile hunter and iguana chef Ryan Ausburn and friend Kevin “Snakeaholic” Pavlidis. While Ausburn’s snake was more than a foot longer, the behemoth caught in Naples was more than twice its weight, making it the biggest python on record. “Pythons on [Florida’s] west coast get signifi- cantly fatter for whatever reason,” Ausburn tells New Times. Competitiveness aside, it’s important that py- thon hunters continue to nab and remove mas- sive snakes to prevent further damage to the already weakened Everglades ecosystem. Flor- ida contracts licensed hunters to take down py- thons in the wild, and civilians are also allowed to kill them without a permit. For more info on the monster python, visit National Geographic (subscription required). [email protected] 3 3 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NEWS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | miaminewtimes.com | CONTENTS | LETTERS | RIPTIDE | METRO | NIGHT+DAY | STAGE | ART | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | MIAMI NEW TIMES NEW TIMES MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2008 JUNE 30-JULY 6, 2022
