[eric strt6]

This pisses me off, we are quickly becoming mother Russia.

December 15, 2003 issue
Copyright © 2003 The American Conservative
http://www.amconmag.com/12_15_03/feature.html


“Free-Speech Zone”


The administration quarantines dissent.


By James Bovard

On Dec. 6, 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft informed the Senate Judiciary Committee, “To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty … your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and … give ammunition to America’s enemies.” Some commentators feared that Ashcroft’s statement, which was vetted beforehand by top lawyers at the Justice Department, signaled that this White House would take a far more hostile view towards opponents than did recent presidents. And indeed, some Bush administration policies indicate that Ashcroft’s comment was not a mere throwaway line.

When Bush travels around the United States, the Secret Service visits the location ahead of time and orders local police to set up “free speech zones” or “protest zones” where people opposed to Bush policies (and sometimes sign-carrying supporters) are quarantined. These zones routinely succeed in keeping protesters out of presidential sight and outside the view of media covering the event.

When Bush came to the Pittsburgh area on Labor Day 2002, 65-year-old retired steel worker Bill Neel was there to greet him with a sign proclaiming, “The Bush family must surely love the poor, they made so many of us.” The local police, at the Secret Service’s behest, set up a “designated free-speech zone” on a baseball field surrounded by a chain-link fence a third of a mile from the location of Bush’s speech. The police cleared the path of the motorcade of all critical signs, though folks with pro-Bush signs were permitted to line the president’s path. Neel refused to go to the designated area and was arrested for disorderly conduct; the police also confiscated his sign. Neel later commented, “As far as I’m concerned, the whole country is a free speech zone. If the Bush administration has its way, anyone who criticizes them will be out of sight and out of mind.”

At Neel’s trial, police detective John Ianachione testified that the Secret Service told local police to confine “people that were there making a statement pretty much against the president and his views” in a so-called free speech area. Paul Wolf, one of the top officials in the Allegheny County Police Department, told Salon that the Secret Service “come in and do a site survey, and say, ‘Here’s a place where the people can be, and we’d like to have any protesters put in a place that is able to be secured.’” Pennsylvania district judge Shirley Rowe Trkula threw out the disorderly conduct charge against Neel, declaring, “I believe this is America. Whatever happened to ‘I don’t agree with you, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it’?”

Similar suppressions have occurred during Bush visits to Florida. A recent St. Petersburg Times editorial noted, “At a Bush rally at Legends Field in 2001, three demonstrators—two of whom were grandmothers—were arrested for holding up small handwritten protest signs outside the designated zone. And last year, seven protesters were arrested when Bush came to a rally at the USF Sun Dome. They had refused to be cordoned off into a protest zone hundreds of yards from the entrance to the Dome.” One of the arrested protesters was a 62-year-old man holding up a sign, “War is good business. Invest your sons.” The seven were charged with trespassing, “obstructing without violence and disorderly conduct.”

Police have repressed protesters during several Bush visits to the St. Louis area as well. When Bush visited on Jan. 22, 2003, 150 people carrying signs were shunted far away from the main action and effectively quarantined. Denise Lieberman of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri commented, “No one could see them from the street. In addition, the media were not allowed to talk to them. The police would not allow any media inside the protest area and wouldn’t allow any of the protesters out of the protest zone to talk to the media.” When Bush stopped by a Boeing plant to talk to workers, Christine Mains and her five-year-old daughter disobeyed orders to move to a small protest area far from the action. Police arrested Mains and took her and her crying daughter away in separate squad cars.

The Justice Department is now prosecuting Brett Bursey, who was arrested for holding a “No War for Oil” sign at a Bush visit to Columbia, S.C. Local police, acting under Secret Service orders, established a “free speech zone” half a mile from where Bush would speak. Bursey was standing amid hundreds of people carrying signs praising the president. Police told Bursey to remove himself to the “free speech zone.”

Bursey refused and was arrested. Bursey said that he asked the policeman if “it was the content of my sign, and he said, ‘Yes, sir, it’s the content of your sign that’s the problem.’” Bursey stated that he had already moved 200 yards from where Bush was supposed to speak. Bursey later complained, “The problem was, the restricted area kept moving. It was wherever I happened to be standing.”

Bursey was charged with trespassing. Five months later, the charge was dropped because South Carolina law prohibits arresting people for trespassing on public property. But the Justice Department—in the person of U.S. Attorney Strom Thurmond Jr.—quickly jumped in, charging Bursey with violating a rarely enforced federal law regarding “entering a restricted area around the President of the United States.” If convicted, Bursey faces a six-month trip up the river and a $5000 fine. Federal magistrate Bristow Marchant denied Bursey’s request for a jury trial because his violation is categorized as a “petty offense.” Some observers believe that the feds are seeking to set a precedent in a conservative state such as South Carolina that could then be used against protesters nationwide.

Bursey’s trial took place on Nov. 12 and 13. His lawyers sought the Secret Service documents they believed would lay out the official policies on restricting critical speech at presidential visits. The Bush administration sought to block all access to the documents, but Marchant ruled that the lawyers could have limited access. Bursey sought to subpoena John Ashcroft and Karl Rove to testify. Bursey lawyer Lewis Pitts declared, “We intend to find out from Mr. Ashcroft why and how the decision to prosecute Mr. Bursey was reached.” The magistrate refused, however, to enforce the subpoenas. Secret Service agent Holly Abel testified at the trial that Bursey was told to move to the “free speech zone” but refused to co-operate. Magistrate Marchant is expected to issue his decision in December.

The feds have offered some bizarre rationales for hog-tying protesters. Secret Service agent Brian Marr explained to National Public Radio, “These individuals may be so involved with trying to shout their support or non-support that inadvertently they may walk out into the motorcade route and be injured. And that is really the reason why we set these places up, so we can make sure that they have the right of free speech, but, two, we want to be sure that they are able to go home at the end of the evening and not be injured in any way.” Except for having their constitutional rights shredded.

Marr’s comments are a mockery of this country’s rich heritage of vigorous protests. Somehow, all of a sudden, after George W. Bush became president people became so stupid that federal agents had to cage them to prevent them from walking out in front of speeding vehicles.

The ACLU, along with several other organizations, is suing the Secret Service for what it charges is a pattern-and-practice of suppressing protesters at Bush events in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, Texas, and elsewhere. The ACLU’s Witold Walczak said of the protesters, “The individuals we are talking about didn’t pose a security threat; they posed a political threat.”

 

[eric strt6]

The Secret Service is duty-bound to protect the president. But it is ludicrous to presume that would-be terrorists are lunkheaded enough to carry anti-Bush signs when carrying pro-Bush signs would give them much closer access. And even a policy of removing all people carrying signs—as has happened in some demonstrations—is pointless, since potential attackers would simply avoid carrying signs. Presuming that terrorists are as unimaginative and predictable as the average federal bureaucrat is not a recipe for presidential longevity.

The Bush administration’s anti-protester bias proved embarrassing for two American allies with long traditions of raucous free speech, resulting in some of the most repressive restrictions in memory in free countries. When Bush visited Australia in October, Sydney Morning Herald columnist Mark Riley observed, “The basic right of freedom of speech will adopt a new interpretation during the Canberra visits this week by the US President, George Bush, and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao. Protesters will be free to speak as much as they like just as long as they can’t be heard.” Demonstrators were shunted to an area away from the Federal Parliament building and prohibited from using any public address system in the area.

For Bush’s recent visit to London, the White House demanded that British police ban all protest marches, close down the center of the city, and impose a “virtual three day shutdown of central London in a bid to foil disruption of the visit by anti-war protesters,” according to Britain’s Evening Standard. But instead of a “free speech zone”—as such areas are labeled in the U.S.—the Bush administration demanded an “exclusion zone” to protect Bush from protesters’ messages.

Such unprecedented restrictions did not inhibit Bush from portraying himself as a champion of freedom during his visit. In a speech at Whitehall on Nov. 19, Bush hyped the “forward strategy of freedom” and declared, “We seek the advance of freedom and the peace that freedom brings.” Regarding the protesters, Bush sought to turn the issue into a joke: “I’ve been here only a short time, but I’ve noticed that the tradition of free speech—exercised with enthusiasm—is alive and well here in London. We have that at home, too. They now have that right in Baghdad, as well.”

Attempts to suppress protesters become more disturbing in light of the Homeland Security Department’s recommendation that local police departments view critics of the war on terrorism as potential terrorists. In a May 2003 terrorist advisory, the Homeland Security Department warned local law enforcement agencies to keep an eye on anyone who “expressed dislike of attitudes and decisions of the U.S. government.” If police vigorously followed this advice, millions of Americans could be added to the official lists of “suspected terrorists.”

Protesters have claimed that police have assaulted them during demonstrations in New York, Washington, and elsewhere. Film footage of a February New York antiwar rally showed what looked like a policeman on horseback charging into peaceful aged Leftists. The neoconservative New York Sun suggested in February 2003 that the New York Police Department “send two witnesses along for each participant [in an antiwar demonstration], with an eye toward preserving at least the possibility of an eventual treason prosecution” since all the demonstrators were guilty of “giving, at the very least, comfort to Saddam Hussein.”

One of the most violent government responses to an antiwar protest occurred when local police and the federally funded California Anti-Terrorism Task Force fired rubber bullets and tear gas at peaceful protesters and innocent bystanders at the port of Oakland, injuring a number of people. When the police attack sparked a geyser of media criticism, Mike van Winkle, the spokesman for the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center told the Oakland Tribune, “You can make an easy kind of a link that, if you have a protest group protesting a war where the cause that’s being fought against is international terrorism, you might have terrorism at that protest. You can almost argue that a protest against that is a terrorist act.” Van Winkle justified classifying protesters like terrorists: “I’ve heard terrorism described as anything that is violent or has an economic impact, and shutting down a port certainly would have some economic impact. Terrorism isn’t just bombs going off and killing people.”

Such aggressive tactics become more ominous in the light of the Bush administration’s advocacy, in its Patriot II draft legislation, of nullifying all judicial consent decrees restricting state and local police from spying on those groups who may oppose government policies.

On May 30, 2002, Ashcroft effectively abolished restrictions on FBI surveillance of Americans’ everyday lives first imposed in 1976. One FBI internal newsletter encouraged FBI agents to conduct more interviews with antiwar activists “for plenty of reasons, chief of which it will enhance the paranoia endemic in such circles and will further service to get the point across that there is an FBI agent behind every mailbox.” The FBI took a shotgun approach towards protesters partly because of the FBI’s “belief that dissident speech and association should be prevented because they were incipient steps towards the possible ultimate commission of act which might be criminal,” according to a Senate report.

On Nov. 23 news broke that the FBI is now actively conducting surveillance of antiwar demonstrators—supposedly to “blunt potential violence by extremist elements,” according to a Reuters interview with a federal law enforcement official. Given the FBI’s expansive defintion of “potential violence” in the past, this is a net that could catch almost any group or individual who falls into official disfavor.

The FBI is also urging local police to report suspicious activity by protesters to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, which is run by the FBI. If local police take the hint and start pouring in the dirt, the JTTF could soon be building a “Total Information Awareness”-lite database on those antiwar groups and activists.

If the FBI publicly admits that it is surveilling antiwar groups and urging local police to send in information on protestors, how far might the feds go? It took over a decade after the first big antiwar protests in the 1960s before the American people learned the extent of FBI efforts to suppress and subvert public opposition to the Vietnam War. Is the FBI now considering a similar order to field offices as the one it sent in 1968, telling them to gather information illustrating the “scurrilous and depraved nature of many of the characters, activities habits, and living conditions representative of New Left adherents”—but this time focused on those who oppose Bush’s Brave New World?

Is the administration seeking to stifle domestic criticism? Absolutely. Is it carrying out a war on dissent? Probably not—yet. But the trend lines in federal attacks on freedom of speech should raise grave concerns to anyone worried about the First Amendment or about how a future liberal Democratic president such as Hillary Clinton might exploit the precedents that Bush is setting.
______________________________________________

James Bovard is the author of Terrorism & Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice, and Peace to Rid the World of Evil.

December 15, 2003 issue
Copyright © 2003 The American Conservative

 

[CRUM]

Yeah, it pisses me off also. But what I find heartening is the fact the article appeared in "The American Conservative". Some whinng from the Right. Cool.

 

[Silver]

<I>But the trend lines in federal attacks on freedom of speech should raise grave concerns to anyone worried about the First Amendment or about how a future liberal Democratic president such as Hillary Clinton might exploit the precedents that Bush is setting.</I>

This really is a huge fear for right wingers, isn't it? (For the record I'd be up on my soapbox calling this bull**** no matter which president is doing it.)

 

[ohio]

This makes me sick to my stomach.

It's also nice to see that the American Conservative is above partisan politics when the offense is so blatant. If only the message would reach the apathetic middle...

 

[fluff]

This isue perfectly illustrates why, in my opinion, the USA is not the 'greatest country in the world' and why I have no desire to live there.

It's fine if you agree with the government but not so good if you don't eh?

Like Mother Russia indeed.

 

[slein]

yeah... its like when nobility comes to town: the roads get paved, the trash gets cleaned, and the bums are moved to another province.

we know that protests will always exist... but putting them in another area FAR FROM THE INTENDED RECIPIENT is childish. this story is sensational though. i really like the fact that a mother gets arrested and her kid is put in another car. i wonder what a local children's aid society organisation will have to say in a talk with the mother. outrageous...

the same thing happens for the G7 and G8 summits: keep the protesters away, caged like animals. maybe we should plan a protest and put the elected officials in a cage far from the event. that would be something!

 

[Damn True]

This isn't new. It used to happen when slick willie would visit NYC and it happend when he visited Hawaii as well.

Dosen't make it right, but the Bush Admin is not the first.

 

[ohio]

Originally posted by Damn True
This isn't new. It used to happen when slick willie would visit NYC and it happend when he visited Hawaii as well.

Dosen't make it right, but the Bush Admin is not the first.

Don't even try to pretend that it's on the same scale. Bill isolated some dissenters at a few key speeches... which is childish and questionable. Bush's administration is having people arrested, invading privacy, harrassing citizens, instituting "thought crime," and abusing the abilities of the FBI well beyond it's granted powers. How can this NOT frighten the daylights out of you? He's having dissent and assembly re-classified as terrorism!

 

[N8 v2.0]

No Laughing Matter
"Joke" about a "burning Bush" lands Portland cabbie in Dakota pokey.
by TAYLOR CLARK
published: 12/24/2002

What started out as a short trip through South Dakota has turned into an extended stay for a Portland man who learned earlier this month that he would be spending three years in prison for threatening the president.

The bizarre tale of Richard Humphreys began in the early hours of March 9, 2001, in a Watertown, S.D., bar. During a lively chat with a truck driver, the former Portland cabbie--who calls himself The Prophet Israel Humphreys--cracked a joke that didn't get the laughs he had anticipated.

"I said that God might speak to the world through a burning Bush," Humphreys, 50, later testified in federal court. "I thought it was funny. It was prophetizing."

Knowing President George W. Bush was scheduled to visit nearby Sioux Falls the next day, a bartender reported Humphreys' comment to local police, claiming that Humphreys alluded to the possibility of someone pouring a flammable liquid on the president and lighting it. Local police took Humphreys into custody at his Sioux Falls motel just hours before Bush arrived.

Unfortunately for Humphreys, the humor was lost on U.S. Attorney Michael Ridgeway. "It wasn't a joke," Ridgeway told the federal jury a year and a half later. "It wasn't funny. Simply put, it was a threat." As evidence, Ridgeway pointed to a transcript from an Internet chat room where Humphreys wrote, "now going to ask Bush for justice, and if I don't get it don't be surprised to see a burning Bush."

The jury agreed with Ridgeway, convicting Humphreys in September 2002 of making threats against the president, a federal offense punishable by up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. On Dec. 6, Humphreys was sentenced to 37 months in prison. He plans to appeal.

Humphreys' conviction is the climax of a series of increasingly dramatic run-ins with the law. In the 10 months leading up to his South Dakota arrest, Humphreys was the subject of 14 Portland police reports, with charges against him ranging from harassment to disturbing the peace to stealing a dog.

One Portland police report, which describes an altercation between Humphreys and former employer Broadway Cab Co. regarding Humphreys' refusal to return his cab, included a letter in which Humphreys threatened general manager Raye Miles with divine punishment for interfering with a prophet. "You would do wise to leave me alone and listen well to me if you value your skin and your soul," he wrote.

"He was high-strung, very intense and intimidating," says Miles of the 6-foot-6-inch, 250-pound ex-cabbie. "He had a tremendous presence. You rarely meet someone that powerful."

The Rev. Kelly Cohoe told police that Humphreys has been a consistent problem at St. John's Free Methodist Church since he went through a divorce 20 years ago. Over the ensuing years, Humphreys, who was born on Christmas Day in 1951, has strayed further from reality, asserting ever more fervently that he is a prophet of Israel, Cohoe said in a 2001 report.

Despite temporarily being deemed mentally unfit to stand trial, Humphreys acted as his own attorney in Sioux Falls, with occasional assistance from a public defender. In presenting his case, Humphreys read long biblical passages and described the past nine years of his life in detail. After his narrative exceeded 45 minutes, Ridgeway and Judge Lawrence Piersol coaxed him into resting his case.

At his sentencing hearing, Humphreys warned Piersol that South Dakota's drought will worsen if "you mistreat a prophet."

At his Dec. 6 sentencing, Humphreys vowed not to cooperate with the psychiatric treatment and medication mandated in his sentence, promising Piersol that they would meet again. "Neither one of us want that," answered Piersol.

-----------------
UPDATE: Appellate court rejects appeal of man imprisoned for threatening president

 

[$tinkle]

let's analyse what is not in this whiny puff piece.

How the protests are ill-timed by egomaniacs:

Heather MacDonald, City Journal
Preventing another terror attack is the highest imperative of the country’s police forces; street demonstrations divert police resources from that mission. Cash-strapped police departments are already stretched to the breaking point by their new anti-terror obligations. Every officer taken off his beat to prevent street violence or arrest civil disobedients is one less set of eyes to notice a cell member surveilling a power plant or leaving a bomb in a train station.

How the protests aid & abet the enemy:

Erika Holzer, FrontPage Magazine
I submit that, potentially, the harm to the men and women at the Front is considerable.

Let’s say you’re a combat infantryman, you hail from Los Angeles, and a close friend was part of that 507th convoy that went astray. Mail call. Along with the homemade cookies, your mother includes an article from the Los Angeles Times (3/25/03) by University of Southern California Law School Professor Erwin Chemerinsky, who blithely asserts that since Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld continues to violate "international law" [the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals flatly disagreed] by the Guantanamo incarceration of "war captives" [read "enemy combatants", some of them proven terrorists], "the United States cannot expect other nations [read "Iraqi Death Squads"] . . .to live by the rule of law . . . ." [Read: "You can’t blame Saddam’s thugs for executing American POWs."]

How the protests turn into "acts of civil disobedience":

Published on Wednesday, March 19, 2003 by the New York Times
Antiwar Movement Divided by Thoughts on Civil Disobedience
by Kate Zernike

The antiwar movement is splintered over how to respond to a conflict in Iraq. Some advocates argue for showy acts of civil disobedience. Others say they fear that too much disruption would alienate the public that they are trying to sway.

The dispute occurs at a turning point for the movement, as the hundreds of thousands of protesters who overwhelmed the streets of several cities last month realize that they have not been able to stop the war.

Since October, a coalition of community and student groups has been planning to respond to military action with acts of civil disobedience. Under the mantra of "no business as usual," the coalition has sponsored protests in at least 12 cities over the last few days.

There have been a "die-in" outside a Starbucks in Austin, Tex.; a sit-in at a congressman's office in Springfield, Mass.; and a blockade of the Pacific Stock Exchange in San Francisco, resulting in about 40 arrests.

Even as some protesters staged mock deaths in body bags, others have been arguing that civil disobedience will not serve their cause and that it will only make protesters look unpatriotic at a time when Americans are likely to rally around the president and the troops.

Those organizers say they agree on the need to step up their protest if war begins, but argue that their actions should take the form of additional demonstrations and vigils and, flooding lawmakers' e-mail accounts, acts that an organizer, Tom Andrews, said were "ways that mainstream Americans are most comfortable with and most receptive to."

"Civil disobedience is one form of expression of one's opposition to invasion, but we feel that it's important to have vehicles that everyone can participate in," said Mr. Andrews, national director of Win Without War, a coalition of 36 organizations that includes the National Council of Churches, the N.A.A.C.P. and the National Organization for Women. "We want to be able to reach the mainstream of Americans, patriotic Americans, with messages and communication techniques that will resonate with them."

Antiwar organizers say it is hard to quantify how many people are in their ranks or on either side of the debate. About 75,000 people signed the civil disobedience pledge.

Even groups that plan civil disobedience debate how to interpret the disruption of "business as usual." Some groups like Black Voices for Peace argue for a "shutdown strategy" to halt daily life, blocking commuter routes and access to public buildings or gathering places and walking out of school or work.

Other groups whose members have signed the civil disobedience pledge have elected not to do anything to interfere with most daily routines or cast the movement in a bad light. They argue that any protests should aim at "the machinery of war" like recruiting stations and military bases and those who stand to profit from a conflict like military contractors and television networks.

To others in the antiwar movement, though, that is not enough.

"We are clear that not everyone is going to be happy with the actions we are taking once a war starts," said Gordon S. Clark, national coordinator of the Iraq Pledge of Resistance, a coalition that promises to conduct civil disobedience. "But there's another point of view that says that if we're about to start slaughtering thousands of innocent civilians, you should be inconvenienced in any way possible if it makes you feel the suffering of those people. If your morning commute isn't the way you want it to be, maybe you should take the time to think about the death and destruction that's occurring."

The debate reflects a tension in the movement opposed to military action in Iraq. A number of groups and coalitions have formed since the large-scale protests in October.

International Answer, one of the earliest and most militant groups, has long called for emergency protests at 5 p.m. on the day after any bombing begins. It posted a notice yesterday on its Web site, www .internationalanswer.org, saying protests would be held this evening. From Portland, Me., to Portland, Ore., groups aligned with the Pledge of Resistance announced walkouts and protests for within six hours of the onset of military action.

Win Without War, formed as an alternative to more militant groups, took longer to consider its reaction. It said it planned to announce its next moves today. Organizers said they supported more peaceful means modeled on the candlelight vigils on Sunday in more than 6,000 towns or the virtual march, when protesters jammed lawmakers' phone lines with e-mail messages and calls.

"We have taken civil disobedience off the table," said Mr. Andrews, a former Democratic congressman from Maine.

Some groups that signed the pledge for civil disobedience said they did not want to disrupt daily life. In Springfield, a few people were arrested after they sat in at the office of Representative Richard E. Neal, a Democrat. The protesters said they did not block anyone from entering the office.

"Something like that might have been an us-versus-them situation," a protester, Joanne Comerford, said. "We didn't want to prevent any constituent from getting the service he or she might need from their congressman. But we said it was incumbent upon us to demonstrate with our bodies our opposition to the war."

Others say disruption is the point.

"The goal is to impose real economic, social, financial costs until we stop the war," said Patrick Reinsborough, an organizer of Direct Action Against the War, in San Francisco. "When you have a government out of control, it's essential that citizens get out in the streets. Where would we be without the Boston Tea Party, the women's suffragettes? A lot of us see ourselves in that tradition."

The 75,000 people who signed the resistance pledge agreed to put their "bodies on the line" and not to resist arrest. Mr. Clark sent word to them that their protest would begin with an e-mail message on Monday when Mr. Bush's speech to the nation was announced.

Many protesters said in interviews they would focus mostly on military bases and corporations with military contracts like Caterpillar near Chicago; Boeing near St. Charles, Mo.; and DynCorps, now part of Computer Sciences, near Austin, Tex.

"There's definitely a feeling in Austin that the corporate-military-industrial complex has benefited from the war, and they're very connected to the Bush administration," said Missy Bolbecker, the Iraq campaign coordinator with the American Friends Service Committee there.

Many groups have attended training for civil disobedience.

"I had this image of the young man at Tiananmen Square who thought he alone could stop a tank," said Rita Lasar, 71, whose brother was killed at the World Trade Center while trying to help a colleague in a wheelchair escape.

"That's how I feel, but I have to go through with this," she said on Monday while preparing to protest at the United States Capitol. "I feel Bush is exploiting my brother's death."

Within hours, Ms. Lasar was among the protesters arrested.

Who sponsors the protests that contain "average joes just speaking their minds on their own":
(from the Nat'l Youth & Student Peace Coalition's strikelist)
- Students For Justice, Muslim Student Associaiton
- Stanford Labor Action Coalition, Young Communist League
- Muslim Student Association, Multicultural Student Alliance
- Students for Social Justice (class warfare rhetoric)
- Muslim Students Association, Campus Greens
- SLAM
- J.U.S.T.I.C.E.
- Standford Coalition for Peace and Justice

Find out what an 'affinity-group' is, how they operate, who's pulling the strings, and maybe you'll begin to understand why The Man does what he does.

 

[N8 v2.0]

Originally posted by Damn True
This isn't new. It used to happen when slick willie would visit NYC and it happend when he visited Hawaii as well.

Dosen't make it right, but the Bush Admin is not the first.

YEP!!!

..and where was the AC-LUsers when Clinton's cronies did the exact same thing? Hmmmmm?

The precedent has been set by a Dem. Let them wallow in what they wrought.

 

[Silver]

Originally posted by ohio
Don't even try to pretend that it's on the same scale. Bill isolated some dissenters at a few key speeches... which is childish and questionable. Bush's administration is having people arrested, invading privacy, harrassing citizens, instituting "thought crime," and abusing the abilities of the FBI well beyond it's granted powers. How can this NOT frighten the daylights out of you? He's having dissent and assembly re-classified as terrorism!

DT is a republican, so he's not scared until Hilary gets elected....

 

[ohio]

Originally posted by $tinkle
let's analyse what is not in this whiny puff piece.

How the protests are ill-timed by egomaniacs:

How the protests aid & abet the enemy:

How the protests turn into "acts of civil disobedience":

You've got to be kidding me. Can you REALLY not tell the difference between assembling and civil disobedience?

The examples cited in the AC article, were peaceful protesters on public land mixed in with peaceful supporters. That is VERY VERY different than disruption and trespassing.

Which do you think requires more police officers:
1) 1 crowd of people, some supporting Bush and some not, which may contain potential terrorists

2) 2 crowds of people at seperate locations, one supporting Bush and one not, either of which may contain terrorists.

It honestly boggles my mind that people are SO quick to give up their basic freedoms just because the current honcho is on their "team." You realize you don't get these freedoms back when the players or the game changes?

 

[LordOpie]

Originally posted by ohio
2 crowds of people at seperate locations, one supporting Bush and one not, either of which may contain terrorists.

that's really the key, isn't it?

Anyone who wants to harm the PotUS is going to be in the support group. So really, the only reason to put protestors elsewhere is for public relations issues.

 

[$tinkle]

Originally posted by ohio
You've got to be kidding me. Can you REALLY not tell the difference between assembling and civil disobedience?

The examples cited in the AC article, were peaceful protesters on public land mixed in with peaceful supporters. That is VERY VERY different than disruption and trespassing.

Yes, this article did paint the story of this tragic protest as the norm off all protests, and if it were, this would obviously be the rule. The difference between assembling & civil disobedience is not advertised at the time that permits are applied for & received. My point of view is that the police should not have to re-act, but control the environment ahead of time.

Originally posted by ohio
It honestly boggles my mind that people are SO quick to give up their basic freedoms just because the current honcho is on their "team." You realize you don't get these freedoms back when the players or the game changes?

i'm not giving up any freedoms, nor should anyone. These subversive dissenters should be reigned in, however. Most certainly, these folks are in the minority (for now).

 

[ohio]

Originally posted by $tinkle
These subversive dissenters should be reigned in, however.

Oh, you mean subversive dissenters like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington? Or subversive dissenters like Mohatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela?

Ever heard of a Senator Joe McCarthy? You'd get along great with him.


This country was FOUNDED on dissent, and it is one of the most valuable tools we have. There is a reason it is explicitly protected in our constitution.

 

[$tinkle]

Originally posted by ohio
Oh, you mean subversive dissenters like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington? Or subversive dissenters like Mohatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela?

Not everyone can be TJ nor GW, certainly not the passive Ghandi, nor the convicted bus-bombing racist Nelson Mandela.

Originally posted by ohio
Ever heard of a Senator Joe McCarthy? You'd get along great with him.

he was a great american hero. He was vilified (which you remember all too well), then vindicated. Turns out, he was spot on. Yeah, he "ruined" the careers of those no-named hollywood 10 (which was well established by the time joe came to congress). Wanna talk about the Popular Front? The Chekists? The Cominterm?

2 tears in a bucket.

 

[ohio]

Originally posted by $tinkle

he was a great american hero. He was vilified (which you remember all too well), then vindicated. Turns out, he was spot on. Yeah, he "ruined" the careers of those no-named hollywood 10 (which was well established by the time joe came to congress). Wanna talk about the Popular Front? The Chekists? The Cominterm?

2 tears in a bucket.

Tell me you're joking. Yes, they were all communists. They were also all harmless. We know now that communism simply doesn't work, but since when is it a crime to be wrong? These guys weren't plotting assassination and violent overthrow of the government... they had a different ideology. Believing that to be a crime is probably the most un-American thought I can imagine.

edit: by the way, I've read the conspiracy theories claiming hundreds of government officials were "agents of the USSR," and use FBI files as proof. If this were the case, the FBI would have had no problem rooting them out and prosecuting them. They didn't because these people weren't enemies of the state. The truth of the matter is McCarthy was persecuting liberals and sympathizers... NOT agents, spies, and saboteurs.

 

[BurlyShirley]

You know, I can see why people would be upset with the overall implications of this, but seriously, what is the difference?
Do you think some dredlocked hippy who has a poster with Bush's head with some devil horns on it is really going to change a damn thing? Does Chanting stupid slogans accomplish anything? No and No.

I could see being pissed if the president outlawed anti-bush newspapers or internet chat, but calming the disturbance at a public appearance seems smart to me. The way protests go these days (mini riots) i can understand why Secret Service would have a hard time keeping track of things.

 

[Toshi]

Originally posted by BurlySurly
I could see being pissed if the president outlawed anti-bush newspapers or internet chat, but calming the disturbance at a public appearance seems smart to me.

the truth is that many people are locked up in cuba, with no lawyers or trials. sometimes their families aren't even informed. and the general public sure isn't, so who's to say exactly who's being held, for what?

from http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2003_cr/s071403.html:

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, we in America firmly believe that what
distinguishes our country in the history of the world is our commitment
to individual liberty and freedom. At the bedrock of a free society is
the obligation that the Government takes on to afford individuals
certain legal protections, the most basic of which is the freedom from
incarceration unless the Government can prove that you have committed a
crime.
Today we are witnessing the abandonment by this current
administration of our historic commitment to this most basic legal
protection. The core element of due process law is the requirement that
if individuals are taken into custody by the Government, then within
some reasonable time, they will be advised of the crimes of which they
are accused. They will be charged with those crimes and they will be
prosecuted.
This administration, working through the Justice Department, headed
by Attorney General Ashcroft, and the Pentagon, headed by Secretary of
Defense Rumsfeld, has taken the position that as to many individuals it
now has in custody, no such legal requirements attach.
It is my view that regardless of whether the person in custody is an
American citizen or a foreigner, regardless of where he or she is
apprehended, and regardless of the Government's preconceptions about
his or her guilt, that person should be entitled to some reasonable
standard of due process. Secrecy and disregard for the rule of law are
not the ideals upon which a free and open society are based.

...

 

[Damn True]

I never said it was right to do so. Just that there is precedent from at least as far back as President Blowjob.

Kinda presents a pickle to the necessity for security and the necessity for free speech. If one wanted to do harm clearly the best plan would be to pose as a member of the Young Republicans. However, looking at it from the SSA perspective, protesters have not shown a good track record in terms of their behavior of late. An argument could be made that they are taking due dillegance in preventing riots of the sort we saw in SF, and Seattle over the last couple of years.

 

[ohio]

Originally posted by BurlySurly
Do you think some dredlocked hippy who has a poster with Bush's head with some devil horns on it is really going to change a damn thing?

No I don't. So why are we devoting time and resources to gathering information about their jobs, family, and friends (including tapping these people phones), and "spreading paranoia" among their ranks? Why do we feel the need to override laws preventing the search and seizure of their property?

This isn't just about making speeches look good... though God knows Bush needs all the help he can get. I'd LOVE to see him snap if when of those hippies ever had the opportunity to ask him an unprompted question in public.

 

[DRB]

Originally posted by $tinkle
i'm not giving up any freedoms, nor should anyone. These subversive dissenters should be reigned in, however. Most certainly, these folks are in the minority (for now).

Is holding up a sign on the route of a presidential motorcade subversive? Is shouting anit-whatever slogans subversive? That's what the article was talking about.

The whole thing is BS, it was when Clinton did it and it is now when Bush does it.

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but it's morally treasonable to the American public." - Teddy Roosevelt

Edit: If this isn't simply about supressing public and visible dissent of the president, then why not simply put the "free speech zone" next to everyone else in plain view?

 

[DRB]

Originally posted by BurlySurly
You know, I can see why people would be upset with the overall implications of this, but seriously, what is the difference?
Do you think some dredlocked hippy who has a poster with Bush's head with some devil horns on it is really going to change a damn thing? Does Chanting stupid slogans accomplish anything? No and No.

Exactly what is the difference? Why even bother stopping them? Public safety or safety of the president? That's a pretty lame arguement. My opinion is that confronting these folks is more likely to cause a disturbance than letting them be.

As for you characterization of these folks as dredlocked hippies..... Whatever makes you feel better but I doubt seriously that a 65 year old retired steel worker is going to fit your image.

 

[DRB]

Oh and I love this bit.

From Scott Schools assistant to Strom Jr. about Bursey's arrest.

"The statute under which Mr. Bursey's been charged alleges that he failed to vacate an area that had been cordoned off for a visit by the president of the United States. It is a content-neutral statute, and Mr. Bursey is charged not because of what he was doing but because of where he was doing it."

Of course when asked why the others in that same "cordoned off" area were not asked to leave eventhough they were holding signs as well, Mr Schools replied.... oh he didn't reply he got in the car and drove off.

Oddly enough, the verdict in the Bursey case is due today.

 

[fluff]

Surely the 'land of the free' etc shouldn't need 'free speech zones'.

Doesn't that imply that free speech is not allowed anywhere else?

 

[ohio]

How the protests are ill-timed by egomaniacs:

How the protests aid & abet the enemy:

How the protests turn into "acts of civil disobedience":

Bump for the tea-baggers.

 

[$tinkle]

wft was i on about?

and yes, i did get eVites for tea parties. good thing i brought a wide assortment of buttplugs (in case we were to sip "smooth move", natch)

 

[kidwoo]

Ah damn true. I hope he finally fuctadude and got it over with. He deserves happiness.

 

[DaveW]

hehe from the original article that started this thread.

The FBI took a shotgun approach towards protesters partly because of the FBI’s “belief that dissident speech and association should be prevented because they were incipient steps towards the possible ultimate commission of act which might be criminal,”

So like "Free Speech" is the gateway drug of terrorism?