Quarantining dissent:How the Secret Service protects Bush from free speech

[truthisfreedom]

MUST READ!

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/01/04/INGPQ40MB81.DTL

Quarantining dissent
How the Secret Service protects Bush from free speech

James Bovard
Sunday, January 4, 2004

When President 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 went 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."

<snip>
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."

<snip>
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."
<snip>
On Nov. 23 news broke that the FBI is 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 definition of "potential violence" in the past, this is a net that could catch almost any group or individual who falls into official disfavor.

[kalian]

1. "Protects Bush from Free Speech".....

my god, what has this country come too? :eyes:
Seriously, this is PURE double-speak...plain and simple.

[BuelahWitch]

5. Well you know those grandparent types..

..they can be DAMN dangerous! :eyes:

[peacetalksforall]

2. Manifestations of nazism and communism.

Or are lines of demarcation being made by someone because they are neatniks?

So the SS tells the police to obey them? Is that the heirarchy here? Hope someone can educate me.

[kalian]

3. That has ALWAYS been the heirarchy....

the SS have always been this way with local and State cops.
But this is starting to look and FEEL like a totalitarian regime.
So much for "they hate us because of our freedoms..." :eyes:

[Skittles]

4. THEY HATE US FOR OUR FREEDOM

WHAT F***ING FREEDOM? The freedom to goose-step to an election-stealing piece of SHIT ???

[truthisfreedom]

7. it's the repukes that hate us for our freedom. face it.

[DemoTex]

6. On 11/4/2002 we got closer to the little shit than anyone. Where?

Dallas, Texas. The Mockingbird Bridge. We marched the short distance to Airline Blvd., in the cold rain, and met the Bu$h motorcade, on it's way to safe-haven; SMU. We were a few feet from the fucker! My dog howled. So did I.



On edit: My dog is the black beast at the second ball from the left.

[anarchy1999]

25. Yes We DID!

I was there and helping to lead the March. They tried to round us up into a free speech zone and those of us leading the march stopped everyone. We were circilng the line and walking slow. Very well done! We got them! Only after were they able to round us up into the "Free Speech Zone". Cudos to all of us, we did not allow ourselves to be marched into their "free speech zone"! We did it that day! I am so proud to have been there, we rocked.

We lined Bush's route and he heard our message. We had people on the inside that unfurled a banner and were escorted out. One of the proudest moments in a long year.

We can't quit.

Tonight's debate was good, best yet. IMHO, Edwards and Kucinich came out the best along with Braun. Do you think we could get those 3 to team up?

On Edit: to add

People we know were detained that evening by the Secret Service. questioned and later released.

[BuelahWitch]

8. One thing I will say about the Kansas City police

They let us protest right across the street from where W. was getting in and out. So if he didn't "see" us, he sure as hell HEARD us!
:bounce:

[tlcandie]

9. That article is chilling but outright true!!!

I highlighted a paragraph to snip, but there was just so much that was alarming I didn't follow up!

We need to start NOT going into the free speech zones...that is the only way this can be brought out into the open.

When I read this it's like how easily we are willing to be corraled and treated as terrorists.

How can people call peeps Chicken Little with reports such as these?

[Just Me]

10. Hmmm, so that guy standing next to me was right!?!?!

At one of the more recent protests in which I participated, I conversed with one of the other protestors. The guy whispered as he indicated "See that guy,...I'll bet he's either SS or CIA,...what do ya want to bet." Hell, I thought he was just being paranoid.

Sure didn't stop me from yelling on the bullhorn right across the street from a fundraiser attended by Cheney *LOL*!!! I have no doubt whatsoever that he and the rest of the attendees heard my big mouth :D

[Sir Craig]

11. I have asked this before, and I'll ask again...

When did America become the Soviet Union? Personally, I'm guessing the change began sometime around December 12, 2000...

This article and others like it bring back memories of how the protesters in Red Square would hold signs up, only to have plain-clothes KGB come by and rip them down. Names were taken, and many were interrogated. Gulags were a thriving business then.

It makes me sick that these bastards occupying the White House are so paranoid that they may lose power that they'll do what they think they have to in order to stay in power.

Which, oddly enough, is what the old Soviet regime did. And see how that turned out?

[Poiuyt]

12. Has this ever happened in America?

Have any other presidents or politicians stifled free speech like this? Is there any precedence for this. How do the courts let him get away with it?

[kurtyboy]

22. You bet it's happened in the past.

In WWI, people went to prison for years (Including Socialist Presidential candidate Eugene Debs--he took 6% of the national vote in 1912! Eat your heart out, Nader.) for the crime of speaking out against war.

Suppression of speech has a long history in this country.

<snip>

As America entered the last year of World War I, 1918, “patriotic” fervor seemed to swell. In May, the Sedition Act (see www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/ 1918/usspy.html for text) imposed “a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both ...” upon anyone disposed to “utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States.”

In October 1918, Congress passed the Alien Act, by which “any alien who, at any time after entering the United States, is found to have been at the time of entry, or to have become thereafter, a member of any anarchist organization” could be deported.

Libertarians of the day, including Albert Jay Nock, H.L. Mencken, Randolph Bourne, and Oswald Garrison Villard spoke out in protest against such measures. But most voices still remained silent.

The various acts of 1917 and 1918 were used to destroy what was left of the left wing in America. Victor Berger, the first socialist elected to Congress, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for hindering the war effort. (While Berger was free on appeal, his constituency returned him to Congress.) The socialist labor leader Eugene V. Debs was sentenced to 10 years in prison for making an anti-war speech.

</snip>

Head to the latter part of page two of this link for more....

http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0204f.asp

[cally]

13. The ACLU has filed a class action suit

and this is just the medias fault. Yes, the SS keep the protestors away from the Chimp. A real media would still report about the protests. So they aren't on the parade route designated by the chimpy, the protestors are there. The media is horrendous and does not do it's job.

[Vitruvius]

14. I would strongly suggest that the next Democratic President FIRE those

Secret Service goons -- and take away their pensions. Because (a) like all peace officers, they are obligated to uphold the constitution, and (b) they acted in a partisan way by helping Bu$h stifle dissent.

If those Secret Service goons cannot obey OUR constitution, they do not deserve to carry OUR badges and they do not deserve to draw pensions from OUR government.

I'd also suggest that the next Democratic President think twice before entrusting his personal safety to these right-wing goons.

Vitruvius

P.S: Like many Americans, I've always been suspicious of the behavior of JFK's Secret Service detail when he was assassinated.

[aquart]

18. Saying it again: Have they ever done this before?

If not, why do you think they're doing it now?

The people of the Secret Service are not goons. They do, however, follow orders.

You might want to find out who's giving the orders, before yanking the pensions earned by decades of service.

[Mechatanketra]

24. "They were just following orders"?

That sounds familiar for some reason ...

[markus]

33. So, if they were ordered to beat the protesters after their arrest

that would be OK, since they were ordered to do it?

Anyone who served in any capacity, civilian or military, in the federal government takes an oath to uphold the laws and the constitution of the United States, against all enemies foriegn and domestic.

At some point, a person has to make a moral choice to do or to not do something that is clearly wrong. These guys have decided to suppress dissent in this country, "under orders".

Losing their pensions should be the least of their concerns. They should probably be imprisoned and striped of their civil rights as felons.

We need some sort of "treason" law to address cases such as these guys, Ollie North, etc., so that there is a consequence to making the wrong choice, whether under orders or not.

[saigon68]

34. VAS FOLLOWINK ORDEERS

JA, sounds familiar

[aquart]

15. Is Bush the first President so protected?

If so, why?

[Solly Mack]

17. His father did the same thing

On the Amtrak tour with Poppy, they kept all dissent away from his stops.

In Gainesville, Georgia, the local paper even announced that those who wish to oppose Poppy were being forbiddened from "greeting" the train. That those with anti-Bush signs would be removed.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

21. Reagan did it too. Nixon sometimes, but that was GOP events

Public events, it was done sporadically this is the first time it is done systematically. The exceptions are where Police Chiefs are near retirement and don't care.

[SteveG]

16. Article first appeared in Buchanan's American Conservative Magazine

in the Dec. 15 issue. It's nice to know that even though we disagree with Pat Buchanan and most of his ilk on most matters, that they are as scared of this tyrant and his regiem as we are.

[C_eh_N_eh_D_eh]

19. Take this idea one step further.

In a May 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.


On Nov. 23 news broke that the FBI is 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 definition of "potential violence" in the past, this is a net that could catch almost any group or individual who falls into official disfavor.

So, the * regime is compiling a list of people who don't agree with them, and labelling said people as "suspected terrorists". Nothing we didn't already know, and most people aren't that concerned about it.

But here's the $82,341.61 question:

How much spin does the government need to justify striking a "suspected" terrorist off the list of registered voters just before a presidential election?

This link provided as a public service.

[LifeDuringWartime]

20. gotta love those public services

n/t

[revcarol]

23. Their pulling down that "code pink" sheet was soooooo blatant.

That might be an "incitement to riot?"Someone post that picture please. Perfect example of "protecting the President" from peaceful demonstrators.

[Buns_of_Fire]

27. This one?

[Norquist Nemesis]

26. Great article!

Hope they keep this in the forefront. It's been going on too long. Interesting how they point the finger at the Secret Service though. Did they come up with that little policy all on their own? I think not.

[McHrozni]

28. And you are suprised? :rolleyes:

[cmd]

29. We got past them in Richfield, OH

On Labor Day about 450 protestors were assigned a place to hole up out of sight of everyone. We didn't listen. We lined the streets got within a few feet of the motorcade. Secret Service were all over the place, along with local police and one rather threatening police dog. They were no match for our peaceful, but loud protest. Proud to say there were five DUers there that day.

[mistertrickster]

30. We protestors might try the ironic approach--on Sat. REM was playing

on the "Ellen DeGenaris Show" and the lead singer had a black T shirt with giant white letters that read "Trust the Media."

Sarcasm if I ever saw it . . . Might work with the Bushits--

I (heart) Bush's War

Kill Iraqis for Freedom

"When you talk about peace, you're really talking about war." (actual Bush quote)

War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is bliss.

Thanks for keeping Ken Lay out of prison!

[monobrau]

31. If you were an assasin...

Would you carry an anti-Bush sign? This is blatant bullshit.

[Catherine Vincent]

32. Why didn't the SS do that with Clinton when the FreakRepublic

idiots were protesting his every move with bullshit signs? I guess Clinton didn't care about stuff like that, maybe the SS wanted to do something about it but he wouldn't let them.

[Skittles]

35. CLINTON WASN'T A COWARD

Bush is the biggest coward on the planet

[proud patriot]

36. Hear Me , SS and FBI I want bush to live a long long long life

I also disagree with every policy he has put forth .

I have a right to Express myself peacefully without fear of
reprisals from my government.

I hold my Constitution close , Everyone I know
has a copy of the Constitution . I gave it to them.

4 generations of my Family have put their lives
on the line to protect and defend the Constitution
by serving in the military.

Loving America and protecting The Constitution
is my only goal and my duty as a citizen of this
great nation .

Why does that make me suspect in my own country ?

I truly hope the Constitution is still honored in this
Country . If it is not to be honored then please
change the name of the Country because it won't be
The United States of America without the Constitution .

p.s. bush and all of his cabinet have sworn an oath
to protect and defend the Constitution . This article
proves they are in contempt of their oaths.