Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at:
http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
--- Begin Message --- http://www.amconmag.com/12_15_03/feature.html
December 15, 2003 issue
Copyright  2003 The American Conservative
âFree-Speech Zoneâ
The administration quarantines dissent.
By James Bovard
On Dec. 6, 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft informed the Senate Judiciary Committee, âTo those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty â your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and â give ammunition to Americaâs enemies.â Some commentators feared that Ashcroftâs 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 Ashcroftâs 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 âfree speech zonesâ or âprotest zonesâ 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, âThe Bush family must surely love the poor, they made so many of us.â The local police, at the Secret Serviceâs behest, set up a âdesignated free-speech zoneâ on a baseball field surrounded by a chain-link fence a third of a mile from the location of Bushâs speech. The police cleared the path of the motorcade of all critical signs, though folks with pro-Bush signs were permitted to line the presidentâs path. Neel refused to go to the designated area and was arrested for disorderly conduct; the police also confiscated his sign. Neel later commented, âAs far as Iâm 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.â
At Neelâs trial, police detective John Ianachione testified that the Secret Service told local police to confine âpeople that were there making a statement pretty much against the president and his viewsâ 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 âcome in and do a site survey, and say, âHereâs a place where the people can be, and weâd like to have any protesters put in a place that is able to be secured.ââ Pennsylvania district judge Shirley Rowe Trkula threw out the disorderly conduct charge against Neel, declaring, âI believe this is America. Whatever happened to âI donât agree with you, but Iâll defend to the death your right to say itâ?â
Similar suppressions have occurred during Bush visits to Florida. A recent St. Petersburg Times editorial noted, âAt a Bush rally at Legends Field in 2001, three demonstratorsâtwo of whom were grandmothersâwere 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.â One of the arrested protesters was a 62-year-old man holding up a sign, âWar is good business. Invest your sons.â The seven were charged with trespassing, âobstructing without violence and disorderly conduct.â
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, âNo 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 wouldnât allow any of the protesters out of the protest zone to talk to the media.â 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 âNo War for Oilâ sign at a Bush visit to Columbia, S.C. Local police, acting under Secret Service orders, established a âfree speech zoneâ 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 âfree speech zone.â
Bursey refused and was arrested. Bursey said that he asked the policeman if âit was the content of my sign, and he said, âYes, sir, itâs the content of your sign thatâs the problem.ââ Bursey stated that he had already moved 200 yards from where Bush was supposed to speak. Bursey later complained, âThe problem was, the restricted area kept moving. It was wherever I happened to be standing.â
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 Departmentâin the person of U.S. Attorney Strom Thurmond Jr.âquickly jumped in, charging Bursey with violating a rarely enforced federal law regarding âentering a restricted area around the President of the United States.â If convicted, Bursey faces a six-month trip up the river and a $5000 fine. Federal magistrate Bristow Marchant denied Burseyâs request for a jury trial because his violation is categorized as a âpetty offense.â 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.
Burseyâs 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, âWe intend to find out from Mr. Ashcroft why and how the decision to prosecute Mr. Bursey was reached.â 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 âfree speech zoneâ 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, âThese 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.â Except for having their constitutional rights shredded.
Marrâs comments are a mockery of this countryâs 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 ACLUâs Witold Walczak said of the protesters, âThe individuals we are talking about didnât pose a security threat; they posed a political threat.â
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 signsâas has happened in some demonstrationsâis 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 administrationâs 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, âThe 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 canât be heard.â Demonstrators were shunted to an area away from the Federal Parliament building and prohibited from using any public address system in the area.
For Bushâs 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 âvirtual three day shutdown of central London in a bid to foil disruption of the visit by anti-war protesters,â according to Britainâs Evening Standard. But instead of a âfree speech zoneââas such areas are labeled in the U.S.âthe Bush administration demanded an âexclusion zoneâ to protect Bush from protestersâ 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 âforward strategy of freedomâ and declared, âWe seek the advance of freedom and the peace that freedom brings.â Regarding the protesters, Bush sought to turn the issue into a joke: âIâve been here only a short time, but Iâve noticed that the tradition of free speechâexercised with enthusiasmâis alive and well here in London. We have that at home, too. They now have that right in Baghdad, as well.â
Attempts to suppress protesters become more disturbing in light of the Homeland Security Departmentâs 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 âexpressed dislike of attitudes and decisions of the U.S. government.â If police vigorously followed this advice, millions of Americans could be added to the official lists of âsuspected terrorists.â
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 âsend two witnesses along for each participant [in an antiwar demonstration], with an eye toward preserving at least the possibility of an eventual treason prosecutionâ since all the demonstrators were guilty of âgiving, at the very least, comfort to Saddam Hussein.â
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, âYou can make an easy kind of a link that, if you have a protest group protesting a war where the cause thatâs 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.â Van Winkle justified classifying protesters like terrorists: âIâve 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 isnât just bombs going off and killing people.â
Such aggressive tactics become more ominous in the light of the Bush administrationâs 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 Americansâ everyday lives first imposed in 1976. One FBI internal newsletter encouraged FBI agents to conduct more interviews with antiwar activists âfor 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.â The FBI took a shotgun approach towards protesters partly because of the FBIâs âbelief that dissident speech and association should be prevented because they were incipient steps towards the possible ultimate commission of act which might be criminal,â according to a Senate report.
On Nov. 23 news broke that the FBI is now actively conducting surveillance of antiwar demonstratorsâsupposedly to âblunt potential violence by extremist elements,â according to a Reuters interview with a federal law enforcement official. Given the FBIâs expansive defintion of âpotential violenceâ 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 âTotal Information Awarenessâ-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 âscurrilous and depraved nature of many of the characters, activities habits, and living conditions representative of New Left adherentsââbut this time focused on those who oppose Bushâs Brave New World?
Is the administration seeking to stifle domestic criticism? Absolutely. Is it carrying out a war on dissent? Probably notâyet. 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.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.ctrl.org
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
ctrl is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis-directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, ctrl gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. ctrl gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
There are two list running, [EMAIL PROTECTED] and [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] has unlimited posting and is more for discussion. [EMAIL PROTECTED] is more for informational exchange and has limited posting abilities.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
Om
Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
ADVERTISEMENT
Yahoo! Groups Links
- To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ctrl/
- To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
- Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
--- End Message ---
