Yippeee...we now have designated free speech zones.

[PhillyKev 0]

Personally, I thought the whole country was a free speech zone. Apparently not.

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

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.

[turtlespeed 226]

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Personally, I thought the whole country was a free speech zone. Apparently not.

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

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.

Gee Beave, there's no spin on that one .. .

I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama
BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun

[ScubaSteve 0]

This is not uncommon. Both sides do this. It to prevent freaks from disturbing an event.

[SkydiveMonkey 0]

"Plead the 5th cos you can't plead the 1st"

Rage Against the Machine

____________________
Say no to subliminal messages

[meltdown 0]

Try being a conservative on a college campus. You will be shut down mercilessly by the PC establishment.

[PhillyKev 0]

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This is not uncommon. Both sides do this. It to prevent freaks from disturbing an event.

I don't care which side does it. Freaks have a constitutional right to disturb an event if they do it in a legal manner. That's THE primary reason for the first amendment.

[sdgregory 0]

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Try being a conservative on a college campus. You will be shut down mercilessly by the PC establishment.

You got that right. I am a conservative at OSU. Not a popular place to be conservative. Makes for interesting days though.

[lawrocket 3]

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Personally, I thought the whole country was a free speech zone. Apparently not.

"Apparently not" is correct. Never has been.

This provides a great explanation.


Edited excerpt:
The right to assemble is subject to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions when exercised in a traditional or government-created public forum, and may be subject to reasonable, noncontent based
restrictions in other fora. The Court has defined three different categories of public property or types of "public" fora. First is the fully public forum, which includes streets, parks, and other places traditionally used for public assembly and debate. In these areas, the government may not prohibit all communicative activity and must justify any content-neutral, time, place, and manner restrictions as narrowly tailored to serve a legitimate state interest.

The second category is the "limited public forum" where the government has opened property for communicative activity and thereby created a public forum. In this category, the government may limit the forum to use by certain groups; Wider v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263 (1981) (student groups), or for discussion of certain subjects, City of Madison Joint School District v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission, 429 U.S. 167 (1976) (school board business).

The last category is where the government "reserve(s) a forum for its intended purposes . . . as long as the regulation or speed is reasonable and not an effort to suppress, express or merely because public
officials oppose the speaker's views." Perry Educ. Ass'n v. Perry Local Educators' Ass'n, 460 U.S. 37, 46 (1983). Government regulation of the second category requires a "compelling" state interest while regulation of the third category need only be reasonable.

Where a public forum has multiple, competing uses, the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld a regulation limiting the time when a public park can be used, even when that limitation restricted the ability to demonstrate against homelessness by sleeping in symbolic "tent cities" in the park. See Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence, 468 U.S. 288 1984). Governments may impose permit equirements on those wishing to hold a march, parade, or rally. See Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement, 112 S.Ct. 2395, 2401 (1992).

The power to regulate is greatest when more limited fora, likemilitary bases or airports, are at issue. See, e.g., International Society of Krishna Consciousness v. Lee, 112 S.Ct. 2701 (1992).

However, there are important constitutional limits to such intrusions. A law limiting certain types of picketing or demonstration but not others, for example, would be an impermissible content-based restriction. E.g., Police Department of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92 (1972). Licensing or permit systems may not delegate overly broad licensing discretion to government officials, must be narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest, and must leave open ample alternatives for communication.

In Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement, for example, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a law which empowered a county administrator to adjust a permit fee for demonstrators based on the likely expense of maintaining public order. Reviewing a challenge brought by a controversial group that was expected to cause considerable disruption, the Court held that such a rule was unconstitutional both because it vested too much discretion in the administrator and because it was based inevitably on content: to estimate the cost of providing security, the administrator would have to examine the content of the parade's message, the likely public reaction, and judge the number of police necessary to provide protection.

In Shuttleworth v. City of Birmingham, 394 U.S. 147 (1969), a city ordinance permitting denial of a parade permit where required by "the public welfare, peace, safety, health, decency, good order, morals or convenience" was held to be Unconstitutional on its face because of the discretion it vested in the city administrator.

So, the best examples are to think of a military base or a courtroom. Shooting your mouth in those places ain't protected.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[PhillyKev 0]

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However, there are important constitutional limits to such intrusions. A law limiting certain types of picketing or demonstration but not others, for example, would be an impermissible content-based restriction.

i think the above is the key point. People lining the streets with signs lauding Bush and shouting his praises were permitted. People with signs critical of him, and shouting criticism were not.

If they want to claim national security, fine, clear the streets. But don't make it a dog and pony show in an effort to portray that everyone is supportive.

[jumprunner 0]

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Try being a conservative on a college campus. You will be shut down mercilessly by the PC establishment.

You do have a right to free speech, on college campuses or anywhere for that matter, as long as that free speech is politically correct.

You also have a right to your own choice of political ideology on college campuses as long as it isnt conservative.

Now what could be more free than that?

[lawrocket 3]

Ah, yes, but see the part about competing uses. By limiting it to one message, for the most part, it allows the competing uses. Thus, when the protestors want a few thousand people, they can reserve the time to use it themselves, and counterprotesters may be set aside somewhere else.

Picture a labor rally in a major downtown. They'll set aside a sidewalk corner for the kid from YAF waiving a flag.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[PhillyKev 0]

How is it competing uses? The example they give for that is setting up a tent city in a public park, thereby depriving the public of its common usage temporarily. In this case were talking about a non-licensed group of people lining a motorcade. Some have pro-Bush signs, others have anti-Bush signs. They're both on the public sidewalk for the same purpose. To observe the motorcade and hold up a sign. The only difference was the content of the sign. Those with anti-Bush messages were ordered to leave and were arrested for refusing to do so.

No one reserved the public sidewalk for a specific purpose. The SS (ironic) came along and told the police to clear the streets of anti-Bush slogans. There weren't competing uses, just competing messages.

[vonSanta 0]

Heh PhillyKey, I have some US friends that say the US hasn't changed one bit freedom wise after Bush took office.

Santa Von GrossenArsch
I only come in one flavour
ohwaitthatcanbemisunderst

[meltdown 0]

"Heh PhillyKey, I have some US friends that say the US hasn't changed one bit freedom wise after Bush took office."

It has changed; we have more economic freedom than we had previously.

[quatorze 1]

http://www.free-times.com/

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Freedom of Speech, in Certain Quarters

Bush Protester Goes to Jail


By ERIC KENNETH WARD

Brett Bursey watched Air Force One land at the Columbia Metropolitan Airport around noon on Oct. 25 as he sat in a paddy wagon with his hands cuffed behind his back en route to the Lexington County jail.

Within minutes, as Bursey was being booked on a trespassing charge, President Bush took to a podium in a hangar at the airport and delivered a speech to some 4,400 cheering South Carolinians.

Bush offered praise and asked for support for Palmetto State Republican candidates in the Nov. 5 elections. He extolled the freedoms of America. And he described Iraqi President Saddam Hussein as a threat to peace who hates the United States.

To Bursey, director of the S.C. Progressive Network, the president’s rhetoric about freedom echoed with Orwellian irony.

Bursey had gone to the airport with about 15 other people to protest what they see as the president’s misguided attempt to launch the nation into a war against Iraq. Employing the constitutional rights of freedom of speech and assembly, the demonstrators carried signs with slogans like “No War for Oil” and “No Weapons of Mass Distraction.”

The protesters took up various positions. Bursey, joined by a few others, chose a spot along a road that the presidential convoy would travel on to the airport. The road was lined with a far greater number of Bush supporters who had signs of their own.

That’s when things went awry.

Airport police confronted Bursey and his colleagues standing beside the road and told them they had to move to a “designated free speech zone,” according to the protesters and a spokeswoman for the airport.

Bursey’s companions obliged, but Bursey didn’t. As Bursey tells it, he asked the cops if the reason they wanted him to move was the content of his anti-war sign. The police said yes and again asked him to relocate, to which Bursey replied, “I am in the free speech zone. I’m in America.”

Not amused, airport officers arrested Bursey and charged him with trespassing after notice. “He was located in an area that was considered a buffer or a security zone,” airport spokeswoman Lynne Douglas says. Asked whether Bursey was targeted because of his sign, Douglas says, “I’m not aware of that conversation.”

One thing is certain: Airport police are more accustomed to listening to planes take off and land than dealing with protesters and making arrests. Of the thousands of people who’ve passed through the airport this year, airport police have arrested 12 including Bursey, Douglas says, adding that most of the others were for DUI or failing to return rental cars.

The day after his arrest, Bursey was released on a personal recognizance bond. He says he will ask for a jury trial and has “no doubt” that he will be acquitted because he was on public property. “The whole notion of having free speech zones is contrary to the tradition of America,” Bursey says. “I mean it’s not a question of security. It’s a matter of shutting up the opposition.”

In the late 1960s, Bursey was arrested under similar circumstances. He fought the charges all the way to the S.C. Supreme Court, which threw out his case.

Bursey says that by establishing designated protest areas far removed from the locations of presidential visits, Bush employs the Secret Service as “an advance political team” to disperse critics and weaken their message. “I mean free speech is not a crime,” he says. “The sign is not a crime.”

Neil Dolan, special agent in charge of the state office of the Secret Service, did not return several calls.

Douglas says the demonstration site for Bush’s visit was in front of the airport. “It would have been seen,” she says.

Michael Berg, a Columbia resident who took part in the protest, says he was appalled at such police-state tactics. “The message was clearly, ‘You are not allowed to be here unless you are wholeheartedly supporting the president,’” Berg says. “Every place, as soon as we arrived, we were threatened with immediate arrest.”

Using a legal standard that the government is prohibited from violating someone’s rights under the color of law, Bursey says he will bring a civil lawsuit in federal court against Bush, the Secret Service and the airport police in an attempt to establish a precedent that squelching dissent is unconstitutional.

Quote

Bursey Guilty; Gets $500 Fine

Almost a year and two months after his arrest, Columbia activist Brett Bursey was found guilty on Jan. 6 of federal charges brought against him under a seldom-used statute meant to regulate threats against the president.

Bursey was arrested while peacefully protesting a visit from President Bush at the Columbia airport, and says he was told he was not in a "free speech zone." Five months after his arrest, the federal government brought charges against him.

Although the statute allows for penalties of up to 6 months in prison, five years probation and $5,000 in fines, U.S. Magistrate Bristow Marchant sentenced Bursey to a $500 fine with no prison or probation time. "Your motives for being there that day played a large part in your sentence," he told Bursey.

Those motives were clear in a speech Bursey made to the court after hearing the verdict, but before the sentence. "If people don't get engaged in this democracy we're not going to have it much longer," Bursey said. "In the 30 years since I've been doing this what strikes me the most is that Americans are afraid of their own government."

Bursey's lawyers said they plan to appeal the decision.

Saying that Bursey "effectively sealed his own fate," Marchant found that Bursey "willfully and knowingly remained in a restricted zone" even after being asked to leave. Marchant said that "in this age of suicide bombers," the establishment of a restricted area to protect the president was manifestly reasonable.

However, Marchant added that he did not support the idea that protestors must stay in a designated area.

Although Marchant acknowledged that Bursey had not been shown to have any intent to harm the president, he called that awareness "a luxury the Secret Service did not have on that day."

After Lewis Pitts, one of Bursey's attorneys, appealed to the judge to reconsider his verdict, Marchant repeated a statement he had made earlier in the sentencing hearing about the limits of his authority. "It's not for the courts to decide which cases are prosecuted," he said. "That's a decision solely reserved for the government to make and the people to debate."

‹ Laura Longhine

It has been going on for a while, here is the post from 2002

http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=293775;search_string=free%20speech;#293775

I'm not afriad of dying, I'm afraid of never really living- Erin Engle

[kallend 2,129]

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"Heh PhillyKey, I have some US friends that say the US hasn't changed one bit freedom wise after Bush took office."

It has changed; we have more economic freedom than we had previously.

The unemployed don't.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[PhillyKev 0]

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Marchant said that "in this age of suicide bombers," the establishment of a restricted area to protect the president was manifestly reasonable.

However, Marchant added that he did not support the idea that protestors must stay in a designated area.

Although Marchant acknowledged that Bursey had not been shown to have any intent to harm the president, he called that awareness "a luxury the Secret Service did not have on that day."

Oh boy....does anyone think a suicide bomber is going to hold up a protest sign before attacking? That's such a feeble attempt at justifying this.

[meltdown 0]

"Heh PhillyKey, I have some US friends that say the US hasn't changed one bit freedom wise after Bush took office."

It has changed; we have more economic freedom than we had previously.

------------------------------------------------------------"The unemployed don't."

Neither did the unemployed under Clinton, or Bush 1 or anyone else. Those who are currently paying taxes are paying less of them. And if you're going to blame Bush for the recession, look at the economy in the months leading up to the election - particularly the stock market.

[AdD 1]

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Oh boy....does anyone think a suicide bomber is going to hold up a protest sign before attacking? That's such a feeble attempt at justifying this.

Ya, a suicide bomber would probably use a Bush/Cheney sign to get moved to the front of the line. This frankly scares me. If anyone told me I couldn't hold up a sign saying something against my government while there were people around me with signs supporting it, I would bury the PM... in angry letters of course. Doesn't really surprise me though, I've made up my mind on politicians.

Life is ez
On the dz
Every jumper's dream
3 rigs and an airstream

[rehmwa 2]

Don't bother, K just lobs grenades. The reasonable dems on the board are Quade, BV and PhillyK. They are partison, but they use reason and discussion in their arguments without the emotional junk. (actually, I don't think PK is that partison, he has specific issues with large businesses but most of the time is reasonable about any issue. I'm not sure where this post came from).

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[kallend 2,129]

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Don't bother, K just lobs grenades. The reasonable dems on the board are Quade, BV and PhillyK. They are partison, but they use reason and discussion in their arguments without the emotional junk. (actually, I don't think PK is that partison, he has specific issues with large businesses but most of the time is reasonable about any issue. I'm not sure where this post came from).

There were 8.9M unemployed at the end of the Bush I administration, 5.7M at the end of the Clinton administration, and 8.4M right now. (US Dept. of Labor statistics).

That's 2.7M more unemployed now than 3 years ago.

Call it a grenade if you wish.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[kallend 2,129]

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Don't bother, K just lobs grenades. The reasonable dems on the board are Quade, BV and PhillyK. ).

I am not a Dem.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[kallend 2,129]

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Heh PhillyKey, I have some US friends that say the US hasn't changed one bit freedom wise after Bush took office.

Maybe they haven't yet had their shoes confiscated at an airport, or been imprisoned indefinitely without charge, trial or access to an attorney.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[meltdown 0]

"Maybe they haven't yet had their shoes confiscated at an airport, or been imprisoned indefinitely without charge, trial or access to an attorney"
____________________________________________
Or had an airliner flown into their house by a religious zealot in hot pursuit of a flock of virgins.

[wmw999 2,565]

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Or had an airliner flown into their house by a religious zealot in hot pursuit of a flock of virgins.

Or had their workplace and children blown up by a bomber.

Oh. Wait. We didn't take any special measures for that, did we. It cost a lot of lives, though.

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)