Allow me to preface this entire commentary by saying that Bush is not the first or only president to engage in this despicable practice. If memory serves, former president Clinton did the same thing.

The basic idea behind a "free speech zone" is that for the supposed sake of security and safety, a region is designated for protesters of the President to express their right to free speech. Usually this area is a quarter-mile or more away from where the President is actually going and often it's far outside the area where anyone can see or hear it. Step outside the designated "free speech zone" and you'll be arrested by the secret service.

There's one major problem with this line of thinking, however: the United States is a free-speech zone. There's no asterisk in the First Amendment with a corresponding footnote declaring that it's okay to limit speech to keep the President from being embarassed.

Now there are legitimate restrictions to free speech that have evolved over time. It can be legitimate to restrict the time, place, and manner of speech to ensure safety and to protect the rights of others. But here's the problem: in many cases in the recent past, the president's supporters have been able to get right up next to him, while his protesters have been sent to the "free speech zone".

Time, place, and manner restrictions must not discriminate based on content, and hopefully the desire of the administration and the secret service to allow supporters close proximity to the President while forcing his detractors to stand half a mile away will ultimately be the undoing of this policy.

Brett Bursey found himself on the foul end of the "free speech zone" dictum and is set to go on trial for "entering a restricted zone" (that is, refusing to go to the "free speech zone"). Bursey and his lawyers hope to call Karl Rove and John Ashcroft as witnesses to establish that there's a policy in place to keep protesters away from the President.

Bursey said, "It is our contention and we can prove that the Secret Service is telling local authorities to keep protesters out of eyesight of the president. We have three police officers testifying that the Secret Service used that word 'eyesight.' That's quite disturbing."

Bursey isn't the only one either. The ACLU has also filed suit on behalf of four Philadelphia-based groups against the Secret Service, Department of Homeland Security, city of Philadelphia and the city's police department based on what it believes is a pattern of violation of the rights of people to peaceably assemble and speak.

Take a gander at this ABC News article (note that it's divided into several pages and you have to page through it at the bottom) for many more examples of a disturbing trend in this country.

It's not okay for any President, Democrat or Republican, to be shielded from protesters nor to have their supporters segregated from their detractors by barbed-wire and half a mile's distance. This country is a free speech zone, and it's high time law enforcement was reminded of that.

---Nick

vote FOR this article vote AGAINST this article flag as spam/abuse
Log in if you are spatula for more options. 
Find similar articles