Muzzling free speech One way to quash protest:Build a cage

[Shallah Kali]

http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/4927029.html

So it has come down to this: You are at liberty to exercise your First Amendment right to assemble and to protest, so long as you do so from behind chain-link fences and razor wire, or miles from the audience you seek to address.

The largely ignored "free-speech zone" at the Democratic convention in Boston last month was an affront to the spirit of the Constitution. The situation will be only slightly better when the Republicans gather this month in New York, where indiscriminate searches and the use of glorified veal cages for protesters have been limited by a federal judge. So far, the only protesters with access to the area next to Madison Square Garden are some anti-abortion Christians. High-fiving delegates evidently fosters little risk of violence.

(snip)

An even more pernicious use of the federal law enforcement power to quash protest has been observed at presidential speeches, where the Bush team has used the Secret Service at public events to create "free-speech zones" that keep dissenters away from the president.

In 2002, Brett Bursey, a South Carolinian, was arrested for holding a "No War for Oil" sign near a hangar where Bush was speaking. The West Virginia police reported that the Secret Service had directed them to arrest a couple sporting anti-Bush T-shirts at a public speech this year. And an account by Justin Rood in Salon last week revealed that at a recent rally in Duluth, Secret Service checkpoints were festooned with photos of men posing some ostensible physical danger to the president: One was a professor active in the Green Party, another a pacifist homeless activist. Both had plans to protest the war during Bush's visit.