Quarantining Dissent

[michaeledward]

This is from 'The Nation' web site.

Banned in Kalamazoo
05/05/2004 @ 4:52pm
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Shouldn't college students seeking knowledge--especially knowledge that might challenge their own biases--be encouraged? Not so, it seems, according to the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign and the College Republicans of Kalamazoo College. When seven sophomores at the school showed up at Wings Stadium in downtown Kalamazoo to see George W. Bush at a campaign rally on May 3 and presented the tickets they had obtained for the event, security officers would not allow them in. The problem, according to these students, was that College Republicans volunteering at the event fingered them as liberals who did not support Bush. And such citizens were not welcome at the rally.
According to Ted Hufstader and Julia VanAusdall--two of the Kalamazoo Seven--here's what happened. Last week, the students heard that Bush would be appearing at Kalamazoo during a bus tour through the swing states of Ohio and Michigan. Hufstader maintains that this group of friends, which was made up mostly of Bush detractors (some of whom have engaged in protests in the past), only wanted the chance to see and hear the president. They were, he says, not interested in waging any anti-Bush action. "We wanted to get a better idea of what he's like," Hufstader notes. "All we get are little soundbites on the news." And he points to the fact that one of the seven was an international student as evidence of their sincerity: "We would not have done anything to jeopardize this student's standing in the country."

So Hufstader hit the Internet and discovered that tickets for the Bush rally would be handed out at a local Chamber of Commerce office. ("The tickets are free and will be distributed on a first come first serve basis," the chamber's website reported.) Last Friday morning, he and Lisa Dallacqua arrived at that office at seven in the morning and waited--in the rain--for two hours. Inside, they were asked to show a photo ID and to provide their addresses--and the addresses of several friends for whom they were obtaining tickets. "We later heard that some people who wouldn't declare they were Republicans were denied tickets," Hufstader says. "But we didn't see that happen." Hufstader and Dallacqua were given seven tickets, and their names and the names of their friends were placed on a list that would be checked at the rally.

When the gang arrived at Wings Stadium--home of the Kalamazoo Wings, a minor league hockey team--they had to pass through a series of checkpoints. Hufstader maintains they were each dressed conservatively--"you know, khakis and sweaters"--and sported no political buttons or any other accouterments of dissent. At one of the checkpoints, they were spotted by a member of the College Republicans. He was familiar with the political predilections of several of these students and asked how they had received tickets. "We stood in line," Hufstader says he replied. At another checkpoint, Hufstader and his friends saw several College Republicans talking to the volunteers working security. The security people then told Hufstader, Dallacqua, VanAusdall and the others (Leah Busch, Shanna Barkume, and the international student whose identity Hufstader and the others are currently protecting) that they could not enter. "They told us," Hufstader says, "that we failed a background check, that we had been identified by volunteers as a potential threat, and that if we didn't leave we would be arrested."

Hufstader and the others insisted they simply wanted to hear Bush and demanded to see what list--if any--indicated that they had failed a background check. They argued their point until local police showed up and said they would be arrested unless they departed. The police officers explained the rally was a private event and the organizers could pick and choose who would attend. The police took their tickets and escorted them seven blocks away from the stadium.

"Several things anger us," says Hufstader. "It may have been a private event, but the tickets didn't say that and we were never told that. We felt misled. But we felt worse about the College Republicans. We were very disappointed that our peers singled us out for what they thought we might do. And we later heard they had been trained to find potential threats at the event. But we were not a threat. We're even friends with some of these College Republicans. This was a sad commentary about the bitter divide of American politics. Look how hard it was for us to hear a contrary view. We wanted to see the president and then talk about what he said afterward. We felt like we were being blacklisted by our campus peers, and this is a campus that is supposed to be open to different political views."

Did the College Republicans put the kibosh on the Kalamazooans? I emailed the head of the group at Kalamazoo College and have not yet heard back from him. Is it standard practice for the Bush campaign to ban from its rallies citizens who do not pledge allegiance to the candidate? I called the Bush campaign and was passed to Merrill Smith, a regional spokesperson. No word back from her either.

But it's no surprise that the Bush campaign--like other campaigns--stage-manages its public events to the fullest extent possible and tells non-supporters to keep out (or be locked up). Bush did not engage in drive-by campaigning in Kalamazoo to provide local citizens the opportunity to see him in action. He hit the town in search of a middle-of-America backdrop, a screaming throng, and upbeat footage on the local news shows. After all, campaigns are about candidates, not voters. So while Hufstader and his pals did not get to see Bush in person wax about the glories of freedom they did at least receive a lesson in modern politics.

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​

 

[someguy]

I didn't really read it all because of the tiny tiny print but what I did read was intresting. From what I have experienced with the college republicans I dislike them. The college democrats around my campus are abbout as well liked for me as well though so I dunno. Maybe I just dislike too many pepole.

 

[michaeledward]

Thanks, though. Nothing is funnier than reading the intellectual/political contortions of people who are trying to justify having the cops haul off an 84-year-old woman in a wheelchair because she's holding a protest sign. Especially when they've previously been arguing that Liberals Are Going To Take Over the Country and Crush Our Liberties.

For those who recall ...

Judge acquits Betty Hall of disorderly conduct


By ANDREW WOLFE, Telegraph Staff
[email protected]

[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Published: Friday, Aug. 27, 2004[/font]

[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]NASHUA - Police had no authority under state law to order a Brookline woman to retreat to a “safety zone” established during President Bush’s most recent visit to the city, a district court judge ruled Thursday.

“Isn’t that great? I still live in a free country, and a free state,” Betty Hall, 83, said after Nashua District Court Judge Clifford Kinghorn found her innocent of disorderly conduct.

Hall and two other anti-Bush protesters were arrested March 25 after they refused requests by police to move farther back from the intersection of Amherst Street and Deerwood Drive.

Bush and his motorcade were passing by the intersection on the way to an appearance at New Hampshire Community Technical College.

The other two protesters, Howard Morse, 73, of Amherst, and Valerie Farrell, 55, of Merrimack, are scheduled to stand trial Sept. 30 in district court. They also were charged with disorderly conduct.

Hall’s acquittal does not give demonstrators the right to rub elbows with the president during future visits to the city, said her lawyer, Michael Pignatelli.

“I think there are federal laws that apply to this situation,” he said. “I’m no expert (on federal law). I only know she didn’t commit this crime.”

Indeed, Title 18 USC Chapter 203, Sec. 3056 gives the Secret Service authority to protect the president and various other officials, and makes it a crime, punishable by up to a year in prison and a $1,000 fine, to “obstruct, resist or interfere” with agents doing their job.

City police have been discussing arrangements for Bush’s Monday visit to Nashua High School North with the Secret Service, Deputy Chief Donald Conley said Thursday. In light of Kinghorn’s ruling, Conley said anyone who refuses to abide with security arrangements next time will be arrested and charged under the federal statute.[/font]

[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]“If anyone is violating a security perimeter, they’ll be charged federally and not by state statute. The president of the United States has to be protected, and will be protected in the city of Nashua,” Conley said.

It’s not clear whether the Secret Service has any formal regulations governing how close demonstrators can get to the president. Secret Service spokespersons in Washington could not be reached Thursday afternoon.

Hall, a member of the Hollis/Brookline Cooperative School Board and a former state representative, hadn’t planned on demonstrating when she drove to Nashua the day of Bush’s visit in March, but wanted only to see the scene, she testified.

She drove first to the college, but was told she wouldn’t be allowed to park or stay on that side of Amherst Street, she said. She then parked on Deerwood Drive, and walked up to the front of the 7-Eleven store on the southeastern corner of the intersection, she said.

At some point before Bush arrived, police told all spectators at that corner to move either back to the south, away from Amherst Street, or farther to the west, to the western side of the Fleet Bank building at the southwestern side of the intersection, Hall and two officers testified.

Police blocked all vehicle and pedestrian traffic to clear a swath for the president, officers testified, and spectators were kept at a distance of about 300 feet from the intersection through which the motorcade passed.

Protesters and supporters of Bush all were mingled together, and police didn’t try to keep them apart, or move either group farther back, Hall and the officers testified.

Hall moved across Deerwood Drive, and took a seat at the southwestern corner of the intersection, she testified. Officer Daniel Mederos later asked her to move back away from the street, warning that she was too close to the road for her own safety, and she moved farther up a hill, she testified.

Mederos testified that he told Hall then that she eventually would have to move farther back, to the other side of a cordon police had set up along the bank building.

When that time came, however, Hall politely refused to move, she and police testified.

“It looked to me like a good long walk,” Hall said. “I just decided I’m not going to move anymore. I’ve moved all I’m going to.”

“I didn’t think it was lawful to make me move,” she added later.

After trying to persuade her, and offering to help her move, police picked Hall up and carried her to a cruiser.

“When they picked me up, they were very polite to me, too, and I had a nice ride,” Hall said. Her booking at the Hudson Police Department was “a new experience,” Hall said, and she found it to be “a beautiful facility.”

Kinghorn agreed that in fact it wasn’t lawful for police to order Hall to move, because she hadn’t done anything wrong. To be guilty of disorderly conduct, a person must be making some sort of ruckus, or “substantially interfere” with a criminal investigation, firefighting or other emergency services.

Police charged that Hall had “substantially interfered” with “the provision of emergency services when traffic or pedestrian management is required,” but Pignatelli argued the president and his motorcade can’t be considered an emergency, in and of themselves.

Kinghorn stressed the “substantial interference” language of the law in finding Hall innocent.

Two supporters stood outside the courthouse before the trial, holding signs asserting the right to protest peacefully at the time and place of their choosing. One of them, Bessie Chicolas of Amherst, said she was disappointed that more people didn’t come demonstrate.

About 30 friends, relatives and supporters of Hall attended the trial, and burst into applause after Hall concluded her testimony by reading excerpts from the New Hampshire Constitution and again later, after Kinghorn announced his verdict.

Court officers repeatedly warned the crowd to refrain from expressing its approval, which prompted some quiet grumbling about the constitutional implications of the admonishment.

[/font]

 

[RandomPhantom700]

(gee, when I grew up in the Fifties, elderly people were deferred to no matter what...guess times have changed, and morals and courtesy have declined among these young folks)

You mean the young folks in the Bush administration? Or the young folks in charge of Secret Service and local police who are the ones who had that lady arrested? Wow, calling them young must put you at what, 80? Oh yeah, while I'm at it, when you say the high-moral fifties, do you mean the fifties as in the time when schools were segregated and people got beat up or hosed by fire-engines--and then arrested--for peaceful protest? Well, that was all in the sixties, a decade later, but I think it's safe to say that the social setting was pretty similar regarding political dissent.

 

[michaeledward]

Apparently, the Quarantine has been expanded to include, not just dissentors, but also the press whose obligation it is to keep the electorate informed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9703-2004Sep9.html

Secret Service Not Coddling Hecklers


By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 10, 2004; Page A08

COLMAR, Pa., Sept. 9 -- Secret Service agents are famous for their willingness to take a bullet for the president. Less famous is their willingness to take out a heckler for the president.

Officially, the Secret Service does not concern itself with unarmed, peaceful demonstrators who pose no danger to the commander in chief. But that policy was inoperative here Thursday when seven AIDS activists who heckled President Bush during a campaign appearance were shoved and pulled from the room -- some by their hair, one by her bra straps -- and then arrested for disorderly conduct and detained for an hour.

After Bush campaign bouncers handled the evictions, Secret Service agents, accompanied by Bush's personal aide, supervised the arrests and detention of the activists and blocked the news media from access to the hecklers.
The Bush campaign has made unprecedented efforts to control access to its events. Sometimes, people are required to sign oaths of support before attending events with Bush or Vice President Cheney. At times, buses of demonstrators are diverted by police to idle in parking lots while supporters are waved in. And the Secret Service has played an unusual role; one agent cooperated with a plan by the Bush campaign last month to prevent former senator Max Cleland (Ga.), a Kerry ally, from handing a letter to the agent outside Bush's Texas ranch.

The seven activists, with the AIDS group Act Up Philadelphia, signed up as volunteers and came to the event site, a warehouse here in suburban Philadelphia, the night before to set up with the other volunteers. The activists were admitted Thursday to the Bush speech, which they quickly disrupted with chants of "Bush lies, people die," and signs saying, "Bush: Global AIDS Liar."
Bush forced a smile as the seven interrupted his speech in waves. As the crowd drowned them out with chants of "Four More Years," the demonstrators were led roughly from the room by event ushers as a few attendees shouted "traitors." Outside, plainclothes Secret Service agents, joined by Blake Gottesman, Bush's personal aide, circled the demonstrators.

One uniformed Secret Service agent complained to a colleague that "the press is having a field day" with the disruption -- and the agents quickly clamped down. Journalists were told that if they sought to approach the demonstrators, they would not be allowed to return to the event site -- even though their colleagues were free to come and go. An agent, who did not give his name, told one journalist who was blocked from returning to the speech that this was punishment for approaching the demonstrators and that there was a "different set of rules" for reporters who did not seek out the activists.

In the confusion, even Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) had to cool his heels for 10 minutes before the Secret Service would let him leave the building.
The seven hecklers were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, then kept out of sight until Bush departed. They were left with instructions to call for a court appearance. One of them, Jen Cohn, said Secret Service agents interrogated the demonstrators and stood by as a police officer handled the arrests.

Tom Mazur, a spokesman for the Secret Service in Washington, said dealing with hecklers is the job of "the host committee and local enforcement" officers. "The Secret Service normally doesn't get involved." Mazur referred questions about the event to the Philadelphia field office, where Agent in Charge James Borasi was not available for comment.

A White House spokeswoman, Claire Buchan, said Bush's personal aide did keep a reporter away from the demonstrators but was not involved in the activists' detention.

Sorry I didn't post the entire article RandomPhantom ... I forgot that the WashingtonPost was a subscription web site ... I got cookies, don't you know.

 

[RandomPhantom700]

michaeledward:

Would it be too much trouble to post the entire article? I dont have an account with The Washington Post.

 

[michaeledward]

Props to Joe Scarborough for discussing this on his blog ....

We can't seem to escape news stories about what the new Secretary of State is doing and saying in the early weeks on the job. It seemed to me that she had headlines on MSNBC and CNN that changed every few hours, always positive.

Well, The Quarrantining of Dissent we experienced over the past two years during the election campaign worked so well, we are now applying similar restrictions to other countries as well.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9164-2005Feb8.html

Scripted Follow-Up For Rice
State Dept., School Vetted Questions



By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, February 9, 2005; Page A16


PARIS, Feb. 8 -- It had all the trappings of a modern-day Daniel in the Lion's Den: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice venturing bravely into the heart of French intellectual opposition to America, the Institute of Political Sciences, an elite school in the heart of Paris's trendy Left Bank.

But if the roar from the audience was mostly polite and restrained, that was partly because only a handful of the school's 5,500 students were allowed near the auditorium where Rice spoke, and the initial questions were vetted in advance by the school and the State Department.


The first student chosen to question Rice was 24-year-old Benjamin Barnier, the son of Foreign Minister Michel Barnier. He asked Rice about the possibility that Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority might opt to form a theocratic government, allowing Rice to expound on the evolution of Iraqi democracy as a process of negotiation.
But that was not the question Barnier had wanted to ask most, he said later. That one, submitted to the school on Monday as required under the ground rules, was: "George Bush is not particularly well perceived in the world, particularly in the Middle East. Can you do something to change that?" That question was rejected, but he was told he could ask about the Shiites.

"I gave two, and they chose one," Barnier said.

A State Department official said later that the U.S. Embassy had only asked the school to choose five people to ask the first two questions and that the rest could come from anyone. Rice took a total of five questions.

Like the questions, access to the hall was controlled. Of 500 seats, only 150 went to the school's students and staff. Another 150 were given to French opinion leaders and government officials. Fifty went to American organizations, including the American University of Paris, the French-American Foundation, the American Chamber of Commerce and Sisters, a group of black American professional women. Seats were also reserved for officials of the French Institute on International Relations, which initially had been considered as a possible venue for Rice's speech.

When Rice spoke, the first row of her audience included the French ambassador to the United States, Jean-David Levitte; former prime minister and presidential confidant Alain Juppe; and former president Valery Giscard d'Estaing.

Meanwhile, scores of students from the school, which is also called Sciences Po, were kept well away from the session. Several complained of being pushed back by police. And some students who did manage to secure a ticket left disappointed.

"There was a lot of 'liberty,' " said Jennifer Brett, 26, an American from Columbia University who is at Sciences Po on an exchange program. "It was liberty, liberty, liberty and freedom. . . . I find their justifications about the war for the liberation of the Iraqi people to be a little lame, when before it was all about weapons of mass destruction."

Barnier was more upbeat, saying he hoped the speech would help to mend French-U.S. ties. "What I heard is the relation between France and the U.S. is not that bad," he said. "People are still buying champagne. And the hip-hop singers still drink cognac, so that's good for us."

 

[michaeledward]

Has it been two years since this thread was last in play? Wow - Time Flies. Many of those who originally discussed this idea may be gone now ... but ...

It's official.

You can't watch a speech by the President of the United States if you hold views different that the 'official views'.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/us/15eject.html?ex=1334289600&en=a5e627c00

their lawyers filed an appeals brief arguing that their clients had the right to take action against Mr. Young and Ms. Weise precisely because the two held views different from Mr. Bush’s.

Two citizens arrived at an event and were barred from attending because their car sported an anti-war bumper sticker.

The lawsuit against those who barred the citizens from attendance is arguing that they 'may have been disruprtive' ~ which assumes actions before they take place.

They excluded people from a White House event because they posed a threat of being disruptive,” said a lawyer for Mr. Casper, Sean Gallagher.

Wonderful logic. No more innocent until proven guilty, but instead 'guilty before taking any action at all'. Just like the terrorist trials taking place around the country.

 

[RandomPhantom700]

Has it been two years since this thread was last in play? Wow - Time Flies. Many of those who originally discussed this idea may be gone now ... but ...

It's official.

You can't watch a speech by the President of the United States if you hold views different that the 'official views'.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/us/15eject.html?ex=1334289600&en=a5e627c00



Two citizens arrived at an event and were barred from attending because their car sported an anti-war bumper sticker.

The lawsuit against those who barred the citizens from attendance is arguing that they 'may have been disruprtive' ~ which assumes actions before they take place.



Wonderful logic. No more innocent until proven guilty, but instead 'guilty before taking any action at all'. Just like the terrorist trials taking place around the country.

Perhaps I misread something, but when I looked over the article, it read as if the two men who removed the dissenters worked for the Museum, or at least were part of the organizing team, which hosted the event. It didn't even sound like a public location, so I'm doubtful that the First Amendment's going to help the protester's at all. It's a very critical distinction, between being removed from an event hosted in a private, albeit open for the public, location and being removed for protesting at an open, public forum event.

Sad that the Bush administration has been so Big Brotherly in its enforcement of such rights, and they've definitely crossed the line as this threat indicates. IMHO.

 

[michaeledward]

Perhaps I misread something, but when I looked over the article, it read as if the two men who removed the dissenters worked for the Museum, or at least were part of the organizing team, which hosted the event. It didn't even sound like a public location, so I'm doubtful that the First Amendment's going to help the protester's at all. It's a very critical distinction, between being removed from an event hosted in a private, albeit open for the public, location and being removed for protesting at an open, public forum event.

Sad that the Bush administration has been so Big Brotherly in its enforcement of such rights, and they've definitely crossed the line as this threat indicates. IMHO.

Yes, the article is poorly written and edited.

A careful re-reading the article will demonstrate that it was a meeting

a) by the President
b) about Social Security
c) held in an museum
d) a public event
​

The people removed were not employees of the museum, but rather they were barred from attending by employees of the museum.

The original argument by attorneys representing the museum employees (the defendants) was that - in '92 - an attendee was barred from a meeting with H.W. Bush because she wore a 'Clinton' badge. That meeting was a privately sponsored item.