James Bovard in American Conservative on “Free-Speech Zone”: The administration quarantines dissent.
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, “The Bush family must surely love the poor, they made so many of us.” The local police, at the Secret Service’s behest, set up a “designated free-speech zone” on a baseball field surrounded by a chain-link fence a third of a mile from the location of Bush’s speech. The police cleared the path of the motorcade of all critical signs, though folks with pro-Bush signs were permitted to line the president’s path. Neel refused to go to the designated area and was arrested for disorderly conduct; the police also confiscated his sign. Neel later commented, “As far as I’m 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.”
In the end, the current Administration is one of the most cowardly this nation has ever seen. We have the Secret Service segregating Administration critics and harassing retirees for exercising their First Amendment rights. During this Administration, we have witnessed the pathetic spectacle of Ari Fleisher cautioning us that "all Americans…need to watch what they say, watch what they do."
In December 2001, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, we were warned by an out of control Attorney General that possessing a strong belief in civil liberties is the equivalent of treason:
"To those who pit Americans against immigrants, citizens against non-citizens, to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve," Ashcroft told the Senate Judiciary Committee. "They give ammunition to America's enemies and pause to America's friends. They encourage people of good will to remain silent in the face of evil."
Now, I don't have a problem with his reference to immigrants or non-citizens, as that was clearly a call for restraint during a period of increasing violence against Muslims, Arabs and those who "looked" Arab. Its the rest of the quote that is scary. Ashcroft's words were directed at civil libertarians and journalists (disclosure: I was part of a group of civil libertarians that Ashcroft was likely criticizing) for daring to question the PATRIOT Act. You see, daring to insist that such a wide-reaching change in our legal system actually be debated is treason. Demanding that our legislators do their jobs and study the legislation, rather than rubberstamping it unseen is aiding and abetting the enemy. A belief in the Bill of Rights is clearly terrorism.
Should this Administration get a second term, I shudder to think what this crew would feel empowered to accomplish without the yoke of re-election hanging over their heads.
Link courtesy of the S-Train.