ZGram - 11/11/2002 - "'Free-Speech' Zones costly to free speech"

[irimland@zundelsite.org]

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny

November 11, 2002

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

A comment on Free-Speech restrictions in America by using the "Salami 
Tactic" - one slice at a time, in hopes that people will not notice 
that the salami gets shorter and shorter!

[START]

A Times Editorial

Zones hinder free speech

The president's supporters and detractors have an equal right to 
stand at the same site, at the same time, and tell him what they 
think.

=A9 St. Petersburg Times, published November 9, 2002
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The president's supporters and detractors have an equal right to 
stand at the same site, at the same time, and tell him what they 
think.

The name itself is a joke: "First Amendment Zones." The term 
describes those fenced-off areas designated for protesters at 
political events. It may seem benign enough, but in reality the zones 
are another way government controls speech. Protesters are kept so 
far away from their intended target that their presence becomes 
almost invisible.

Earlier this month, seven people were arrested outside the USF Sun 
Dome during a political rally where President Bush was appearing on 
behalf of his brother Gov. Jeb Bush . The group was charged with 
trespass for refusing to move into a "First Amendment zone" that had 
been set up hundreds of yards from the entrance to the Dome. Their 
experience is similar to that of three protesters who were arrested 
last year at a public rally at Legends Field at which President Bush 
was promoting his tax cuts.

A bedrock free speech principle is that the government cannot give 
freer rein to some messages than others. Yet, in and around these 
Bush rallies, supporters of the president were welcome anywhere. It 
was only those opposing administration policies who were banished to 
a spit of land out of earshot and eyeshot of the president.

At the Bush rally on June 4, 2001, Mauricio Rosas, a local gay rights 
activist, and two fellow demonstrators, both grandmothers, were 
arrested for holding up small handwritten protest signs -- in a sea 
of pro-Bush signs. A federal civil rights lawsuit, filed recently by 
the three with the help of the Tampa chapter of the American Civil 
Liberties Union of Florida, asks a judge to acknowledge the wrong 
that was done and order redress.

The arrests were caught on videotape and should be required viewing 
for anyone who thinks a lawsuit is an overreaction. Tampa police 
officers appear to take direction from a Republican Party event 
organizer, who points out the three anti-Bush demonstrators to be 
removed. The arrests were considered so faulty, State Attorney Mark 
Ober summarily dropped the charges. His spokeswoman said at the time, 
"We concluded that there was no likelihood of success at trial."

The Secret Service claims First Amendment zones are necessary to 
protect the president's safety. It is a claim with no demonstrable 
validity. A person with a protest sign is no more or less dangerous 
to the president than a person without one. If the worry is that 
protesters will clash with the president's supporters, then the 
answer is not to exile one group, but to arrest those who would 
choose to escalate an ideological argument into a physical battle. 
Democracy and freedom can be messy at times. Occasional scuffles are 
a byproduct law enforcement agencies have a duty to handle without 
using their arrest powers to banish unpopular speakers.

Recent court decisions have made it clear that presidents cannot be 
insulated from dissent. In 1997, when anti-abortion activist Rev. 
Patrick Mahoney attempted to organize a group of demonstrators along 
Pennsylvania Avenue for President Clinton's second Inaugural Parade, 
the National Park Service denied the group a permit. In overruling 
that judgment, the D.C. U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals could not have 
been more blunt: "If the free speech clause of the First Amendment 
does not protect the right of citizens to 'inject' their own 
convictions and beliefs into a public event on a public forum, then 
it is difficult to understand why the Framers bothered including it 
at all."

The government defended its position by noting that Mahoney had been 
granted a permit for a demonstration in two other areas on 
Inauguration Day, just not along the parade route. To that the court 
said: "(The government has) offered us no authority for the 
proposition that (it) may choose for a First Amendment actor what 
public forums it will use. Indeed, it cannot rightly be said that all 
such forums are equal. The very fact that the government here 
struggles to bar the speech it fears or dislikes from one forum while 
offering, whether freely or grudgingly, access to another belies the 
proposition of equality."

The president's supporters and detractors have an equal right to 
stand at the same site, at the same time, and tell him what they 
think. "First Amendment zones" are the antithesis of America's free 
speech tradition.

=1F
[END]

(Source: 
http://www.sptimes.com/2002/11/09/news_pf/Opinion/Zones_hinder_free_spe.shtm=
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