Bush supresses free speech - official

[brumbino]

SOURCE

When President Bush travels around the United States, the Secret Service visits the location ahead of time and orders local police to set up "free speech zones" or "protest zones," where people opposed to Bush policies (and sometimes sign-carrying supporters) are quarantined. These zones routinely succeed in keeping protesters out of presidential sight and outside the view of media covering the event.

When Bush went 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, but 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."

At Neel's trial, police Detective John Ianachione testified that the Secret Service told local police to confine "people that were there making a statement pretty much against the president and his views" in a so-called free- speech area.

Paul Wolf, one of the top officials in the Allegheny County Police Department, told Salon that the Secret Service "come in and do a site survey, and say, 'Here's a place where the people can be, and we'd like to have any protesters put in a place that is able to be secured.' "

Pennsylvania District Judge Shirley Rowe Trkula threw out the disorderly conduct charge against Neel, declaring, "I believe this is America. Whatever happened to 'I don't agree with you, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it'?"

[beansontoast]

Fair play to the judge

[Robbo]

And what happened when old monkey boy visted the Queen a few months back?

The protesters were held way back and out of sight.

[gadgetman]

What do you really expect?
Freedom of speech, what the fck is that?
Bush!!!
Sounds like a lier who is scared to hear the truth.
A free-speech area, hahahahahahahahahaha.
Never heard so much fckin shit come out of that family's mouths in all my life.
The sooner people wake up, to what is going on, and then do something about it, the better.
Bush is creating war and fear all round the world.
The Forth Reich is alive and well, it never died when it was the third Reich after the 2nd world war. It was only then that it got stronger, but if people don't believe it, then it don't matter does it?

Why people need a corrupt government to be governed, is beyond me.
We have our own minds, our own will, our own free-will, what more do we want?
Maybe I'm just an idealist and think a load of crap!!! Who knows what life will be like in another 10-20 years from now?

Anyway thats my bull-shit worth

[maverick_15]

according to various different sources ive read just about every government in the world is corrupt in one way or another. so what would you have us do instead, rule ourselves? thats sounding like communism ideas and we all know where that got those countries that have implemented it before- nowhere. as far as im concerned, while the governments of the west range from good through to utter shite, they are better than any alternatives ive heard.

oh, and as for the free speech ban, what else can we expect from bush, the words tact and subtlety dont appear in his dictionary.