The Police State is here...
Bush Zones Go National
The Nation
By Jim Hightower
16 August 2004 Issue
At the 2000 GOP nominating convention in Philadelphia, candidate Bush
created a fenced-in, out-of-sight protest zone that could only hold barely
1,500 people at a time. So citizens who wished to give voice to their many
grievances with the powers that be had to:
Schedule their exercise of First Amendment rights with the decidedly
unsympathetic authorities.
Report like cattle to the protest pen at their designated time, and only in
the numbers authorized.
Then, under the recorded surveillance of the authorities, feel free to let
loose with all the speech they could utter within their allotted minutes
(although no one - not Bush, not convention delegates, not the preening
members of Congress, not the limousine-gliding corporate sponsors and
certainly not the mass media - would be anywhere nearby to hear a single
word of what they had to say).
Imagine how proud the Founders would be of this interpretation of their
revolutionary work. The Democrats, always willing to learn useful tricks
from the opposition, created their own "free-speech zone" when they
gathered in Los Angeles that year for their convention.
Once ensconced in the White House, the Bushites institutionalized the
art of dissing dissent, routinely dispatching the Secret Service to order
local police to set up FSZs to quarantine protesters wherever Bush goes.
The embedded media trooping dutifully behind him almost never cover this
fascinating and truly newsworthy phenomenon, instead focusing almost
entirely on spoon-fed sound bites from the President's press office.
An independent libertarian writer, however, James Bovard, chronicled
George's splendid isolation from citizen protest in last December's issue
of The American Conservative. He wrote about Bill Neel, a retired
steelworker who dared to raise his humble head at a 2002 Labor Day picnic
in Pittsburgh, where Bush had gone to be photographed with worker-type
people. Bill definitely did not fit the message of the day, for this
65-year-old was sporting a sign that said: The Bush Family Must Surely Love
the Poor, They Made so Many of Us.
Ouch! Negative! Not acceptable! Must go!
Bill was standing in a crowd of pro-Bush people who were standing along
the street where Bush's motorcade would pass. The Bush backers had all
sorts of Hooray George-type signs. Those were totally okey-dokey with the
Secret Service, but Neel's...well, it simply had to be removed.
He was told by the Pittsburgh cops to depart to the designated FSZ, a
ballpark encased in a chain-link fence a third of a mile from Bush's (and
the media's) path. Bill, that rambunctious rebel, refused to budge. So they
arrested him for disorderly conduct, dispatched him to the luxury of a
Pittsburgh jail and confiscated his offending sign.
At Bill's trial, a Pittsburgh detective testified that the Secret
Service had instructed local police to confine "people that were making a
statement pretty much against the President and his views." The district
court judge not only tossed out the silly charges against Neel but scolded
the prosecution: "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'?"
This was no isolated incident. Bovard also takes us to St. Louis, where
George appeared last year. About 150 sign-toting protesters were shunted
off to a zone where they could not be seen from the street, and - get ready
to spin in your grave, Jimmy Madison - the media were not allowed to talk
to them, and protesters were not allowed out of the protest zone to talk to
the media.
Now meet Brett Bursey. He committed the crime of holding up a No War for
Oil sign when sensitive George visited Columbia, South Carolina, last year.
Standing amid a sea of pro-Bush signs in a public area, Bursey was
commanded by local police to remove himself forthwith to the FSZ half a
mile away from the action, even though he was already two football fields
from where Bush was to speak. No, said Brett. So, naturally, they arrested
him. Asked why, the officer said, "It's the content of your sign that's the
problem."
Five months later, Brett's trespassing charge was tossed on the rather
obvious grounds that - yoo-hoo! - there's no such thing as a member of the
public trespassing on public property at a public event. But John Ashcroft
is oblivious to the obvious, so the Justice Department of the United States
of America (represented in this case by - can you stand it? - US Attorney
Strom Thurmond Jr.) inserted itself into this local misdemeanor case,
charging our man Brett with a federal violation of "entering a restricted
area around the president." Great Goofy in the Sky - he was 200 yards away,
surrounded by cheering Bushcalytes who were also in the "restricted area."
Ashcroft/Thurmond/Bush attempted to deny Bursey's lawyers access to
Secret Service documents setting forth official policy on who gets stopped
for criticizing the President, where, when and why. But Bursey finally
obtained the documents and posted them on the South Carolina Progressive
Network website, they reveal that what the Secret Service did goes against
official policy.
Then there's the "Crawford Contretemps." In May of 2003 a troupe of
about 100 antiwar Texans were on their way by car to George W's Little
Ponderosa, located about five miles outside the tiny town of Crawford. To
get to Bush's place, one drives through the town - but the traveling
protesters were greeted by a police blockade. They got out of their cars to
find out what was up, only to be told by Police Chief Donnie Tidmore that
they were violating a town ordinance requiring a permit to protest within
the city limits.
But wait, they said, we're on our way to Bush's ranchette - we have no
intention of protesting here. Logic was a stranger that day in Crawford,
however, and Chief Tidmore warned them that they had three minutes to turn
around and go back from whence they came, or else they'd be considered a
demonstration, and, he reminded them, they had no permit for that. (Tidmore
later said that he actually gave them seven minutes to depart, in order to
be "as fair as possible.")
Five of the group tried to talk sense with Tidmore, but that was not
possible. Their reward for even trying was to be arrested for refusing to
disperse and given a night in the nearby McLennan County jail. The chief
said he could've just given them a ticket, but he judged that arresting
them was the only way to get them to move, claiming that they were causing
a danger because of the traffic.
This February, the five were brought to trial in Crawford. Their lawyer
asked Tidmore if someone who simply wore a political button reading "Peace"
could be found in violation of Crawford's ordinance against protesting
without a permit. Yes, said the chief. "It could be a sign of
demonstration."
The five were convicted.
The Bushites are using federal, state and local police to conduct an
undeclared war against dissent, literally incarcerating Americans who
publicly express their disagreements with him and his policies. The ACLU
and others have now sued Bush's Secret Service for its ongoing pattern of
repressing legitimate, made-in-America protest, citing cases in Arizona,
California, Virginia, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, Texas - and coming
soon to a theater near you!
If incarceration is not enough to deter dissenters, how about some
old-fashioned goon-squad tactics like infiltration and intimidation of
protesters? In May of 2002 Ashcroft issued a decree terminating a
quarter-century-old policy that bans FBI agents from spying on Americans in
their political meetings and churches.
Not only were federal agents "freed" by Bush and his attack dog Ashcroft
to violate the freedoms (assembly, speech, privacy) of any and all
citizens, but they were encouraged to do so. This unleashing of the FBI was
done in the name of combating foreign terrorists. The Bushites loudly
scoffed at complaints that agents would also be used to spy on American
citizens for political purposes having nothing to do with terrorism. While
officials scoffed publicly, however, an internal FBI newsletter quietly
encouraged agents to increase surveillance of antiwar groups, saying that
there were "plenty of reasons" for doing so, "chief of which it will
enhance the paranoia endemic in such circles and will further service to
get the point across that there is an FBI agent behind every mailbox."
Likewise, in May of last year, the Homeland Security Department waded
butt-deep into the murky waters of political suppression, issuing a
terrorist advisory to local law enforcement agencies. It urged all police
officials to keep a hawk-eyed watch on any homelanders who [Warning: Do not
read the rest of this sentence if it will shock you to learn that there are
people like this in your country!] have "expressed dislike of attitudes and
decisions of the US government."
Memo to Tom Ridge, Secretary of HSD: Sir, that's everyone. All 280
million of us, minus George Bush, you and the handful of others actually
making the decisions. You've just branded every red-blooded American a
terrorist. Maybe you should stick to playing with your color codes.
Last November, Ashcroft weighed back in with new federal guidelines
allowing the FBI to make what amount to pre-emptive spying assaults on
people. Much like the nifty Bush-Rumsfeld doctrine of attacking countries
to pre-empt the possibility that maybe, someday, some way, those countries
might pose a threat to the United States, the Bush-Ashcroft doctrine allows
government gumshoes to spy on citizens and noncitizens alike without any
indication that the spied-upon people are doing anything illegal. The
executive directive gives the FBI authority to collect "information on
individuals, groups, and organizations of possible investigative interest."
The language used by Ashcroft mouthpiece Mark Corallo to explain this
directive is meant to be reassuring, but it is Orwell-level scary: What it
means, says Corallo, is that agents "can do more research." "It emphasizes
early intervention" and "allows them to be more proactive." Yeah, they get
to do all that without opening a formal investigation (which sets limits on
the snooping), much less bothering to get any court approval for their
snooping. A proactive secret police is rarely a positive for people.
With the FBI on the loose, other police powers now feel free to join in
the all-season sport of intimidating people. In Austin, even the Army was
caught snooping on us. At a small University of Texas conference in
February to discuss Islam in Muslim countries, two Army officers were
discovered to be posing as participants. The next week two agents from the
Army Intelligence and Security Command appeared on campus demanding a list
of participants and trying to grill Sahar Aziz, the conference organizer.
Alarmed by these intimidating tactics, Aziz got the help of a lawyer, and
the local newspaper ran a story. The Army quickly went away - but a
spokeswoman for the intelligence command refused even to confirm that the
agents had been on campus, much less discuss why the US Army is involved in
domestic surveillance and intimidation.
In California an antiwar group called Peace Fresno included in its ranks
a nice young man named Aaron Stokes, who was always willing to be helpful.
Unfortunately, Aaron died in a motorcycle wreck, and when his picture ran
in the paper, Peace Fresno learned that he was really Aaron Kilner, a
deputy with the sheriff's department. The sheriff said he could not discuss
the specifics of Kilner's infiltration role, but that there was no formal
investigation of Peace Fresno under way. He did insist, however, that there
is potential for terrorism in Fresno County. "We believe that there is,"
the sheriff said ominously (and vaguely). "I'm not going to expand on it."
If the authorities think there is terrorist potential in Fresno
(probably not real high on Osama's target list), then there is potential
everywhere, and under the Bush regime, this is plenty enough reason for any
and all police agencies to launch secret campaigns to infiltrate,
investigate and intimidate any and all people and groups with politics that
they find even mildly suspicious...or distasteful.
The attitude of police authorities was summed up by Mike van Winkle, a
spokesperson for the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center (another
spin off of the Homeland Security Department - your tax dollars at work).
After peaceful antiwar protesters in Oakland were gassed and shot by local
police, van Winkle [Note: I do not make up these names] explained the
prevailing thinking of America's new, vast network of antiterrorist forces:
You can make an easy kind of link that, if you have a protest group
protesting a war where the cause that's being fought against is
international terrorism, you might have terrorism at that protest. You can
almost argue that a protest against that is a terrorist act. I've heard
terrorism described as anything that is violent or has an economic impact.
Terrorism isn't just bombs going off and killing people. |
