The head of state, while out promoting his policies, shunts his opposition aside. Only those with placards proclaiming their approval of the leader are allowed to be near; those who wish to protest are pushed out of sight and away from the media. Sound like an Arab dictatorship? Or Communist China?

      Nope, think closer to home. This is the United States of America under President George W. Bush.

      Before the President travels anywhere to make a speech or an appearance, the Secret Service (which is abbreviated as "USSS," for United States Secret Service," because just the letters "SS" by themselves were deemed to creepy) scopes out the location beforehand. The SS--oops, USSS--then works with local police to create "free speech zones." And thereby hangs a tale, about the nibbling of the First Amendment--our First Amendment.

      "Free speech zones," a name that could be right out of George Orwell's 1984, are areas where protesters are allowed to protest. But they are rarely anywhere near the President himself or even the route of his motorcade. They can be as far as a mile away from where the President is appearing. And so they are often invisible to the media covering the event.

      Interestingly, only those Americans protesting the President are subject to such restrictions. Those holding signs in support of Bush are regularly allowed to appear along the motorcade route. "Free speech for me, but not for thee" has never been so true.

      These restrictions are nothing new for Bush. When he was governor of Texas, he banned protests in front of the governor's mansion; those Austin sidewalks had been a traditional venue for peaceful demonstrations.

      But now, this Texas-style approach to free speech has gone national. And so the words of the First Amendment--which reads in part, "Congress shall make no law.abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceable to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances"--be damned.

      On March 25, Bush held "A Conversation on Job Training and the Economy" at the New Hampshire Community Technical College. About 50 protesters gathered across the street; three were detained by police when they refused to move to the designated demonstration zone. The next day, Bush spoke at the fairgrounds in Albuquerque, New Mexico. About 100 demonstrators gathered to protest the Iraq war. The "free speech" laager there was not along the President's route to the fairgrounds.

      The same pattern held on April 20. This time it was even more amusing-the President spoke in Buffalo, New York, defending the USA PATRIOT Act (that's not me using in-your-face capitalization, that's the actual name of that legislation--the bill is formally entitled the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act) which critics regularly and rightly describe as inimical to civil liberties. As if to prove the critics right, the federales pushed the protestors into one of those "free speech" corrals, a block away from Bush.

      These "free speech zones" don't just keep protesters away from the President. They also keep the media away from protesters. When Bush visited St. Louis in January, over 100 demonstrators were moved; the press was not allowed to speak to them. The SS/USSS kept them separate through the event.

      It gets worse. If you disobey the rules, you may find yourself arrested. That happened to Brett Bursey, a longtime protester in his mid-50s, who was arrested during a Bush stop in Columbia, South Carolina in October 2002. Bursey was holding a "No War for Oil" sign and refused to move to the "free speech zone" the local police, by order of the Secret Service, had established half a mile from the Bush event.

      But he wasn't arrested merely for being near the President. He was standing with hundreds of other people. The difference was they were carrying signs praising the president; he was not. In fact, police told Bursey that it was the wording on his sign that made him a target.

      Bursey was charged with trespassing, but the charge was dropped five months later-South Carolina law doesn't allow for a charge of trespassing on public property. But almost immediately after that, the Justice Department charged him with "entering a restricted area around the President of the United States." None of the hundreds carrying pro-Bush signs was charged.

      Bursey was found guilty of the federal charge in January. He faced a fine of $5,000 and up to six months in jail, but was finally given a fine of just $500. In April, Bursey filed an appeal.

      You might be wondering, how could the administration possibly justify such a violation of Americans' constitutionally guaranteed free speech rights? The explanations Uncle Big Brother offers are bizarre: Secret Service agent Brian Marr told National Public Radio, "These individuals may be so involved with trying to shout their support or non-support that inadvertently they may walk out into the motorcade route and be injured. And that is really the reason why we set these places up, so we can make sure that they have the right of free speech, but, two, we want to be sure that they are able to go home at the end of the evening and not be injured in any way." Got that? We're from the government, and we're here to help you--by arresting you.

      More to the point, if any of what Marr said were to believed, the administration would care just as much--and maybe more--about the safety of anti-Bush speakers than pro-Bush speakers. But it's only anti-Bush placard-wavers who are penned up in "free speech zones."

      Look. Nobody should want to see the President hurt, just as nobody should want to see America jeopardized by terrorism. But there's a balance to be struck between defending Americans and defending the freedom of Americans. And that balance has shifted over too far--not in the direction of safety and security for Americans, but rather, safety and security for the government itself.

      The United States has a long history of strong feelings about free speech--most of us are for it, the State notwithstanding. And if Bush ignores this, others do not. The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a federal lawsuit against the Secret Service for its "pattern and practice" of violating demonstrators' First Amendment rights in nine states. The ACLU wants to stop the practice of defining "free speech zones" altogether.

      Eleven U.S. Congressmen endorse the ACLU's view. Spearheaded by the estimable champion of freedom, Rep. Ron Paul, (R-Texas), they sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft imploring him to drop the prosecution of Bursey. Their wry missive noted, "As we read the First Amendment to the Constitution, the United States is a 'free speech zone.'"

      Bush likes to talk about the United States bringing freedom to the rest of the world--he used the "freedom" in regard to Iraq and the Middle East no less than 21 times during his April 13 press conference. But his own track record makes such sentiments laughable. He even has managed to use the same speech-swatting tactics to crush free speech abroad.

      When Bush visited Australia in October, along with Chinese President Hu Jintao, protesters were moved away from the Federal Parliament building. They were also banned from using any public address systems. The following month, the President visited London. This time, the Bush administration used the term "exclusion zone" to demand that the President be protected from hearing any protests. The administration insisted that police there basically shut down central London for three days, with demonstrations banned.

      How funny then that Bush had the nerve to talk in London of freedom: "I've been here only a short time, but I've noticed that the tradition of free speech-exercised with enthusiasm-is alive and well here in London. We have that at home, too. They now have that right in Baghdad, as well."

      It's not so clear that there's freedom in Baghdad right now. But hey, maybe we no longer have freedom in the US, either. We certainly don't have as much of a First Amendment as we used to. But evidently, nobody has gotten the word to Bush. Evidently, that must be a task for the American people, in November.


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