Quarantining Free Speech.
 

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...NGPQ40MB81.DTL

I truly have no idea how people can still support the Bush administration after activities like this. Our first amendment rights are being yet further flushed down the drain. For those of you too lazy to click links and read articles, the Bush administration is basically having the secret service tell police that anyone protesting Bush's actions have to be corodoned off out of eyesight of any place that Bush visits, and they don't allow the media to speak with them.

Meh. At least it's better than certain authoritatrian states I can think of. The opposition exists in name only, dissenters can be charged with rioting, or worse still, with the Internal Security Act, which allows for immediate and indefinite detention of suspected dissenters WITHOUT trials or even a warrant.

The reason people still support the Bush administration is BECAUSE of activities like this, meaning he is doing a damn good job of suppressing the dissenting opinion of Americans. A lot of people in this country go along with "mob mentality" so as long as they're seeing positive things about the Bush administration on the news, they're content.

One negative I will point out about the article is its attempt to gain sympathy by pointing out how the elderly and children were affected. Several times it mentioned that some of those arrested after violating these quarantines were over 60 and in one instance it stated "Christine Mains and her 5-year-old daughter disobeyed orders to move to a small protest area far from the action. Police arrested Mains and took her and her crying daughter away in separate squad cars." I just don't like to think that the only way to appeal to Americans to fight for their first amendment rights is to make it look like Bush targets old people and children.

But that is straying from the point somewhat, which in the end remains the same--our first amendment rights are being trampled on.

ironic, since the united states was built by dissent, and the entire electoral system is based on the public judging the actions of their president, and representatives in congress.

i agree that police should have power to arrest/interrogate someone suspected of having ties to terrorist organizations, but they should be interrogated and/or released as soon as possible.

Really this is my big guffaw with Bush.

I have an example of this, Bush came to my town, Grand Rapids Michigan from some health care convention, I was covering it for the Grand Rapids Community College Newspaper.

This was like 7-8 months ago. There were easily upwards of 500-600 people at least there probably more(like 1200). They were clearly protesting the upcoming Iraqi war. It hadn't happened yet. From the protest organizers I learned the plan was the march from the sight of the healthcare meeting three blocks away at a local hospital, through down town 15 minutes ahead of bush then line the streets and boo and jeer and wave the anti war signs. Bush's motorcade drives by. The crowd boos and jeers. He turns right down lyon street to visit the new Convention center.

The Police block off Lyon street the second he goes by and tells the protesters to go away or there will be trouble. About the same time like 6 more squad cars pull up.

Well the majority of the crowd is from GR so everyone finds quick ways to the convention center where the cops have already set up metal saftey rail, BUt everyone just marches up to it and begin to boo jeer and show their unhappiness about impending war.

Everything was actually pretty civil. The Police were for the most part polite and just doing there jobs. IN fact I saw a few actually help protesters with dropped signs.

As the event came to a close I found out several arrests were made.

One was a student of GRCC who commited the heinous act of stepping off the curb.

Another was a clearly targeted group of Punk Looking kids. they were arrested for Insiting a riot and property damage as they supposively were flipping over cars.

The Funny thing was there wasn't a riot, and no cars were touched let alone flipped over. They were all charged with the max penalty and were all let off before trial because there was no case.

The whole thing lasted about 3 hours. Was clearly anti war.

On the local news, which must obviously be left wing bias, had a 30 second blurb about bush visiting, showed a street corner with 4 people on it and said there were minor demostrations about bush's healthcare policies.

Oh, pfft, I've known about rights trampling since the beginning of his administration. If it isn't Bush's administration itself doing it, it's the hordes of super-patriot "love-it-or-leave-it" types. Remember the Dixie chicks? Yeah I thought you might.

I figure supporters of Bush's administration would point out that "things are worse in (X)". I get really tired of that. This is America, not (X). We have a constitution and a Bill of Rights that protects us. Or at least it did.

Sweet, you write for a college paper and get to cover the President?! Where do I sign up?!

Or a little thing called the Patriot Act and it's lovely never-gonna-be-passed successor Patriot II. I can just imagine Bush taking out his crayons and ammending Patriot II to say "and no one can be mean to me because it hurts my feelings. use the police, secret service, national guard, and fantastic four if necessary."

EDIT: used the wrong word (see post below by Drooling Iguana). p.s. thanks for pointing it out :)

Minor nitpick: Patriot II is the successor to the Patriot Act, not its predecessor. "Predecessor" means that it came before, not after.

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

Well, think of it this way; Bush claims he's working for "The American People". The rest of the world doesn't even have that! When the world's mightiest ever army is in the hands of someone who sais things like "If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists", it makes me a little antsy being in another country, especially one that borders "his". You think you have trouble protesting against Bush, imagine how hard it is for us of the rest of the world to try to influence him. Stupid global politics, democracy my ass when another nations foreign policy entirely out of our control is more important than the government we elect...