Bush Zones Go National

[ I thought this article touched closely on the thread a couple days ago 
relating to the FBI infiltrating dissent groups and generally 
intimidating protestors.  great article. -J ]

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040816&s=hightower

Bush Zones Go National
by JIM HIGHTOWER

[from the August 16, 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:

(1) Schedule their exercise of First Amendment rights with the decidedly 
unsympathetic authorities.

(2) Report like cattle to the protest pen at their designated time, and 
only in the numbers authorized.

(3) 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 soundbites 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 (www.amconmag.com). 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, www.scpronet.com; 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 spinoff 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.
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