Lawyers argue Bush can eject protesters

Source: Rocky Mountain News

By Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News
April 13, 2007


Leslie Weise and Alex Young were removed from a Bush address
on Social Security after a staffer for Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo.,
pointed them out as suspicious because they had arrived in a car
with an anti-war bumper sticker.

Weise and Young sued, arguing that the ouster violated
their First Amendment right to free speech.
Attorneys for Michael Casper and Jay Klinkerman,
who were involved in removing them, have filed an
appeals brief saying the ouster was legal.



"The president's right to control his own message includes the right
to exclude people expressing discordant viewpoints from the audience,"
states the brief, filed by attorneys Sean Gallagher, Dugan Bliss and others
representing Casper and Klinkerman.

The appeal centers on "whose speech is at issue - the president's or the plaintiffs'?"
the brief says. Weise responded, "My read of the Constitution does not give the
president free speech rights greater than the citizens he serves."

Read more: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5481779,00.html

What happened to the 'it's local people' side story?

That guy really gets around.



ON EDIT: Good catch on the shifting story.

a laff riot, it's not.

NO DISSENT ALLOWED!!! :sarcasm:

"it was an Overzealous Staffer!" :rofl:

this is the beginning of this lawsuit, which I think they will win
These two that ejected them were volunteers.


Two people who say they were ejected from a taxpayer-financed
appearance by President Bush in March because of an antiwar bumper
sticker filed a federal lawsuit here on Monday, charging that event
staff members and federal employees broke the law.

The suit, filed in Federal District Court by lawyers for the American
Civil Liberties Union, could transform what had been a public-relations
thorn for the Bush administration into a legal thicket. A.C.L.U. lawyers said
they would pursue in particular the question of who gave orders to
workers at the event, held March 21 at the Wings
Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum in Denver.

The suit could also put the United States Secret Service
in the position of having to point fingers, because one of the
crucial elements of the suit, A.C.L.U. lawyers said, could come from Secret Service testimony.

Martha Tierney, a Denver lawyer who is working in cooperation with the A.C.L.U., said at a news conference that the agent in charge of the Secret Service's Denver office, Lon Garner, told the plaintiffs and their lawyers that a bumper sticker saying "No More Blood for Oil" was the impetus for the ejections.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1122-06.htm


However
I am more interested in the President's three civil lawsuits.

In sworn legal depositions, bouncers Michael Casper and Jay Bob Klinkerman
for the first time named the White House officials
who they say ordered the Denver Three to be excluded.

http://www.denverpost.com/extremes/ci_5341085

there is none of this message control, thank you. :grr:

so that "who to sue" is abundantly clear!

this was a public event, paid for with tax juice, just like the war itself

I've looked all through the Constitution, and I don't see any "right to control your own message" anywhere.

I know that *I* don't seem to have that right. Does anyone but Bush claim that right?

they can't read.

...not use any public resources, and invite his audience to a private address.

such as
* the "protestors" had not protested anything or disrupted anything up to the point of their removal, they had simply arrived in a car and were presumed disruptive
* the president was not doing the pre-emptive excluding, but rather volunteers allegedly acting on his behalf -- for all Casper & Klinkerman knew, they were booting bush pioneers
* supporting such restrictions is tantamount to legitimizing the supression of all potential dissent at any event by any presidential administration member whatsoever

This is a weak appeal. It will fail.

If the President wants his message controlled, and has the right to control it, how did these people do it independently with no knowledge or approval from the President, if that's their argument? or do they know something we don't about this?

but in Iraq - the White House says protestors taking to the streets, and demanding that we leave Iraq, is a sign of progress, that democracy is working....

meanwhile -- in the US - protestors who take to the streets, and demand that we leave Iraq are a bunch of unpatriotic partisans who are sending the wrong message.


FIGHTING FOR DEMOCRACY AND FREEDOM OVER THERE - SO WE WON'T HAVE IT OVER HERE

no defense against a fake war for profit, no defense during Katrina over here.

Are we cool? Good. :sarcasm:

Here are some examples why this is not only agaist US law but also agaist human right in terms of access to information:
1) The car may belong to dad or your mom.
2) You may be a politically sophisticated person (such as some lawyers, teachers or professors) who use your car bumper sticker to make a public statement but you wish to hear the speaker without preconceptions.
3) And this is more likely, you are actually an activist democrat simply and just as well. And proudly.