Stifling protest: bad choice between law and order

Gladwin County Record
Last updated: Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 03:09:55 PM
By Gene Policinski
Published in the Publishers Auxiliary

...• The District of Columbia agreed to pay $1 million to a group claiming they were illegally arrested during downtown protests in 2002. The settlement of the lawsuit, filed on behalf of more than 120 people, stemmed from demonstrations against the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

• The City of Madison, Wisconsin, agreed to pay more than $12,000 to end a lawsuit filed on behalf of a man who held a controversial sign as a presidential motorcade passed.

A case can be made for security, crowd control and physical safety in a terrorist era. But letting officials and the public hear diverse opinions–some of them negative and some of them lacking in propriety–would seem vital to a democracy. Managing media moments is no justification for shutting out or shutting down those with an off-the-script message.

The American experience is rooted in protest, from the Boston Tea Party to anti-tax rallies to civil rights marches to protests against the Vietnam War and against U.S. Supreme Court decisions. Yet some government officials and private citizens or companies don’t want a single note of dissonance to reach the collective American ear ...

http://www.gladwinmi.com/record/?section_id=10&story_id=49199