Free speech kept off U.S. streets

Free speech kept off U.S. streets
Officials deny plot to herd dissenters into protest pens But sign-carriers testify to being hustled out of sight
DAVID LINDORFF
SPECIAL TO THE STAR

When retired Pittsburgh steelworker Bill Neel learned that President George W. Bush was coming to town last year, he decided he would be on hand to protest the president's economic policies.
Neel and his sister made a hand-lettered sign — The Bush family must surely love the poor! They have made so many of us! — and headed for a road where the motorcade would pass.
But he never got to display his sign for Bush to see.
As he stood among milling groups of Bush supporters, he was approached by a local police detective and told that he and his sister had to move to a "free-speech area" for protesters, on orders of the U.S. Secret Service.
"He pointed out a relatively remote baseball diamond that was enclosed in a chain-link fence," Neel recalls.
"I could see these people behind the fence, with their faces up against it, and their hands on the wire.
"It looked more like a concentration camp than a free-speech area to me, so I said, `I'm not going in there. I thought the whole country was a free-speech area.'"
After refusing several times to go to the area, he was handcuffed and arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct.


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I really hope "free speech zones" get more attention

:puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:

That is a lot of puke but it is warranted.

Most of the marginalization of the left isn't ANSWER's fault, it is a systematic plan of dogma and power, and perception, not reality, is their number one concern. Bush gets away with it because the media won't report his quiet fascist tactics.

I've discussed this issue with my lawyer BIL, and he maintains that there have always been limits to free speech, and designated zones for public dissent. I'd love to see him sweep these detailed allegations away as easily. Can't wait!

I mean that, it is.