« Spirit Images from Mars | Main | Digital Democracy Teach-In » John Shirley's BloggingJohn Shirley, the author most readily held accountable for the instigation of cyberpunk as a literary explosion within a sleepy science fiction genre, has just started a blog, and it's a doozy. [Link] That's how scary Bush/Ashcroft can be: they're scaring the conservatives. The piece is called Quarantining Dissent and it seems that Bush's secret service has done something unprecedented (and therefore issuing from the President or his staff)--when Bush is in town to make an appearance they have required local govt to restrict people who are protesting to "free speech zones" which are sometimes a third of a mile and more from the Bush event. A lady and her five year old girl were arrested for protesting too close to Bush and refusing to leave--the cops *separated* mother and daughter and took the weeping child away in a separate squad car. One man popped up with an antiBush sign in the midst of a pro-Bush rally and was arrested--police said "yes sir it is the content of your sign that is the problem". They moved him two hundred yards away--and that wasn't enough! "The protest zone kept moving" he said. Strom Thurmond junior pursued prosecution of this gentleman who is now in line to get a 5000 dollar fine and six months in jail just for exercising his constitutional rights. Just for being there--he was not disorderly. Some believe that they're using this case, which was in South Carolina, as a test case in order to establish a precendent, in a conservative state, to control dissent. An anti-terrorist information center spokesmen--presumably a govt employee--said that protesters protesting the war against terror (Iraq), are committing terrorism. "...a protest against that [the war] is a terrorist act." According to a senate report the FBI's "belief [was that] dissident speech and association should be prevented because they are incipient steps toward the possible ultimate comission of an act which might be criminal."...Suppression of free speech rights is unlawful and *that* is what is criminal here. The precedent of creating "free speech zones" is very dangerous indeed. It's a short, short step from there to totalitarian media control. . . jon posted this at 3:51 AM |
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