Originally posted by Russian
Who lost their speach rights?
Please give examples.
**A.J. Brown, a freshman at Durham Technical College, almost jumped out of her skin when agents from the
Raleigh, N.C. office of the U.S. Secret Service and an
investigator from the Durham Police Department
knocked on her apartment door on Oct. 27, 2001.
They were responding to an anonymous report about
an “anti-American” wall poster. Terrified, Brown, 19,
phoned her mother before opening the door.
Did she have any information about Afghanistan? they
asked. No. The Taliban? No. At their request, she filled
out a form providing her full name, race, phone number
and other identifying information but, on her
mother’s advice, stopped short of inviting them in.
The poster, opposing the death penalty, showed
George W. Bush holding a rope against a backdrop of
lynch victims, with the text, “We hang on your every word.” Texas executed 152 people while Bush was
governor, it said.
**Eight youthful protesters carrying anti-war signs were arrested and dozens injured in a confrontation with police March 30, 2003 following a large
peace rally in the city’s Forest Park. Some 60 youths, who had attempted to march out of the rally together, said police blocked off the street,
ordered them onto the sidewalk and pushed one participant off her bicycle. Some were
thrown to the ground or against squad cars, and one
suffered a concussion and had to go to the hospital.
Some said they were handcuffed, and then maced
after the cuffs were on, and that the arresting officers
hurled epithets – “traitor,” “anti-American,” “unpatriotic”
– at them for opposing the war.
**During a Nov. 4, 2002 Bush visit, activists Bill
Ramsey and Angela Gordon were arrested after
refusing to move to a gravel parking lot a quarter-
mile away from the president’s entourage.
**On Jan. 22, 2003, Andrew Wimmer was arrested
for refusing to take his “Instead of war, invest in
people” sign to a designated protest zone more
than three blocks away and down an embankment;
however, a woman with a “Mr. President,
we love you” sign was allowed to remain. Police
also barred reporters from entering the protest
zone to interview dissenters.
** When Bush visited the local Boeing plant on April
16, 2003, authorities attempted to herd protesters
into a designated protest zone a quarter-mile away
and off the main road, in a field. But the 20-
square-foot roped-off area was too small to contain
all the protesters – among them, Christine
Mains and her 5-year-old daughter. When Mains,
standing several hundred feet away with an antiwar
sign, refused to move, she and her tearful
child were hauled away in separate squad cars.
Mains charged that authorities also treated her
roughly and set her bond so high she couldn’t be
released until the ACLU intervened, hours later.
If these examples are not sufficient to illustrate the erosion of our First Amendment rights, just look around the internet for 1st amendment
violations. There are more than you can imagine.
Here are a couple of quotes relating to the subject...
"Difference of opinion leads to enquiry, and enquiry to truth; and
I am sure...we both value too much the freedom of opinion
sanctioned by our Constitution, not to cherish its exercise even
where in opposition to ourselves." --Thomas Jefferson to P. H.
Wendover, 1815.
"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press.
You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know before hand that it will never
appear in print.
I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. Others
of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to
write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job.
If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours
my occupation would be gone.
The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn
at the feet of Mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I
know it and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassels for rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks,
they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes." --
John Swinton, Former Chief of Staff of the New York Times, Called by his peers , "The dean of
his profession", was asked in 1953 to give a toast before the New York Press Club.
