Free speech has become something of a nuisance at our national political conventions, and organizers have been doing what they can to be rid of it.
At this summer's Democratic National Convention in Boston, organizers have floated a preliminary plan to relegate protesters to a small triangle of land that can hold maybe 400 people. As the Boston Globe describes it, the spit of land is "blocked off from the FleetCenter and convention delegates by a maze of Central Artery service roads, MBTA train tracks, and a temporary parking lot holding scores of buses and media trucks."
This is not acceptable, of course. Those organizing protests and the civil liberties groups watchdogging their rights have already raised objections; and police say nothing is yet set in stone. But this routinized convention dance - with protesters trying to secure their First Amendment rights to be close to their intended targets while the major political parties work with the local policing agencies to banish dissent to some small, distant locale - is nothing short of shameful.
Both Democrats and Republicans are guilty of trying to keep their ever-more scripted conventions unmarred by controversy, and by controversy I mean issues that people care enough about to take to the streets. Apparently it would be too disturbing to the feel-good, happy days atmosphere that occasions picking a man who may lead the free world if crowds of people were allowed near the festivities raising concerns about jobs, health care, decent wages, fair trade policies or getting out of the war in Iraq.
The major parties bemoan political apathy but seem to view those Americans who are politically engaged - beyond writing a check or voting - as rabble, malcontents or nut-cases.
Lawsuits have become a regular feature in the lead-up to any major party convention. In 2000, U.S. District Judge Gary Feess rejected a plan by Democratic convention organizers to banish protesters far from the Staples Center in Los Angeles. "When it's convenience versus the First Amendment, convenience loses every time," Feess said. "It is hard to imagine an event when free speech activities would be more important."
Couldn't agree more.
Similarly, the ACLU of Pennsylvania had to file suit in 2000 against a Philadelphia plan that would have given the Republican Party control over much of the city's public spaces during the convention. (The convention was then marred by the infamous protest-busting tactics of Philadelphia's then-police commissioner, John Timoney. Peaceful protesters were arrested by the hundreds, demonstration organizers were pre-emptively arrested on trumped-up conspiracy charges and police on bicycles used indiscriminate violence against the crowds.)
Republicans rail against "activist" judges, but then leave it to the courts to uphold the most basic of constitutional rights. And the Democrats are no better. How is it that John Kerry, a veteran of the Vietnam War protest movement, is willing to stand by as constraints on dissent are proposed for the streets outside the convention where he will be nominated for president this summer?
His campaign was oddly silent when the question was put to it by both phone and e-mail.
As to the upcoming Republican National Convention in New York City - where between 500,000 and a million protesters are expected to turn out - the New York Civil Liberties Union has already filed suit. The NYCLU is acting pre-emptively because the city's police department has demonstrated it has little interest in protecting First Amendment rights when large groups of people wish to make a political point with their feet.
During the anti-Iraq-war protests that were staged on the East Side of Manhattan in February of last year, the police closed streets leading to the demonstration, used horses to disperse peaceful crowds, herded protesters into barricaded pens, and without cause searched the bags of people who wished to attend the protests. Tens of thousands of people never made it to the site of the protest and hundreds of people were arrested just trying to get there, according to the report "Arresting Protest" by the NYCLU. Now, all these tactics are being challenged in federal court. A hearing on a preliminary injunction is scheduled for the first week of June.
As has been historically true, at least since the 20th century, the courts are the salvation of liberty. Democrat or Republican, it doesn't seem to matter, neither wants to face dissent. Which means the courts have to be relied upon to remind them that the right to protest outside their convention is a core American freedom. All that red, white and blue bunting and flag-waving, yet they don't really know what it stands for, do they?
