[spacefreak]

Bursey found guilty, fined $500

Here are some passages, including some information that was conveniently missing from pre-trial propaganda that was spread regarding "Bush quarantining dissent via Free Speech Zones" :

A judge fined longtime Columbia political dissenter Brett Bursey $500 Tuesday, ruling that Bursey broke a federal law designed to shield the president from harm.

U.S. Magistrate Bristow Marchant acknowledged Bursey was not a threat to Bush during the president’s Oct. 24, 2002, visit to Columbia. But the judge dismissed Bursey’s free speech defense and ruled the protester had no right to be as close to Bush as Bursey wanted in his efforts to show that some South Carolinians opposed his plan to attack Iraq.

Signs for Republican candidates were allowed in the restricted area, Bursey and his witnesses said. People with tickets were screened by police and allowed inside a hangar at Columbia Metropolitan Airport to hear Bush promote S.C. Republican candidates.

Secret Service agents and local police testified they told Bursey and other protesters to move to a "demonstration zone" about a half-mile from the hangar. Only Bursey failed to leave the restricted area, became belligerent and was arrested by airport police on a trespassing charge, according to testimony.

Bursey has a history of civil disobedience dating to the late 1960s. He served nearly two years in state prison for defacing a military draft office in Columbia in 1971 and has been arrested several times since during antinuclear and other protests.

[kvm_mkdb]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
propaganda that was spread regarding "Bush quarantining dissent via Free Speech Zones" :

Secret Service agents and local police testified they told Bursey and other protesters to move to a "demonstration zone" about a half-mile from the hangar.

Heh.

[zigzag]

I would say that the Secret Service has a right to enforce a protective zone and give ticket holders special preference, but that it's not reasonable to make protestors stand half a mile away, whatever their politics. It therefore sounds to me like the guy was out of line but that the authorities were even more out of line. Half a mile away might as well be in another state.

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by kvm_mkdb:
Heh.

It could have been worse...

Media Silent on St. Pat's Day Assault by Hillary's Goons

It was the ugliest public incident in the entire seven-plus year history of the Clinton administration; certainly ugly enough to fatally wound any candidate's bid for higher office.

But 48 hours after United States Senate candidate Hillary Clinton's security entourage attacked at least six reporters during New York City's St. Patrick's Day parade -- throwing some out of the way, pushing others to the ground -- not a single mainstream media outlet has reported the assaults.

As crowds jeered the first lady with raucous chants of "Go Back to Arkansas" and "Where's Monica?" her bodyguards swung into action, according to one radio reporter who described the scene just hours after it happened:

"The Secret Service just lost their minds," reported WABC Radio Network's Glen Shuck. "Agents literally were pushing press to the ground. I mean, they just started pushing and shoving; female camera people five feet tall were getting thrown to the ground, cameras flying."

The notion that Mrs. Clinton's bodyguards were acting out of concerns for her physical safety was further undermined by a videotape shot by a local CBS News camera crew.

As boos and jeers erupted from the St. Patrick's Day crowd, film showed one of Hillary's bodyguards as he raised his hand in an attempt to cover CBS's camera lens. CBS's on-the-scene reporter complained, "What could be classified about this? Who does she think she is?"

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by zigzag:
I would say that the Secret Service has a right to enforce a protective zone and give ticket holders special preference, but that it's not reasonable to make protestors stand half a mile away, whatever their politics. It therefore sounds to me like the guy was out of line but that the authorities were even more out of line. Half a mile away might as well be in another state.

If you recall, the event was held in an airport hanger. You can't just allow people to stand all over an airport runway and roam wherever they want.

Come on, zigzag, use some common sense (you pretty much always do).

[Nonsuch]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
It could have been worse...

Indeed ...

On Saturday, Nov. 22, a few dozen police on bicycles rode by the warehouse that activists protesting Miami's Free Trade of the Americas summit were using as a welcome center. The big protest had taken place on Thursday, Nov. 20, and most demonstrators had already dispersed. Some were in jail, others were nursing their injuries. But the cops wanted to deliver a final message to those still around. "Bye! Don't come back here!" shouted one. A pudgy officer gave the finger to an activist with a video camera. "Put that on your Web site," he said. "**** you."

[...]

"I no longer consider Dade county to be part of the United States," says Bentley Killmon, a 71-year-old retiree who was held handcuffed for 11 hours after he was swept up by the police as he wandered around downtown looking for his bus home.

[...]

Between the 15th and the 20th, the day of the major protest, Miami Activist Defense received dozens of reports of people being arbitrarily detained, searched, photographed and questioned about their backgrounds and their connections to anarchism.

The most authoritative first-person story about such random seizures came from Celeste Fraser Delgado, a reporter for Miami New Times, who was arrested Thursday evening on Miami Avenue as she walked toward the protest's welcome center with a group of protesters she was profiling.

"Throughout the day I'd witnessed police provoke protesters," she wrote. "I'd seen young people cuffed and lined up along the street, but I thought they must have done something bad to be detained. Surely the police would see that we were doing nothing wrong and let us go. Surely they would recognize my role as a working member of the press."

Instead, Delgado's hands were cuffed behind her back. Her pleas to the police to check her credentials were ignored, though they took her black leather backpack with her press pass and notebook inside. She was told they would be returned to her. Instead, they were dumped out and left on the street.

She knows that, because John de Leon, an ACLU lawyer, happened to be in the area after her arrest. He was on the phone with Rodriguez-Taseff when he noticed that the street was littered with backpacks, cellphones and wallets. He was collecting the protesters' things when he found Delgado's press credentials.

Delgado was released Friday afternoon, after the charges against her were dropped. Of the more than 90 arrests made at the protests on Thursday, the Miami prosecutors threw out 20 due to lack of evidence. Rodriguez-Taseff says it's "unheard of" for so many cases to be dismissed as groundless.

[...]

It was Thursday afternoon that madness broke loose in Miami. There had been a scuffle that morning between demonstrators and police near the fence police had erected around the Intercontinental Hotel, and the city had been locked down since around 10 a.m. But things didn't get really bad until about 4 p.m., when a few hundred people left the officially sanctioned union march to confront the police lined up along Biscayne Boulevard.

It's not clear what made the police charge forward, rhythmically beating their big wooden clubs against their shields. Predictably, many protesters say there was no provocation, but Lt. Schwartz maintains that the police were pelted with "rocks, feces in plastic bags and bottles of urine." Three officers were admitted to a nearby hospital for injuries sustained during the protests, and the Miami Police Department reports that a total of 18 were injured.

Al Crespo, the photojournalist, admits that some protesters "acted out," but says that, in covering over 100 protests over the last six years, he's never seen a police reaction as ferocious and disproportionate as what he saw in Miami. [...] Before Miami, one of the more violent protests Crespo had seen was at the 2000 Democratic convention in Los Angeles. "What happened in Los Angeles, which had not happened in any other city up until then, is that the police came out, took a position and just opened up fire. It looked like reenactment of a Civil War battle," he says.

"In Miami they did that, but then they proceeded to march down the street and chase these people, chase them for blocks," he said. "These were people trying to get away, and they kept marching and shooting."

Witnesses say that all protesters were targeted, not just those that were causing trouble.

—This Is Not America," Michelle Goldbreg

And lookee there—she actually managed to post her report without calling anyone a "goon."

[BlackGriffen]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
If you recall, the event was held in an airport hanger. You can't just allow people to stand all over an airport runway and roam wherever they want.

Come on, zigzag, use some common sense (you pretty much always do).

How about you respond to his actual point instead of beating up on your straw man? Zigzag's point was about distance not the confinement.

But, then, you never did respond to that issue last time, either.

BlackGriffen

[BRussell]

What bothers me is this:

Signs for Republican candidates were allowed in the restricted area, Bursey and his witnesses said.

I've heard this before as well - that police are being instructed to look at your signs to decide if you should be confined to the "free speech zone" or be allowed to go where you want.

It bothers me a little that people are sent away to protest. It bothers me a lot that police are reading people's signs to determine whether or not to send you away.

[zigzag]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
If you recall, the event was held in an airport hanger. You can't just allow people to stand all over an airport runway and roam wherever they want.

I didn't say let 'em roam all over the runway, I just said that half a mile away seems kinda excessive. Give 'em a fenced area or something. Serve airline food - that'll discourage 'em.

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by BRussell:
What bothers me is this:
I've heard this before as well - that police are being instructed to look at your signs to decide if you should be confined to the "free speech zone" or be allowed to go where you want.

It bothers me a little that people are sent away to protest. It bothers me a lot that police are reading people's signs to determine whether or not to send you away.

It was a private, ticketed event. The people with the pro-Bush signs had tickets, thus they were allowed into the private event.

Perhaps you missed the following sentence, which stated "People with tickets were screened by police and allowed inside a hangar at Columbia Metropolitan Airport to hear Bush promote S.C. Republican candidates."

Like I've stated before, the majority of these so-called instances are private events with invited or ticketholding attendees. Using the umbrella of free speech does not automatically allow each and every person admittance to private events.

If Mr. Bursey wanted to attend the private event, he should have purchased a ticket.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
If Mr. Bursey wanted to attend the private event, he should have purchased a ticket.

You seriously believe that would have made a difference?

Like that time Ralph Nader was forcibly kept outside the presidential candidate TV debate in 2000, despite the fact that he'd bought a ticket?

-s*

[BRussell]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
It was a private, ticketed event. The people with the pro-Bush signs had tickets, thus they were allowed into the private event.

Perhaps you missed the following sentence, which stated "People with tickets were screened by police and allowed inside a hangar at Columbia Metropolitan Airport to hear Bush promote S.C. Republican candidates."

Like I've stated before, the majority of these so-called instances are private events with invited or ticketholding attendees. Using the umbrella of free speech does not automatically allow each and every person admittance to private events.

If Mr. Bursey wanted to attend the private event, he should have purchased a ticket.

No, I don't believe you're right about that. He was on public property - on the street outside the hangar, I assume - when he was arrested. No one had tickets to be where he was when he was arrested. He was on public property, and the police arrested him for trespassing. South Carolina dropped the case against him because you can't trespass on public property. Then Ashcroft and Strom Thurmond Jr. decided to pursue it anyway using a federal law about protecting the president. Protecting the president, but only from people holding certain signs.

And there are lots of other cases like this.

Here's one of the ACLU's complaints.

In Philadelphia and elsewhere around the country, the Secret Service has, in conjunction with local law enforcement officials, discriminated against and restricted protesters, typically at events, particularly those attended by the President and the Vice-President. The discriminatory practice requires that protesters who exercise their First Amendment right to picket, leaflet, chant or otherwise peacefully express views criticizing the government do so in locations that are further away, or generally less desirable, than non-protesters. The discrimination takes two principal forms. 20. Under the first form, only the protesters are moved further away from the location of the official and/or the event, allowing people who express views that support the government to remain closer. 21. Under the second form, everyone expressing a view -- either critical or supportive of the government – is moved further away, leaving people who merely observe, but publicly express no view, to remain closer. Under both forms of the discrimination, protesters are typically segregated into what are commonly referred to as “protest zones.” 22. Frequently, these protest zones are located so far away, or positioned in such a manner, that the protesters cannot see or hear the visiting federal official or people attending the event, and vice versa.

If you read some of the descriptions of what happened in several Bush events, we're talking about being on the street as Bush's motorcade passed. People holding anti-Bush signs were sent away, people holding pro-Bush signs could go anywhere they wanted on the street. You don't need a ticket to stand on a street, nor is a motorcade passing by a street a private event. It lists about 10 incidents where each of the two "methods" were used.

Here's an article that describes several of these incidents.

The local police, at the Secret Service's behest, set up a "designated free-speech zone" on a baseball field surrounded by a chain-link fence a third of a mile from the location of Bush's speech.

The police cleared the path of the motorcade of all critical signs, but folks with pro-Bush signs were permitted to line the president's path. Neel refused to go to the designated area and was arrested for disorderly conduct; the police also confiscated his sign.

It goes on and on. But whatever, keep on defending it. It's revealing.

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by BRussell:
No, I don't believe you're right about that. He was on public property - on the street outside the hangar.

Airplane hangars at airports are not located on streets.

If you read some of the descriptions of what happened in several Bush events, we're talking about being on the street as Bush's motorcade passed.

I've read about these several events. Unfortunately, all we are hearing is one side of the story. Now, it appears that you are more than willing to accept these stories as fact based on the single-sided accounts of leftist partisans. I prefer to hear both sides of the story before accepting any one side as "fact".

Furthermore, these events are private events - luncheons, fundraisers, etc.

It goes on and on. But whatever, keep on defending it. It's revealing.

What's revealing is that your anti-Bush agenda is making you more than willing to accept only the version of accounts as told by individual beligerents whose cause you are sympathetic.

The reason I posted the Bursey verdict is because there was information revealed in the trial that your leftist organizations conveniently left out - like that the event was a ticketed event, that Bursey was belligerent, and that Bursey has been in and out of jail over the past 30+ years on a variety of charges related to his "civil disobedience".

Hopefully, we'll get the whole story on some of these other accusations. Unfortunately, we'll have to keep our eyes peeled for these verdicts, because the press doesn't seem as willing to report these verdicts as widespread as it reports the accusations.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
If Mr. Bursey wanted to attend the private event, he should have purchased a ticket.

I actually agree with this. Purchasing a ticket and protesting peacefully from within the event would have lended much more strength to his protest. We don't know enough detail about the geography of the area to know where 1/2 mile away from the event was. Protesters can't be milling around airport hangers and airports can cover alot of area. The "demonstation zone" could have been just off the airport property. If supporters without tickets were allowed to gather outside the hanger then I would say the protesters were being treated unfairly.

[BRussell]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
Airplane hangars at airports are not located on streets.
I've read about these several events. Unfortunately, all we are hearing is one side of the story. Now, it appears that you are more than willing to accept these stories as fact based on the single-sided accounts of leftist partisans. I prefer to hear both sides of the story before accepting any one side as "fact".

I'd love to get as much information as possible. I'd like to see the actual decision, if possible. I'm just not sure your article says what you're saying it says.

Your article had two separate sentences:

Signs for Republican candidates were allowed in the restricted area, Bursey and his witnesses said. People with tickets were screened by police and allowed inside a hangar at Columbia Metropolitan Airport to hear Bush promote S.C. Republican candidates.

You put "People with tickets" in bold to suggest that the reason Bursey wasn't allowed in the restricted area was because he didn't have a ticket. But that's not a correct interpretation, I don't think.

The first sentence seems to say that signs for Republicans were allowed, whereas Bursey with his anti-Republican sign was not allowed there. Then the second sentence makes the point about needing tickets to get inside the hangar. But Bursey was not arrested inside the hangar. The restricted area was outside the hangar. So he was arrested for being in a restricted area around the president, while other, non-ticket-holding pro-president people, were allowed there. At least that's what I gather - if you can show differently, I'd like to see it.

As for him being a career protester, good for him. How does that hurt his case? The more you engage in political speech, the less rights you should have?

[edit]This isn't the DBursey of MacNN fame, is it? Haven't seen him around in a while.

[BlackGriffen]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
Furthermore, these events are private events - luncheons, fundraisers, etc.

What's revealing is that your anti-Bush agenda is making you more than willing to accept only the version of accounts as told by individual beligerents whose cause you are sympathetic.

Last I checked the protesters weren't pissed about not being let in. They're pissed about not even being allowed in the same neighborhood. I can understand preventing protesters from blocking the entrance by keeping them 50, 100, or even 300 feet back, but half a mile (~2600 feet) is ludicrously beyond the needs of security. That's not security, that's "out of sight, out of mind."

Face it, your "private function" excuse holds water about as well as a sieve. The protesters would have been perfectly happy outside of the function, on public property, even in specially designated zones, if those zones would have even been within sight of the entrance of the event.

Were you this defensive of Clinton? I'm curious if this is blind attraction to the powerful, or if it's partisanship to the extreme. Either way, pull your head out man and think for a change instead of just lapping up what your partisan news sources put in front of you.

BlackGriffen

[zigzag]

Originally posted by BRussell:
This isn't the DBursey of MacNN fame, is it? Haven't seen him around in a while.

Yes, it's part of a Canadian plot to overthrow the U.S. government and spread politeness across the globe, one country at a time.

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by BlackGriffen:
Last I checked the protesters weren't pissed about not being let in. They're pissed about not even being allowed in the same neighborhood. I can understand preventing protesters from blocking the entrance by keeping them 50, 100, or even 300 feet back, but half a mile (~2600 feet) is ludicrously beyond the needs of security. That's not security, that's "out of sight, out of mind."

Face it, your "private function" excuse holds water about as well as a sieve. The protesters would have been perfectly happy outside of the function, on public property, even in specially designated zones, if those zones would have even been within sight of the entrance of the event.

1/2 mile isn't ridiculous when you consider that the event was held at an airport hangar, which is located on the runway.

Just to be sure, I went to terraserver to look at the aerial of the airport.



So bitch and complain all you want. In my opinion, i don't see the problem with the Columbia police wanting to keep these non-attendees off the runway and perhaps closer to the terminal.

[BlackGriffen]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
1/2 mile isn't ridiculous when you consider that the event was held at an airport hangar, which is located on the runway.

Just to be sure, I went to terraserver to look at the aerial of the airport.



So bitch and complain all you want. In my opinion, i don't see the problem with the Columbia police wanting to keep these non-attendees off the runway and perhaps closer to the terminal.

Judging by that pic, there were plenty of sights that were off the runway and well within a half mile of the hanger.

Last I checked, runways weren't 1/2 mile wide.

BlackGriffen

[Lerkfish]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
1/2 mile isn't ridiculous when you consider that the event was held at an airport hangar, which is located on the runway.

Just to be sure, I went to terraserver to look at the aerial of the airport.



So bitch and complain all you want. In my opinion, i don't see the problem with the Columbia police wanting to keep these non-attendees off the runway and perhaps closer to the terminal.

rationalization is an amazing thing. I'm SURE they wanted to keep them closer to the terminal. Yeah, that's it.

[BRussell]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
In my opinion, i don't see the problem with the Columbia police wanting to keep these non-attendees off the runway and perhaps closer to the terminal.

I don't either, unless they looked at what their signs said and made them go further away if they were anti-Bush, but let them stay closer if they were pro-Bush. That's what Bursey and the ACLU says happened. If you know differently, I'd like to see it. Maybe the decision will go online at some point and that will clarify things.

[finboy]

Originally posted by spacefreak:

So bitch and complain all you want. In my opinion, i don't see the problem with the Columbia police wanting to keep these non-attendees off the runway and perhaps closer to the terminal.

I think they need to do it the old-fashioned way (a la Tammany Hall) and hire a bunch of off-duty cops from Local 123 to stand around and make dirty faces at the opposition. Or stand outside of polling places. Or hand out leaflets at factory gates. Or register folks to vote at the social services office.

It's all the same thing.

[Lerkfish]

Originally posted by BRussell:
I don't either, unless they looked at what their signs said and made them go further away if they were anti-Bush, but let them stay closer if they were pro-Bush. That's what Bursey and the ACLU says happened. If you know differently, I'd like to see it. Maybe the decision will go online at some point and that will clarify things.

Frankly, I believe it because it happened here with another protest group in nearly identical form.

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by BRussell:
I don't either, unless they looked at what their signs said and made them go further away if they were anti-Bush, but let them stay closer if they were pro-Bush. That's what Bursey and the ACLU says happened. If you know differently, I'd like to see it. Maybe the decision will go online at some point and that will clarify things.

The people with the pro-Bush signs were ticket holders attending the event.

Signs for Republican candidates were allowed in the restricted area, Bursey and his witnesses said. People with tickets were screened by police and allowed inside a hangar at Columbia Metropolitan Airport to hear Bush promote S.C. Republican candidates.

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by BlackGriffen:
Judging by that pic, there were plenty of sights that were off the runway and well within a half mile of the hanger.

They could have stood in the woods, or perhaps a gravel pit.

Go down to Columbia, SC and apply for a job as a policeman. Then maybe you can decide which areas to place assembling people.

[zigzag]

I read the decision (I do have a life of sorts but spacefreak's original post piqued my interest ) (you can download it from findlaw.com under Federal Cases > U.S. District Courts > South Carolina).

As I suspected, the judge found that the Secret Service had the right to create a secure area around the Prez, and that Bursey remained within an area that the Secret Service had a right to secure, thereby violating the statute (apparently there was a public roadway running near the hangar, but Bursey was still too close for comfort).

Bursey argued that the outer boundaries of the secured area were too vague and/or broad, depriving him of his right to peaceable assembly, etc. However, the judge decided that because Bursey was in an area that the Secret Service had a right to secure in any case, he didn't need to reach the question of whether the outer boundaries were too broad. In other words, if Bursey had retreated another 50 or 100 yards and still been arrested, he might have had a better constitutional argument, but the area where he was actually arrested was definitely within the Secret Service's rights to secure, so his rights were not actually infringed.

The judge is effectively saying that if the demonstrators really want to test the law, they need to get one of the people who was sent half a mile away to bring a case, then he'd be forced to address the question of whether half a mile is an infringement (and he implies that he would do so). However, where Bursey was actually arrested, no rights were infringed.

Some will see this as a clever dodge, others as a judge properly limiting his decision to the narrow facts of the case. While it would be nice to have more guidance, that's not normally a district court judge's job. But it'll be interesting to see where it goes.

Anyway, as I figured, Bursey was probably out of line, but the authorities were probably even more out of line. Unfortunately, Bursey tested the law a little too aggressively, enabling the judge to make a narrow decision. Of course, the appellate courts could find otherwise.

What a country!

[BRussell]

Well, I did some digging and found the judge's decision, and he agrees with what you've been saying.

Nor does the evidence support Defendant’s claim that the only reason he was charged {p.10} in this case was because he was protesting against the President. There was no evidence presented at the trial to show that any other persons, either supporting the President or opposing him, were allowed to remain in the area around the hanger for the purpose of demonstrating, pro or con, upon the President’s arrival. The evidence did show that there were many people, some of whom may have had signs supporting the President, who were there that day to attend the rally inside the hanger. However, the evidence shows that these people either went through the screening into the hanger for the rally, or were themselves cleared from the area prior to the President’s arrival at the hanger.

The judge may be right, but that's not what the defendant said happened. And there are other cases in which the Secret Service and police have been accused of sign-reading.

Also, here is what the prosecution said about that particular argument:

Bursey also incorrectly asserts that in order to convict him, one of the elements the government must prove is “that only invitees were permitted to enter the restricted area.” (Defendant’s Memorandum, p.6). This argument is apparently based on the regulations referenced in the statute, and it is simply wrong. The government need not prove anyone else’s compliance with the regulations; the government need only prove that the defendant’s entry into or remaining in the restricted area was in violation of the regulations.

I find that language interesting, because the government doesn't really come right out and deny that there were pro-Bush non-ticket-holders allowed to remain. They basically are saying it's irrelevant whether anyone else was in violation. Of course, the judge didn't say it was irrelevant, but it's interesting to me that the government didn't just come out and deny that pro-Bush demonstrators (not ticket-holders) were there and allowed to remain there.

Anyway, after wriggling a little bit, I'll admit that you're right. Enjoy it.