It was exceedingly rare to see protestors shout at the president during a campaign rally yesterday, because the campaign usually goes to incredible lengths to ensure tickets only go to Bush sycophants (the hecklers snuck in as volunteers). With so few protests anywhere near the president, the Secret Service may be a little out of practice, as evidenced by the way in which agents dragged disruptive audience members away.
Officially, the Secret Service does not concern itself with unarmed, peaceful demonstrators who pose no danger to the commander in chief. But that policy was inoperative here Thursday when seven AIDS activists who heckled President Bush during a campaign appearance were shoved and pulled from the room — some by their hair, one by her bra straps — and then arrested for disorderly conduct and detained for an hour.
This is a problem. If someone is going to disrupt an event, I understand the need to have that person thrown out. But dragging a protestor by her hair seems excessive, unless she represents some kind of threat.
But this story gets far worse. The Secret Service not only evicted the protestors, it blocked reporters from having any access to the hecklers.
One uniformed Secret Service agent complained to a colleague that “the press is having a field day” with the disruption — and the agents quickly clamped down. Journalists were told that if they sought to approach the demonstrators, they would not be allowed to return to the event site — even though their colleagues were free to come and go. An agent, who did not give his name, told one journalist who was blocked from returning to the speech that this was punishment for approaching the demonstrators and that there was a “different set of rules” for reporters who did not seek out the activists.
I certainly wasn’t there, but if this Washington Post report is accurate, this is truly insane. Federal agents keeping journalists from speaking to those who protest the president? What country is this?
The hecklers have an iron-clad constitutional right to shout at their president and reporters have an iron-clad constitutional right to talk to the hecklers about it. The fact that Secret Service agents are interfering with free assembly is completely outrageous.
Welcome to civil liberties in Bush’s America.