Important guidelines for maintaining the presidential bubble outside the White House

from the aclu via alternet via the progressive...

Presidential Advance Manual [PDF]

Office of Presidential Advance

October 2002

[...]

Preventing Demonstrators

All Presidential events must be ticketed or accessed by a name list. This is the best method for preventing demonstrators. People who are obviously going to try to disrupt the event can be denied entrance at least to the VIP area between the stage and the main camera platform. ... It is important to have your volunteers at a checkpoint before the Magnetometers in order to stop a demonstrator from getting into the event. Look for signs they may be carrying, and if need be, have volunteers check for folded cloth signs that demonstrators may be bringing.

[...]

Preparing for Demonstrators

As always, work with the Secret Service and have them ask the local police department to designate a protest area where demonstrators can be placed, preferably not in view of the event site or motorcade route.

[...]

Rally Squads

These squads should be instructed always to look for demonstrators. The rally squad's task is to use their signs and banners as shields between the demonstrators and the main press platform. If the demonstrators are yelling, rally squads can begin and lead supportive chants to drown out the protestors (USA!, USA!, USA!). As a last resort, security should remove the demonstrators from the event site.

[...]

The rally squads can include, but are not limited to, college/young republican organizations, local athletic teams, and fraternities/sororities.

kind of like on daily kos, there's a lot of talk about the free, open debate that is the hallmark of free, open societies, but walking that talk is a different story...

remember the denver three, barred from attending a bush speech on privatizing social security...?

Two people who sued a government employee after being ejected from a 2005 presidential appearance in Denver have requested action on their case, which has seen no action since March.

The two say they were ousted from President Bush's public speech in March 2005 solely because they arrived in a car with an anti-war bumper sticker.

Leslie Weise, 40, and Alex Young, 26, two of the three people ousted from the event, are suing Michael Casper, a General Services Administration manager, who worked the event as a volunteer.

They say Casper and his higher- ups violated their rights to free speech and protection from unreasonable search and seizure.

at the time, i wrote an open letter to bush in which i said, in part...

The cornerstone of a democracy is an informed and educated citizenry who can then select their leaders wisely. The corollary is that our leaders must insure that adequate means to obtain that information and education is available, accessible, factual, comprehensible, and utilized. This is the essence of good citizenship. To effectively silence opposing voices, as seems to be happening at your events, is to turn our beloved country into the very thing we claim to most thoroughly despise.

for all the damn good it did...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet