Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
The AP reports:
A couple arrested at a rally after refusing to cover T-shirts that bore anti-President Bush slogans settled their lawsuit against the federal government for $80,000, the American Civil Liberties Union announced Thursday.Nicole and Jeffery Rank of Corpus Christi, Texas, were handcuffed and removed from the July 4, 2004, rally at the state Capitol, where Bush gave a speech. A judge dismissed trespassing charges against them, and an order closing the case was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Charleston.
Their "crime" was going to a Bush speech when they didn't support Bush and - gasp! - wearing t-shirts that actually expressed their opinion:
The front of the Ranks' homemade T-shirts bore the international symbol for "no" superimposed over the word "Bush." The back of Nicole Rank's T-shirt said "Love America, Hate Bush." On the back of Jeffery Rank's T-shirt was the message "Regime Change Starts at Home."
Here's the disturbing part of it all:
White House spokesman Blair Jones said the settlement was not an admission of wrongdoing."The parties understand that this settlement is a compromise of disputed claims to avoid the expenses and risks of litigation and is not an admission of fault, liability, or wrongful conduct," Jones said.
Meaning that the Bush administration still does not recognize that they do not have the authority to prevent people who don't support Bush from attending his appearances. If it's a public event, the public is welcome - period. This is so stunningly obvious that it's mind-boggling that the White House could ever have possibly conceived otherwise.
In the process of the trial, they were forced to hand over the Presidential Advance Manual that gave instructions on how to get rid of "demonstrators", as though the constitution did not explicitly protect demonstrators in the first amendment. The ACLU has put that document on their website. Here's some of what it says:
The formation of "rally squads" is a common way to prepare for demonstrators by countering their message. This tactic involves utilizing small groups of volunteers to spread favorable messages using large handheld signs, placards or perhaps a long sheet banner, and placing them in strategic areas around the site.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.
It's not specified in the advance manual, but it goes without saying that the rally squad should be asked to wear brown shirts.
Comments
Not entirely sure how I feel about your larger point here.
What you portray as "brownshirt" tactics are common for both Democratic and Republican rallies, and they are not as straightforward as you portray.
We set up rallies so that people that are interested can hear the candidates or other event people speak: very occasionally there is some audience interaction, but not often. They are quasi open to the public: often they involve getting tickets from campaign headquarters, and in many cases are composed primarily of people the campaigns have actively worked to recruit and invite to come. When they get there are can't even hear the event because hecklers spend the whole time screaming, or have to take their children home because people bring huge pictures of dissected fetuses to wave in their face, it's a little frustrating: when someone takes off work to come to an event at 8:30am an hour out of their way, and they don't even get to hear the candidate speak, they get pissed off at us, the candidate, the event organizers, no different than someone would be if they paid to go to a rock show and then found that their seat was in front of a pillar in a dead spot where there was no sound.
So if people are going to heckle, then I don't see that counter-heckling is necessarily any different. They are trying to disrupt the event, counter-heckling teams are trying to prevent that disruption. Neither are particular interested in anyone's free speech, but this is hardly Nazi territory. In a lot of cases, the point of events is to get "earned media" i.e. free news coverage of the candidate and their message. The point of the protestors is to get their signs, fetuses, or whatever into that media bite so as to dent it's effectiveness or throw it off message. Honestly, it's sort of a bizarre game, and both sides are playing it.
Now, I've never worked for a candidate that cared about T-shirts, or throwing people out because they didn't support the candidate (mostly because in the areas I've worked, the only way to win is to win over independents and even some Republicans), but if they make a disruptive fuss at an event we've spent three days straight trying to set up and strained lots of people's good will to get them to attend... shrug. They can demonstrate all they want. But if they do it right smack dab in the middle of someone else's tea party, I don't think drowning them out with huge campaign signs is exactly the Third Reich. And if they get really disruptive, then, guess what: people can get themselves kicked out of public events too. If you don't think so, then go to a free community movie night and stand in front of the projector while yelling about the evil intentions of lemons at the top of your lungs.
Posted by: plunge | August 20, 2007 10:04 AM
What you portray as "brownshirt" tactics are common for both Democratic and Republican rallies...
Are they really equally common to both parties? Do both parties vet their audiences to the same extent? Can you prove that Democrats are just as thorough in their tactics as Bush Republicans? Or are you just tossing out a reflexive "everyone does it" assertion to avoid making a difficult judgement?
Posted by: Raging Bee | August 20, 2007 10:19 AM
It wasn't "a rally". It was just a public appearance and speech. And wearing an anti-Bush T-shirt at a public appearance is 100% protected speech.
So your entire argument is bogus from the third sentence on.
Posted by: Benjamin Franz | August 20, 2007 10:31 AM
Benjamin,
I don't think that Plunge was trying to justify the arrests - those are clearly in violation of freedom of speech. He seems to be claiming that the OTHER tactics espoused in the manual are NOT violations, and I tend to agree. Everything listed appears to be using free speech to combat opposing free speech - if you have the right to protest, then I have the right to try to drown you out. That's true even at a non-political event (to the extent that an appearance by a politician can be non-political).
I'll grant that including those tactics in an official White House manual is a distasteful indicator that the President needs to be protected from the message of his constituents - but I think it is still legal. Except, of course, for having security remove them - THAT crosses the line.
Posted by: BobApril | August 20, 2007 10:49 AM
Let's see: Benjamin, you didn't read what I wrote. I was speaking about the larger point based on the manual discussed, not just the specific incident.
Raging Bee: I'm speaking mostly of my own experience working for Democrats, and mostly just hearing about Republicans. I can't prove that my experiences are generalizable, though the circle of people that work in this area is small enough that we all get a good sense of what everyone on our "team" is doing out there. Of course _we_ think the Republicans are worse, but I'm probably not a good judge of that, since of course we think they are all bad guys and we are all white knights (i.e. I'm probably biased to forgive Democrats what I detest in Republicans). Like I said, I think Dems are a lot more institutionally willing to tolerate off message people and those that don't necessarily support "our guy" largely because in the last couple of elections we desperately need to win over some amount of such people. But then again, that's part of why it pisses organizers off so much: you spend all this time trying to arrange a chance for undecideds who might be leaning our way to have a chance to hear the candidate speak, but then if the event sucks because no one can hear or see anything, these people often get pissed at _us_ for wasting their time. It all comes down to whether you think free speech means a heckler's veto. And in events where there are tickets and taped off areas and a PA system and such, I think it's a little more of blurry line than "anything less than allowing protesters to scream their lungs out directly in front of the candidate is Nazis" than the brownshirt remark makes it out to be: the tactics described in that manual just don't sound all that shocking to me, knowing what they are responding to, and I'm a pretty big advocate of free speech in general.
And I've never seen or been involved in actively ejecting anyone from an event: just the sort of "counter-rally" things discussed in the document. But that doesn't mean that Democrats don't do such things. Nor does it mean that it's always illegitimate (though I would think that for people quietly wearing T-shirts, it could never be legitimate on a non-rented public space)
Posted by: plunge | August 20, 2007 10:57 AM
It should probably have gone without saying, but maybe needs to be said, that actually arresting anyone or getting the police involved for a non-public-safety-involved incident is pure unpardonable nonsense. As is posing as a police officer to intimidate people to the same effect (which I believe one recent high-profile Republican was convicted of doing).
Posted by: plunge | August 20, 2007 11:38 AM
plunge-
I don't think you really addressed the point of my post. If someone is actually being disruptive at such an event, trying to drown out the speaker (whether the president or not), then they can legitimately be removed from the event; no one gets to exercise the heckler's veto. The answer to that is not to have roving gangs going around yelling even louder than they do. And peaceful protest, such as holding signs, is absolutely allowed, whether you like the content of those signs or not. The answer, again, is not to deploy people with even bigger signs to cover up the ones we don't like; how is that any different from "free speech zones" that keep the protesters miles away from the event so they can't be seen?
Posted by: Ed Brayton | August 20, 2007 11:55 AM
So, let me see if I have this straight. If I want to wear an anti-Bush teeshirt in public, I get arrested, hauled away, and caged for a while. Later, much later, in court I can 'win' the right to have worn it in the first place, a right I will never get to exercise, but I can hope to stiff the taxpayers for a settlement to make up for my rights being illegally violated? Did I miss anything?
What about punishing the people who violated my rights? The penalties, running sequentially, for false arrest, kidnapping, false imprisonment, and filing a false police report should get each of them 30 years or better in a federal penitentiary.
So, no, no justice.
Posted by: Rose Colored Glasses | August 20, 2007 12:03 PM
Isn't there a sharp distinction to be made here between what is and what is not government action? The Whitehouse manual appears to involve government officials enlisting."college/young Republican organizations, local athletic teams, and fraternities/sororities." to meet the needs of governmental officials. It appears that this is intended to decieve people into thinking this is just one person's/group's right to free expression vs. another's when one of the parties is actually an agent of the government.
Posted by: TomMil | August 20, 2007 12:24 PM
This report reminded me of some of the incidents mentioned in an old comment article in The Guardian from early 2005, Grannie, look what we're doing to the land of freedom (the "we" below refers to the USA, similar to the so-called "royal we"):
Posted by: blf | August 20, 2007 12:43 PM
And this is why we need some sort of real system of punishing the government for when they do stupid gestapo crap like this.
It's un-Constitutional and un-American, and for the government that we all have to give money to, for them to then tell us we can't peacefully protest in their face, should quite simply be grounds for being thrown out into the street.
When, in the past eight years or so, has anything by government been done right?
Posted by: Jeff | August 20, 2007 12:56 PM
"The answer to that is not to have roving gangs going around yelling even louder than they do. And peaceful protest, such as holding signs, is absolutely allowed, whether you like the content of those signs or not. The answer, again, is not to deploy people with even bigger signs to cover up the ones we don't like;"
But I'm not sure what question you think you are answering. You may not like it, but how is it "brownshirt" tactics at an event, especially when the protesters are by and large paid staff and volunteers from the other campaign who ARE out to disrupt the event/throw it off message/get free media off of someone else's events? I mean, I've been in both roles, both sides of this sort of activity, often several times in the same day.
Often the whole point of these exercises is all about numbers and coverage: whomever seems to have more signs, people, or whatever, "wins." In fact, its such a part of politics that many traditional political events feature things like sign wars directly and officially.
It, all of it, is just jockeying for free real advertising estate and "who can be louder and more numerous and jockey for people's attention" It's all pretty childish, and, as a fairly shy person, my least favorite part of politics, but it's not like the protesters are somehow more pure than the "rally squads." They are all playing the exact same game.
"how is that any different from "free speech zones" that keep the protesters miles away from the event so they can't be seen?"
Um, because it doesn't involve keeping them miles away from anywhere? They are still there. Anyone that cares about what they have to say can go see, or ask them.
The real problem is that virtually no one that comes to these sorts of events is interested in them in the first place. The only reason the protesters are there because the crowd is there, because they couldn't otherwise get a crowd to come see them and what they have to say. So they HAVE to try and interject themselves into the event itself.
Of course, I do think protesting is a profoundly silly activity in this day and age for anything other than in-group bonding, so that colors my view of it, as does the fact that I did it as part of an occupation. It's all very, very fake and bizarre when you think about it, even the non-astroturf stuff.
Posted by: plunge | August 20, 2007 3:40 PM
plunge-
Exercising a heckler's veto, whether by protesters or counter-protesters, is clearly over the line. Having the government participating in recruiting people to do it is clearly unconstitutional. The government's job is to protect either the speaker or the protesters against attempts to drown them out, not to recruit people to break the law.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | August 20, 2007 4:14 PM
For an academic take on this practice, see:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=952507
Posted by: John | August 20, 2007 5:38 PM
"[Usual 'not admission of wrongdoing' settlement boilerplate.]
Meaning that the Bush administration still does not recognize that they do not have the authority to prevent people who don't support Bush from attending his appearances."
While I'm sure the Bush administration continues to think it can do whatever the hell it wants with absolutely no respect for law, morals, or common sense, the inclusion of this boilerplate in the settlement doesn't imply anything about the matter one way or the other.
Even if the administration has decided that it is really unfair to do what they did, and intends never to do it again, its lawyers--like any lawyer defending against a civil suit--would be committing malpractice not to try to get that kind of statement included as part of a negotiated settlement.
Posted by: PhysioProf | August 20, 2007 6:11 PM
Also note this is headlined "Feds pay" - it's our taxpayer dollars.
At the very least any White house officials and compliant law enforcement personnel involved must suffer serious career consequences, perhaps including fines, or this is nothing at all. Wait three years and then hand over a modest amount of taxpayer (i.e. other peoples') money without either admitting wrong or promising not to do it again? Ther must be consequences that actually hit the culprits, or this is practically an endorsement.
Posted by: Warren Terra | August 20, 2007 6:23 PM
So, the plaintiffs "settled" their [meritorious] lawsuit for a paltry $80,000 taxpayer dollars! How Halliburton-Money-Grubbing is that?
Dems and opponents of Bush should concentrate on trying to come up with actual new ideas that will lead to solving actual problems of the people they claim need my money more than I do. But ideas would involve fact-based WORK and how many libs has anyone seen breaking a sweat, physical or intellectual?
Whining cry-babies are not sympathetic.
Posted by: Billie Dickey | August 20, 2007 7:45 PM
Gee, I don't know Billie. I'd much rather support the side that mocks reality-based thinkers and thinks my money is better spent on the morass of Iraq. And that is so afraid of a few t-shirts that they order the arrest of people wearing them to a speech by the President of the United States.
Posted by: AnneS | August 20, 2007 7:54 PM
"Exercising a heckler's veto, whether by protesters or counter-protesters, is clearly over the line."
What line? Drawn by whom?
"Having the government participating in recruiting people to do it is clearly unconstitutional. The government's job is to protect either the speaker or the protesters against attempts to drown them out, not to recruit people to break the law."
What law?
It's certainly wrong and against the law when it's the government doing it, and in this case, we can see a White House mixing their campaign business with official business. But what law are campaigns and volunteers breaking when they do the exact same thing? The manual is startling only from the perspective that its directed at government employees. If it had "Democratic National Party" stamped on it instead of a presidential seal, however, it would be perfectly pedestrian.
Posted by: plunge | August 20, 2007 8:11 PM
plunge wrote:
The legal line, drawn by the courts and the legislature.
This is simply false. Yes, it's worse when the government encourages it, but private groups are also not allowed by law to disrupt legal events by trying to drown out the speaker so that the audience is deprived of the opportunity to hear what they have to say. The police can and do arrest people who do so. If someone shows up at a speech given by anyone and tries to drown them out by shouting and screaming, by using a bullhorn, or anything else to disrupt the event and prevent the speaker from being heard, they should be arrested. The answer is not to employ even more people to shout even louder than they do.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | August 20, 2007 8:42 PM
Billie the Dick wrote
And people who knowingly break the law belong in prison.
Posted by: Leni | August 20, 2007 8:54 PM
"The legal line, drawn by the courts and the legislature."
You're confusing the issues here. Yes, the courts do not allow the police to arrest people for having a point of view: that line is pretty clear. But what's illegal about the rally/counter-rally tactics we were discussing (aside from the fact that in this case, Bush was apparently treating White House employees and security as if they were partisan campaign staff)? You've repeatedly implied/said that they are illegal, but by what law is having big signs that block out protesters illegal? Or holding your signs in front of someone else's so that they don't show up in media coverage?
"This is simply false. Yes, it's worse when the government encourages it, but private groups are also not allowed by law to disrupt legal events by trying to drown out the speaker so that the audience is deprived of the opportunity to hear what they have to say."
Again, I think you are confusing issues here. But lets be clear: you keep talking about "the answer": by this, do you just mean "my opinion on what is best"? If so, ok. I'd probably even agree with you. But other people have different ideas, and those ideas that you don't think are "the answer" aren't Nazi tactics, are they? They also aren't illegal as far as I can tell.
And no, it isn't false for me to say that those things are perfectly pedestrian for both parties. They simply are. I've worked on plenty of Democratic campaigns, and I've seen/heard Republicans campaigning doing the same things. It's SOP day in an day out for both parties all around the country. I've never, EVER seen anyone arrested for such things, or cited, or even have the police care (and often the police are pretty biased, especially in towns where one party controls the sheriff's office and often abuses this for all sorts of reasons).
You've taken the rhetoric too far here.
Posted by: plunge | August 21, 2007 12:38 AM
QUESTION: Can you prove that Democrats are just as thorough in their tactics as Bush Republicans?
Just ask the "Mendozas" of Chicago:
""In the summer of 1996 Glenn and Patricia Mendoza attended A Taste of Chicago, in Chicago, Illinois. An event which President Clinton was also attending. Mrs. Mendoza allegedly yelled, "You suck! And those boys died." Referring to the earlier incident in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, in which an explosion was set off, probably by a terrorist, killing 19 servicemen. Mrs. Mendoza believed Mr. Clinton was somehow at fault for the explosion, explaining her comments. Some feel that Bill Clinton caused or contributed to the cause of these murders, though I'm not sure how.
At any rate, 15 minutes after Clinton departed the event, Mrs. Mendoza was arrested for her comments. "You might need a lawyer!" her husband Glenn shouted, then found himself in cuffs as well.
Now, if you feel that perhaps Mrs. Mendoza shouldn't have used the term, "You suck!" then try this one on for size. In 1993, William Kelly of Chicago was arrested for shouting to Clinton asking where was the middle class tax cut. Such intolerable uses of FREE speech got these people thrown in jail! What happened to the laws? What happened to the First Amendment regarding FREE SPEECH!?""
http://www.justicejunction.com/government_clinton_rejects_freedom_of_speech.htm
Posted by: JC | August 21, 2007 7:06 AM
Ed said:
I confess ignorance of the realm of the law which deals with this. Does this apply only to speakers who have been given some kind of permit to speak, or anyone who wants to stand up in front of a crowd and make a speech? When it's crowd vs. crowd, they appear to be allowed to try and drown each other out as best as they can.
Posted by: Gretchen | August 21, 2007 7:17 AM
Quit being so stupid...It is a brown shirt tactic to haul people off to jail that are wearing protest T-shirts.
Posted by: Rob | August 21, 2007 9:44 AM
"Quit being so stupid...It is a brown shirt tactic to haul people off to jail that are wearing protest T-shirts."
Again, clearly NOT my point. You are awarded no cookie.
As far as I am aware, the basis for police action in these sorts of circumstances is to protect public safety and prevent dangerous altercations. People wearing T-shirts no one else at the rally likes are not doing anything that justifies police action.
But, and here IS, my point, I don't think people who stand in front of these T-shirts with a giant sign so that media shots of the event do not show the dissenters are doing anything illegal either. I've never seen the police take any interest in preventing it, even when they had a motive to do so (i.e. they basically take orders from a member of the local Republican party, and are often employed in quasi-illegal partisan ways at other times)!
Is it childish? Sure. It's one major reason I'm not particularly eager to do more campaign fieldwork. But I'm unconvinced that it's illegal, and I think calling it Nazi tactics is gratuitously overblown.
Posted by: plunge | August 21, 2007 2:22 PM
I think the "brown-shirt" tactics are the whole kit and caboodle, although the analogy is a bit overblown. If memory serves, Hitler's party would send in the brown-shirts to disrupt counterprotests and otherwise harass opponents to prevent their message getting out. Once the brown shirts had caused a nice little disturbancee of the peace - usually involving some bloodshed and damaged property - the government would send in the police to mop up by arresting the battered opponents. Essentially, using groups of "private citizens" to create a situation that requires police action, then usingg the police to punish the other side.
Posted by: AnneS | August 21, 2007 7:25 PM