by Mark Taylor-Canfield

Given the recent arrest of anti-war movement leader Cindy Sheehan at Bush's State of the Union Address (for wearing a t-shirt bearing the number of US soldiers who have died in Iraq), who can still claim that political repression is not being carried out by the government in the name of “national security”? The leaking of revelations about surveillance on people in the United States by the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency is further proof that the folks in Washington DC have been given far too much power - falsely justified by the Bush government's fanatical “war on terror”. When that justification doesn't work, they simply overwhelm the public and their political opponents with extreme doses of imperial arrogance, clothed in a well-calculated and self-righteous doublespeak worthy of George Orwell's “1984”.

George W. Bush now claims that the US Constitution itself authorizes his warrantless intrusion into the private lives of thousands of Americans. This insane idea of the “unitary president” is the latest gambit by a group of power hungry elitists who have moved US politics very far to the right by using the threat of possible terrorist strikes and the emotional appeal of a fundamentalist religion. Bush claims that, according to the Constitution, he has been given the authority to commit any act, regardless of whether it violates US or International law, in order to “protect the American people” - but who protects us from the Commander In Chief's massive assault on our cherished civil liberties?

Some human rights advocates claim that torture, kidnappings, military tribunals and secret prison camps are just one part of an overall corporate globalization plan to install corporate-controlled militaristic governments which can take away any sense of empowerment for the poor, minorities and political dissidents around the world. The Bush government has already pushed the envelope of intolerance beyond imagination. Sheehan's arrest is a clear example of government oppression. In addition, political opposition in the Congress has been eliminated by bully conservatives who have succeeded in creating a highly undemocratic atmosphere in the nation's capitol. Scandals and greed rule the halls of Congress and the Oval Office. The mega media networks were bought off long ago with right-wing money, so they are no threat to the establishment at all. Corrupt lobbyists lurk behind every doorway in the capitol building ready to grease the palms of anyone willing to promote their interests. Elections are bought and sold on the open market by people so immoral that they will sink to any level to secure power.

In recounting her arrest, Sheehan referred to the Capitol Police as the “Gestapo”. Her most plaintive plea was for an explanation as to why her son died in Bush's war in Iraq. She claims that the “freedom” and “liberty” he was supposedly fighting to defend in Iraq is no longer being protected in her own country. Considering that the police have already admitted publicly that they were wrong to arrest her, she stands to become a very wealthy woman when her court case is settled. Sheehan even has photographs of the bruises the police left on her arms - clear evidence of the use of excessive force. Since I had a similar experience once, I can attest to the fact that most police departments, municipalities, corporations or federal government agencies will never admit fault unless they know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they will lose a very lengthy and costly lawsuit for violations of the plaintiff's civil rights. In this case, they will probably offer Sheehan an immediate settlement.

Perhaps the subsequent ejection of a Republican woman from the president's speech (she wore a pro-troops message) was yet another way of quickly putting out a potentially damaging public relations fire. I suspect that this was the case - the authorities didn't want to be caught discriminating against people who do not support the current government's policies. So the conservative politician’s wife simply served as a sacrificial lamb for the conservatives because the government wanted to avoid additional criticism from the “left” for being so biased against the nation's leading anti-war voice.

Hard line right-wingers on the extremist radio networks have been calling for Cindy Sheehan to be sentenced to prison as a traitor. Former Secretary of Education William Bennett stated that Sheehan deserved to be jailed since she “couldn't behave herself.” The use of physical force to repress political dissent is a sure sign of totalitarianism. The talk on conservative media programs sounds so much like old-style fascist rhetoric that I can hardly believe my own ears. Such crassness hasn't been heard over the airwaves since the days of Joseph McCarthy and his paranoid red scare. It's simply outrageous! Instead of challenging the neo-con media pundits for their irrational fanaticism, the corporate robot journalists at the news networks have chosen to ignore these inconsistencies, fatalistically accepting their lot as a simple cog in the wheel of the big corporate/government propaganda machine.

The cries of millions of outraged protesters across the globe did nothing to deter the corrupt machinations of George W. Bush or his current mad regime. Those brave prophetic voices were systematically dumped down the memory hole several years ago, despite the fact that their opinions have now been adopted by liberals who dislike the Bush administration, and by right-wing civil libertarians who hate any government. Regardless of the fact that the demonstrators' dire predictions about a quagmire in Iraq have came true, their foresight will not be acknowledged by the leaders of a society run solely by money and power. Those strident voices in the wilderness are still largely unheard because they can not be commodified for profit or political gain by the powers that be – the motivations for these activists are far too pure and transcendent to be useful to the corporate agenda.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the Secret Service has been able to insert new provisions into the USA Patriot Act reauthorization bill which would expand the government's power to enforce “exclusion zones” around any “event of national significance.” The American Civil Liberties Union is desperately fighting these additions to the Conference Committee report on the reauthorization bill, so far without any success. When I contacted members of Congress on the new changes, no one seemed to know anything about them. The Secret Service somehow convinced Committee Chairman Senator Arlen Specter to include the provisions, claiming that they were only a minor change to current US law. The ACLU says the Secret Service has misled Specter, resulting in a major expansion of the Secret Service's power to exclude people from public events.

Under current US law, the Secret Service is allowed to set up restricted areas whenever the president is expected to attend an event. With the new changes, the agency could create “exclusion zones” wherever they choose, regardless of whether a head of state is in attendance. This is a major revision of current federal statutes no matter what the government says. It would allow the Secret Service wide discretion to set up restricted zones and stop people from practicing their First Amendment rights to freedom of assembly and freedom of speech at public events. This is a really gutsy move on the part of the government considering that the ACLU is already suing the Secret Service on behalf of people who have been barred from Bush's supposedly “public” events because of their political views.

After seeing what happened to Cindy Sheehan at the State of the Union Address, it's easy to imagine a new program of mass discrimination against political dissenters on the scale of the 1999 World Trade Organization ministerial conference in Seattle. An ever-expanding area of Seattle was declared a “no protest zone” by authorities and the National Guard was called in. My work on the Committee For Government Accountability allowed me to sit in on city hearings investigating the events of the WTO conference, and I learned that the only way the city, under pressure from federal authorities, could create these restricted areas was for governor Locke to declare a State of Emergency. Without this decree, the civil rights of people in Seattle could not have been violated on such a mass scale.

As an example of the insidious nature of the Seattle “no protest zone”, an infamous incident took place where a man was handing out copies of the Bill of Rights from the US Constitution. Police ejected him from downtown and his political material was confiscated! Even Seattle City Council member Richard McGiver was harassed, forced onto the ground and frisked by overzealous law enforcement officers. In the Capitol Hill neighborhood in Seattle, the police literally rioted, attacking bystanders with rubber bullets, tear gas and concussion grenades. People on Broadway were pepper sprayed in the face at point blank range after asking the cops for directions home. Some residents of the neighborhood were physically attacked and assaulted.

With that memory in mind, I ask this question – What will the government do if “no protest zones” become a federal policy so that they can be established around major public events like sports stadiums and music festivals? I shudder to think of the possibilities, and so does the American Civil Liberties Union. Their lead attorney on National Security issues, Tim Edgar, is especially upset by the way in which the new provisions have been secretly added to the USA Patriot Act without any public debate. Except for a few stories I did for public radio networks, the new Secret Service provisions were left out of news reports about the Patriot Act. I am not surprised that the corporate news media has once again failed to follow a story of immense national significance. Their “infomercial” sound-bite style coverage is almost never detailed enough to adequately inform a democratic nation about the undemocratic actions of their government.

The USA Patriot Act provisions have still not been permanently authorized. The US Congress has been unwilling to adopt all of the current provisions on a permanent basis because they are so controversial. Members of Congress have not even investigated the Secret Service changes, let alone begun to fight them. The neo-cons have the Democrats shut out of most proceedings, and most of their power has been taken away by undemocratic rules changes rammed through by the Republicans.

If people don't start to speak out publicly against the new provisions authorizing the Secret Service to establish restricted zones at any national event, the Congress will adopt these changes without comment. Unless folks begin to contact their representatives in Congress and demand that legislators block unlimited “exclusion zones”, they will remain unaware of the seriousness of the issue at hand. Unless the news media is alerted and forced by public pressure to investigate the implications of the new Patriot Act provisions, one more brick will be placed in the wall that stands between us and our Constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties.

The American people can't afford to let the Bush administration grab even more power at a time when we are already fighting desperately to save the last remnants of our most basic rights from the results of a huge corporate takeover of our government. The Patriot Act provisions must be challenged before it's too late. Americans have less than 30 days to stop the new provisions or they will be adopted. People must stand up and pressure their representatives in Congress to vote against the new provisions before it is too late.

Senator Patty Murray: senator_murray@murray.senate.gov (202) 224-2621

Senator Maria Cantwell: maria_cantwell@cantwell.senate.gov (202) 224-3441 Representative

Jim McDermott: www.house.gov/mcdermott (206) 553-7170 / (202) 225-3106

(*Note: The Chairman of the Conference Committee is Senator Arlen Specter. He helped insert the new provisions into the Conference Committee report. Representative John Conyers is also on the Conference Committee. Conyers has a history of supporting civil rights.)