Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Freedom from speech?

According to an article in the Rocky Mountain News, this past June VP Dick Cheney was in Beaver Creek, Colorado (next to Vail), doing the photo op thing when Steve Howards, who was walking by with his seven-year-old son, told Cheney that his policies in Iraq were crap (I paraphrase, as I do). Ten minutes later, Howards, still walking with his boy, was placed in cuffs by a Secret Serviceman and taken to the Eagle County Jail for harassment. The Eagle County District Attorney's Office dropped all charges against Howards in July.

Howards has just filed a lawsuit against the Secret Service agent alleging that the arrest was "in retaliation for having exercised his First Amendment right of free speech, and that his arrest violated his Fourth Amendment protection against unlawful seizure."

First of all, this just further illustrates to me what chickenshits politicians have become. They do everything they can to isolate themselves from any sort of tough questions or criticisms. I long for a politician who says, "Disagree with me. Let's talk about it." But no, their fear of looking bad causes them to only surround themselves with yes men and women, which just adds to the perception that they're all phony lying faketards. Perception = reality.

Second of all, I'm curious about the "protection against unlawful seizure." Is that just referencing them seizing him, or did they seize something that he had on him? Did he have a dime bag of schweed in his pocket? Also, I'd love to know the exact words he used, because in the article it says "...or words to that effect." Did he really say, "I think your policies in Iraq are reprehensible, and your mother sucks cock in hell," I wonder?

Finally, I wonder how quickly this case will be thrown out.

READ HALOSCAN COMMENTS.

No comments: