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Today's Top News
Plan for Designated Protest Space on DC Mall Debated
Washington - The National Park Service envisions a prime venue for demonstrations: a broad space at the foot of the Capitol with restrooms, seating, a paved surface, even a stand for the media.Lawyers for activist groups fear a designated, government-approved "pit," limiting freedom of speech and movement in a hallowed place of protest.
The proposal to turn Union Square, the site of the Capitol reflecting pool and the Grant Memorial, into an urban civic square is one of many ideas the Park Service is mulling as it plans the future of the Mall.
But that and other suggested changes have sparked harsh debate between government officials seeking to preserve one of the country's most heavily used national parks and activists concerned about limits on free speech and civil rights.
The face-off prompted tense exchanges at a public meeting this month as well as demands for the Park Service to halt its planning and seek broader public input.
"This is a sugar-coating effort to conceal the real plan, which is to reorganize the Mall from its traditional venue as the heart and soul of this country's free-speech protest movement," said Brian Becker, national coordinator of Answer, an antiwar coalition.
Susan Spain, project executive for the National Mall Plan, countered: "We are not seeking to restrict First Amendment demonstrations whatsoever."
The Park Service requires permits for most demonstrations and has "reasonable time, place and manner restrictions" for them, she said. What is proposed is only a better place to protest, with more facilities, she said.
But lawyer Mara Verheyden-Hilliard of the Partnership for Civil Justice, which advocates for protest groups, noted that the Capitol might not always be the protesters' target.
Demonstrators "also want to be able to protest as far back [on the Mall] as they need and as wide as they need," she said. "They have the right to . . . not be shunted off to a protest pit."
None of the proposals for the Mall's future, laid out in three mix-and-match alternatives, has been adopted. The Park Service says that they are only suggestions and that it is seeking public comment through Feb. 15.
The proposals, which Spain said were developed from prior public input, are part of the Park Service's attempt to better manage the Mall, which has an estimated 25 million visitors a year and in many areas is worn from age and use.
The Park Service issues 3,000 permits a year for events on the Mall. About half are for "First Amendment" demonstrations. Most of those involving politics draw a few hundred people or fewer, officials said, with perhaps a dozen or so attracting more than 5,000.
The National Mall & Memorial Parks - the official name - extend from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial and are home to the Washington Monument, the Jefferson Memorial, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Also included are the Tidal Basin, the National World War II Memorial, and the Korean War Veterans Memorial.
There are extensive maintenance problems. Many grassy areas are worn to bare dirt. Parts of the wall and walkway around the Tidal Basin have sunk so far that they are submerged at high tide. And the outdoor Sylvan Theater, which sits next to the Washington Monument and traces its history to 1917, looks shabby and dilapidated.
One proposal is to move the Sylvan Theater, which stands about 10 feet from the Washington Monument's new security perimeter. A new location has not been identified.
Another idea calls for filling in the north bay of the Tidal Basin and removing the Kutz Bridge, which carries eastbound traffic over the basin.
The Park Service says that the north bay has been the site of fish kills and that the narrow sidewalks along the bridge are crowded and dangerous during peak tourist season.
© 2008 Associated Press
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30 Comments so far
Show AllGail: No doubt supplied by the RCMP (I'm Canadian). And it wouldn't surprise me. It's not hard to spot the Police who are trying to 'blend in' to the crowd of protesters, but are taking pictures of as many attendees as possible, not with the common snap-shot cameras that most people have, but instead using massive telephoto lens monsters.
It's a full-blown Commie Police State. The KGB had nothing on these bureaucrats! Pretty soon we'll have 666 tattooed on our foreheads next to a barcode so the government scanners can I.D. us from a mile away and the taser-troopers can intercept us before we make it over to where our voices can be heard. "Halt Citizen! You are in violation of the free speech zone policy!" (which apparently is now the supreme law of the land, not the constitution,) "Your crime must be investigated on the portable waterboard!" ZAPP! ZAPP ZAPP! "You have the right to confess now, or confess later at Gitmo!"
Sick, Sick, Sick.
Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson are definitely rolling in their graves!
'BIG FRAT BROTHER IS WATCHING'
Here we go again; it's another "free speech zone," designed to eliminate free speech in areas not so designated. Next they'll put a wall around the desigated area, and then locks on the gates once protestors enter. It'll end up being a prison.
Protest is not about being corralled.
So here we have a situation where Bush-appointed government officials who have been temporarily handed control over OUR National Park Service are using their appointed positions to trivialize legitimate citizen dissent and free speech. Washington D.C. is the seat of the people's government. The entire city is a free speech zone. As a matter of fact, the entire country is a free speech zone. Citizens should not be herded by these appointees into designated areas that separate our message from those who need to hear it the most.
Would SOMEBODY in the National Park Service PLEASE stand up and place our constitutional rights to free speech and assembly above your job security!!!
as one of my favorite t-shirts says:
"America---Land of the Free" *(some restrictions apply. void where prohibited)
I thought that our 'Government' already had a Designated Protest Space on the South East tip of Cuba.
I wonder where the permanent Microwave Area Denial Systems will be mounted?
Alongside the Closed circuit digital cameras that will be used by the FBI and Homeland Security to record the faces of now suspect 'homegrown terrorists' and dissidents?
Galen January 21st, 2008 2:10 pm
"I wonder where the permanent Microwave Area Denial Systems will be mounted?
Alongside the Closed circuit digital cameras that will be used by the FBI and Homeland Security to record the faces of now suspect 'homegrown terrorists' and dissidents?"
Galen,
If you are blogging on any progressive site, I suspect they already have a photo of you and the rest of us in their file. The government knows everything about each of us and could very easily hire people with digital cameras to be waiting outside our house or place of employment and just snap a picture when the time is right.
Turning the reflecting pool into a demonstration area is fine, provided protests are not limited to that area. I would still expect protests to be allowed in the other areas of the mall as they are now; any new proposal must be made to accommodate a further expansion of public space for free speech.
ALL of flippin' central DC should, at this point, be a full time protest. Anywhere, anytime, anybody. The damn politicos want to maintain a Delusion for the patriotic tourists and that should NOT be happening at all. There should be thousands citizens banging pots and pans full time around the White House and Congress perimeters.
After the walls go up, so do the concert-sized monitors. Wouldn't want to party without sponsors, no?
Pacplyer: Wrong on the barcode. RFID implants are the wave of the future. There is even a patent aplication for an RFID device that is implanted deep in the pelvic cavity, and armed with and internal Taser device. The Corp Cops wont even have to draw their weapons. Just call up your code, or a broadband signal, and ZAP!!, your guts are on fire.
Only in America.
Oh, and the warning wouldn't be 'Halt citizen!' Probably something more along the line of 'Don't move you @#*&! hippie scumbag!' Being addressed as a 'Consumer' would probably be a relief.
Goes to show you how much we all distrust the Bush Administration. Is this genuine, or is it a Cheney stratagem to cut way down on citizen protest? If I had to choose, I'd choose the latter.
Another pig in a poke remedy. Peaceful protest will never again be allowed to change anything
regarding government decisions. MLK was the last time it will change anything. Peaceful demonstrations are a waste of time.
My own read is that MLK was the voice of reason on top of a powderkeg. We need to contextualize the peaceful demonstrations of MLK with the rage under the surface in places like Detroit.
Was it a waste of time? Not remotely. MLK was the bridge.
There is a designated 'protest space' in Guantanamo for any takers.
I'm so sick of the govt. a-holes who feel they should Lord over public space that already belongs to the taxpayers and people of this country. To protect themselves from having to see someone point out their own sad and reprehensible truths. Oh thank you Land Lords for divvying out a corner where the protesters can be cordoned off to. Like we don't pay the damn heat bill at the White House already.
Big frat brother, I like it. I have to send that one to my friend.
Our nation's capitol belongs to us, hence the pronoun "our." The national parks also belong to every citizen of this nation. As long as protesters aren't doing anything illegal, neither the administration, nor Congress, nor the U.S. park service has any right to limit protesters to a restricted area.
TennMon: Didn't you hear? Bills are underway to make public demonstrations, free speech, and freedom of association illegal as threats to the US imperial system.
They're going to build trap doors under the protest platform and Blackwater is going to flow under it.
The Constitution of the United States guarantees that the entire country is a free speech zone. Anyone who acts to make it otherwise is committing treason.
Sounds like the park service has not been taking care of the area. Fish kills and deterioration at the lowest and highest levels. It is the people that should decide the best way forward, I just wonder if this area isn't more telling than most would like to think about.
"And there are no truths outside the gates of Eden"
- Dylan
KC THOMPSON
I think you have to start with the lies of the Garden of Eden as presented by organized patriarchal religion before we can truly understand.
An apple? Unlikely --
Try slaughter of animals.
"As long as slaughterhouses exist, we will have war."
Ghandi?
It's doubtful that any of these plans are intended to aid protesters --- rather they are intended to curtail free speech; the usual pattern.
Really, when the reflecting pool gets a little to reflective, fill it in with something a little more opaque.
Please report to your assigned protesting station, anything you say or do will be monitored. The men in black suits are there for your protection.
TennMom and Galen, Galen is correct about our rights to assemble and speak, as well as the government's sought-after power to make association with groups deemed radical by the government. If you haven't already, read and scrutinize the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act (H.R. 1955/S/ 1959).
And then imagine our country with that bill on the books as law, combined with the executive branch now having, as it does, its own private paramilitary force, not answerable to Congress or to the people, but rather to the President/Vice President through the U.S. State Dept.
We are literally paying, through our tax dollars, for the demolition of our democracy ourselves.