Our country has a rich tradition of dissent. From the Boston Tea Party to the Birmingham bus boycotts, concerned citizens have pushed us to live up to our highest standards as a society. Essential to this tradition is tolerance for dissent.

Last week in Florida, 10,000 people marched to protest the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), which would expand the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to cover the Western Hemisphere. Citizens marched for many reasons. Environmental groups were distressed because the FTAA endangers environmental and health laws. Global justice advocates objected because the FTAA would impose on poor countries economic development restrictions rich countries do not follow themselves (see www.a-p-e-x.org). Workers disagreed with FTAA rules pitting worker against worker rather than leveraging wages upward.

These citizens want to make trade fair. They want trade rules that protect Earth's declining natural systems and allow economic development benefiting people of every country. They believe we are capable enough and principled enough to develop a trading system that shares wealth broadly.

During the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle, police were unprepared and failed to arrest the minuscule portion of the crowd that vandalized property. Since then, a trend toward increasingly heavy-handed policing at trade protests has developed. In Miami, this trend reached a crescendo with police treating virtually all citizens exercising speech rights as closet criminals.

Those who came to Miami met pervasive police harassment. Within hours of arriving, I experienced this firsthand. Wearing a white hat to protect my freckled face from the Miami sun, I was surrounded by a towering wall of aggressive police officers. They required me to empty the contents of my backpack, including my feminine products, onto the sidewalk. They warned that if I did not give my name, I would be immediately arrested and taken to jail. As their imposing circle closed around me, I handed over my driver's license.

I am a lawyer, educated at Harvard University, without so much as a speeding ticket on my record. Aside from my desire not to live in a country like Soviet Russia, I do not fear surveillance because I do not break the law. My concern about providing my name, however, was the lack of accountability as to its use. What list will I be on in this era of "homeland security"? What criteria are used in creating this list? What are my appeal rights?

Dozens if not hundreds of citizens were similarly harassed. Those not personally harassed were immersed in a climate of intimidation. Occupying downtown Miami in tanks and storm trooper garb was a massive, militarized, $8 million police mobilization. More than 40 police departments were involved.

Most disturbing, however, was the direct suppression of speech.

Police turned normally vibrant downtown Miami into a ghost town. As a result, the colorful posters of the marching citizens, tremendously communicative of their concerns, were seen by only a handful of Miami residents.

On the local TV channel I watched after the march, police chiefs acted as virtual commentators. Protesters repeatedly were referred to only as "the troublemakers." Journalists embedded with police covered the event as if reporting on the war in Iraq.

Totally missing from this police-narrated coverage were the obvious questions. Why do so many people disagree with the FTAA? Do government officials plan to respond to citizen concerns? What facts bear on these issues? Local newspaper coverage also overwhelmingly failed to address these questions.

The citizens who marched last week believe we can be great as a society and as a global community. They believe we can write trade rules that foster justice and protect our shared home, Earth. The public in a democracy deserves the right to hear dissenting views. In Miami, disproportionate policing and a negligent media stripped away this basic right.

Next time trade ministers meet, let's put away the tanks and instead have the informed dialogue our democratic tradition demands.

Elizabeth Barclay is an attorney and economic policy analyst for the Asia Pacific Environmental Exchange in Seattle.

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