Archives for Freedom To Write: USA
PEN USA honors Sam Hamill with the 2005 First Amendment Award
August 30, 2004
The First Amendment Action Committee of PEN USA
congratulates the 2005 First Amendment Award recipient,
Sam Hamill.
Staged Answer Sessions and Pre-planned Interviews Overshadow White House Press Corps
August 26, 2004
PEN USA’s First Amendment Action Committee is disappointed in the Bush administration’s tactics to overshadow press corps reports with false and staged interviews from Bush supporters.
Instead of taking questions from reporters, President Bush has increasingly begun to take questions and interviews only from citizen-supporters, who often were made to sign a political loyalty oath to be allowed into the events.
These events, called “Ask Bush,” of which there were four last week, the President gave a long speech and then staged interviews with prepared guests. Afterward, supporters asked him such questions as, “Mr. President, you were a fighter pilot, and you were with the 147th Fighter Wing? …And flew a very dangerous aircraft, the Delta F102?...I want to thank you for serving our country.” (transcript here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/08/20040813-7.html).
White House press corps veteran and columnist Helen Thomas recently was quoted as saying, “The President of the United States should be able to answer any question, or at least dance around one. At some time—early and often—he should submit to questioning and be held accountable, because if you don’t have that then you only have one side of the story. The Presidential news conference is the only forum in our society, the only institution, where a President can be questioned. If a leader is not questioned, he can rule by edict or executive order. He can be a king or a dictator. Who’s to challenge him? We’re there to pull his chain and to ask the questions that should be asked every day, for every move.”
While supporters are definitely welcome and expected at events where the President speaks, those citizens who may not agree with his policies, or have pressing questions should be allowed as well. However, the audience in these “Ask Bush” events is carefully screened to keep out anyone who might ask a difficult or negative question, dealing maybe with the September 11th attacks, or the war in Iraq. Before attending events like these, citizens must prove they are supporters of Bush, and are often asked to sign waivers such as the one used in New Mexico for a rally with Vice President Dick Cheney. The form read as such: “I, (full name)… do herby endorse George W. Bush for reelection as President of the United States…” and states “in signing the above endorsement you are consenting to use and release your name by Bush-Cheney as an endorser of President Bush.” In Traverse City, Mich., a 55-year-old social studies teacher who wore a small Kerry sticker on her blouse had her ticket torn up at the door. “How can anyone in the United States deny someone entry?” she asked. “Isn’t this a democracy?”
So, Bush usually ends up talking to conservative, highly-religious crowds whose question/statements sometimes do not even require answers. Often they simply thank Bush for bringing “God back into the White House” or for being such a strong leader. The questions are never about important issues, and are pre-screened.
PEN USA is concerned at this trend, where screened question and answer sessions with pledged supporters overshadow actual interviews by members of the press. Many reporters and journalists are like Helen Thomas, and believe this is an affront to their responsibility to report on the President’s actual standing on issues. Many journalists feel brushed aside because President Bush is shunning tough questions and real interviews for these “Ask Bush” events. PEN USA’s First Amendment Action Committee feels this sort of selective screening process has no place in the world of journalism.
“As a journalist,” says David L. Ulin, co-chair of PEN USA’s Domestic Freedom to Write Committee, and a writer and teacher of writing at the university and graduate level, “I am extremely disheartened by the unwillingness of the President to face the kind of rigorous questioning his position requires. This is yet another example of his administration’s lack of understanding of fundamental American values like honestly, transparency, and dialogue. It violates the very spirit of Democracy.”
More information on “Ask Bush” events can be found here: http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/081804L.shtml
First Amendment Award Guidelines
August 06, 2004
To celebrate the enduring role of the First Amendment in American life and to honor those who have defended freedom of expression, PEN USA establishes the First Amendment Award to be bestowed on the basis of the following guidelines:
U.S. Panel Dismisses ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ Complaint
August 06, 2004
A U.S. regulatory agency has dismissed the petition of a conservative advocacy group to bar TV ads for Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” documentary as a breach of federal restrictions on “electioneering” activity.
“Free Speech Zone” Phenomenon Limits Free Speech
August 04, 2004
PEN USA’s First Amendment Action Committee is deeply concerned with the increasing usage of so-called free speech zones for dissident citizens. These free speech zones are ostensibly created and used to boost security, but they in fact limit and marginalize free speech, relegating protest to confined, conveniently out-of-view areas. PEN USA urges national law enforcement policy makers to denounce such a constrictive policy that consigns freedom of speech to secondary importance in favor of purported security.
Free speech zones are being erected throughout the United States, by people of both political camps. The increasing incidence of such zones is in large part due to directives set at the highest level of our government.
At the behest of Attorney General John Ashcroft, law enforcement officers have engaged in two practices, each of which contributes to increased regulation and modulation of protest activity. First, anti-terrorist measures are being used in ordinary law enforcement. Second, law enforcement has sought to prevent potential crime instead of simply punishing those who have already committed a crime (see http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/072504A.shtml ). These directives have influenced and shaped law enforcement response to protest activity: free speech zones are an attempt to preempt and deescalate conflict by preventing viable protest activity. Regrettably, such policies, packaged as measures to increase security, are an affront to the freedom of speech, expression, and assembly.
Free speech zones do nothing to increase security, They are instead, attempts to suppress free speech that is inconvenient for the producers of these various events (surely terrorists seeking to attack the United States or its citizens would choose a less conspicuous persona to feign that of a protestor). Deeming peaceful protestors security risks and forcing them into gated and guarded areas flies in the face of the First Amendment and its tenets on free expression, and creates a troubling link between dissidence and threats to security.
These are a few key examples:
President George W. Bush’s Secret Service constitutes one of the more egregious proponents of free speech zones. Mr. Bush’s Secret Service regularly creates free speech zones in the areas Mr. Bush visits to suppress public images of opposition to his rule. In some cases, protestors are packed into distant lots, behind buildings, or in other areas completely out of view of Mr. Bush and members of the media.
Mr. Bush’s escorts even demanded the same treatment when he last visited the United Kingdom: Bush administration officials demanded an exclusion zone to protect Bush and the media from the messages of protestors. American Civil Liberties Union and other groups are actively suing the Secret Service for what they dub a pattern and practice of stifling protestors at Bush events in several states, including: Arizona, California, Connecticut, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, Texas, and elsewhere. Witold Walczak, of the ACLU, said of the protestors: “The individuals we are talking about didn’t pose a security threat; they posed a political threat.” (for additional information, see http://www.amconmag.com/12_15_03/feature.html )
At the recent Democratic National Convention in Boston, protestors were relegated to a Demonstration Zone. This zone was bounded by two chain-link fences separated by concrete highway barriers. The outermost wall of the zone was covered with black mesh that was intended to repel liquid but had the effect of preventing protestors from passing material to convention delegates. The zone was only large enough for 1,000 people, and it had no sanitary facilities. A judge hearing the case against the demonstration zone a few weeks ago called the conditions for protesters in Boston “an affront to free expression” and a “festering boil.” But he refused to order changes to the free speech zone, justifying its necessity, conspicuously, by invoking the safety of the delegates.
Free speech zones are likely to be erected at the upcoming Republican National Convention: there have already been allegations of free speech suppression in regards to the troubles several groups of protestors have had even attaining permits to march and congregate.
PEN USA calls upon the American authorities to end the practice of enacting free speech zones for dissenting citizens: such practices directly undermine the First Amendment, its tenets of free expression, and unfairly stifle legitimate political activity. Free speech is not truly free speech if it is relegated to unseen areas separated by fences and law enforcement personnel, a practice which largely stifles free expression by limiting the impact protestors can have on politicians, policies, and the mass media.