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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.