The White House Crowd Control Manual 162
quizzicus writes "The Washington Post writes today about a sensitive White House document detailing how to screen for, silence, and remove protesters who show up at the President's public appearances. Obtained by an ACLU subpoena in the Rank v. Jenkins case, the Presidential Advance Manual (PDF) is dated October 2002. It lays out strategies such as searching audience members at the door for hidden protest material, strategically placing 'rally squads' throughout the crowd to intercept and shout down hecklers, and forcefully removing dissenters who cannot be squelched. The manual advises, however, that staff should 'decide if the solution would cause more negative publicity than if the demonstrators were simply left alone.'"
Out of sight == Out of mind (Score:3, Insightful)
Not only does Chimpy not see it, but no one else sees it, either, thanks to the complicit corporate media.
If this was a Peter Sellers movie, it would be hilarious. Unfortunately, it's not a movie. We're actually living this.
Tagged Republican? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd have written the manual, too... (Score:2, Insightful)
Just another inflammatory, irrelevant article from kdawson. This article belongs in politics, not YRO.
Re:After reading through the manual my opinion is: (Score:5, Insightful)
You gotta wonder...if an open admission that this administration is actively working to squelch the First Amendment rights of American citizens wasn't redacted, what was?
How low can you go? (Score:2, Insightful)
Really? (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes.
Easy decision.
Re:Tagged Republican? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I'd have written the manual, too... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Tagged Republican? (Score:5, Insightful)
Free speech zones, cant wear shirts, hire people to protect against the protesters, make people remove shirts to see if they have anything underneath someone might not like, etc. goes against what this country was founded on.
You can't be president and say you are protecting free speech at a rally, when at the rally you have people arrested for wearing a shirt with a red cross through your name.
And now I have to type this paragraph because of all the bush trolls. When kerry did the plus unbutton your shirt to make sure you don't have another bad shirt underneath disgusted me just as much.
Re:After reading through the manual my opinion is: (Score:4, Insightful)
Since it IS the cast that about 90% of the document is redacted, it is merely very, very sad.
Re:I'd have written the manual, too... (Score:3, Insightful)
Just another inflammatory, irrelevant article from kdawson. This article belongs in politics, not YRO.
And you're right, it does belong in a different category that Your Rights ONLINE. It don't think it's inflammatory or irrelevant, though (except that it's not relevant to online rights).
As to what the big deal is; In the overall scheme of things, or looking back in history probably not much. But, the current administration has taken extraordinary measures to keep information out of the public eye. In that light, the release of the manual itself, rather than the details of it, was a fairly big deal.
Re:How low can you go? (Score:2, Insightful)
Not really. The GOP have unwavering people supporting them, and it's unlikely, at this point, that anything would make them change their minds.
Whereas the low ratings of Congress are due entirely to the fact that Democratic voters do not view the Democrats in Congress anything but scorn, because said Democrats are apparently fucking morons who don't have the slightest idea how to end a war. (Hint: You all could literally stay at home 24 hours a day and the war would end because it would become unfunded. You don't even need to do any active work at all.)
The GOP supporters, however, have no such discernment WRT to the actions of their leadership, (The ones that do, duh, have left already.) and would continue to support their politicians no matter what they do, be it invade Iran, withdrawal all troops from Iraq, or nuke Canada. If some stuff shows up and personally affects enough people, like the upcoming collapse of the economy and all their houses being foreclosed on, maybe those people will change their minds, but it seems a long shot at this point. (Changing their minds does. A recession is almost inevitable.) The GOP approval ratings may slowly slide down a percentage point or two every year, but they are not going to go down much more than that.
Re:What's really entertaining (Score:3, Insightful)
Or just beat the ever living crap out of them. [ijot.com]
Re:Slashdot = News for Political Activists (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What's really entertaining (Score:2, Insightful)
From the link that you provided:
Now that is interesting. Unapologetically Christian blacks that remain true to their native land...
well duh... (Score:2, Insightful)
When I visited ground zero earlier this year a group of conspiracy theorists showed up and started marching through the crowds of people with signs screaming about how 9/11 was an "Inside Job". Fortunately the police showed up and had them move to a designated area to protest. This isn't Big Brother censoring peoples dissenting views, is the police trying to prevent a massive street fight from breaking out between the people who feel that ground zero is a place to remember those lost and the people who are concerned with shouting their views at everyone within earshot.
Re:How low can you go? (Score:5, Insightful)
Since the problem isn't a military one, a military solution alone will not work. Military action is certainly justified as part of the overall strategy (e.g. in Afghanistan, now sadly neglected) but can't be the only means we use. The ultimate solution is to greatly reduce our dependency on oil.
This doesn't have to involve austerity programs and such. We could go nuclear - not just nuclear power plants, but nuclear rockets - e.g. this one [nuclearspace.com] (the good tech stuff starts in section 7). With that, we can lift a thousand tons into orbit in a completely reusable and non-polluting craft that even eliminates not only its own nuclear waste but also waste generated on Earth. Using those, we can put up solar-power satellites that send their energy down to Earth in the form of microwaves. (If you've ever played Sim City... forget it. It doesn't work that way, it can be done very safely with large margins of safety. See here [wikipedia.org] especially the section on "Safety".) With the lower launch costs of nuclear rockets, we can make the U.S. a net energy exporter, in time. This has plenty of military applications, as well. Space is the ultimate "high ground" and a dominant U.S. presence in space should have obvious strategic benefits.
Of course, at the same time we can work on more efficient techniques for utilizing the oil we do need. Cars with better mileage (improving our overall fuel efficiency by less than 3mpg would eliminate our need to import oil from the Persian Gulf), more efficient means of generating and using fertilizers, a bit of thought about how we use plastics, etc. Even better, we can sell the technology we develop to other parts of the world - further reducing world demand for oil, driving the price down. The lower the price of oil, the less funds the Islamist fanatics have to work with, and the less of a threat they pose. (Reducing oil prices also impacts people like Hugo Chavez, as a bonus.)
(Not that, realistically, Islamist fanatics pose an existential threat to the United States. They can harm us, certainly, and even cause a relatively large amount of damage, sometimes. That's not the same thing as posing a threat to the existence of the United States. For perspective, more than 30 times as many American citizens have died in traffic accidents since 9/11 than have died in 9/11, Afghanistan, and Iraq combined.)
Re:What's really entertaining (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Tagged Republican? (Score:3, Insightful)
Then instead of pointing the finger at the other side when it DOES happen.. you should be lining up with your fellow Americans and decry the practice in whole. Otherwise it just makes you look like you are defending the practice of one side because "the other side does it too".
Then when democrats do the same thing you can decry that as well and not look a hypocrite.
This goes for all partisan bickering.. we need to point out EVERY infraction no matter which "side" is perpetrating the offense and show both parties that we won't stand for it.. just because they can't work together on issues doesn't mean WE can't.
In Perspective (Score:2, Insightful)
At that time, the Arkansan President was the fresh face with high approval numbers.
That same fellow, by his second term, spoke for long stretches only from the Atcheson Auditorium in State Department HQ in front of his appointees. The State Department has far more political appointees than any other Federal department, and HQ probably has more political appointees resident any other building in Washington with the possible exception of the White House.
And, of course, when the going got tough for the Georgian he spoke only from the White House grounds.
Bush may turn out to have the first administration to fumble their strategy to the press, or may be the first to have it receive real media coverage, but he is hardly the first to baldly have such a strategy.
As for those other gentlemen, I am amazed to hear that they were Republicans, my recollection being otherwise.
Re:Not as black / white as that (Score:1, Insightful)
We want peace and quiet.
I know you people are disturbed but I don't want to know why.
I just want my PEACE AND QUIET.
Yeah
I think by then it may just be too late though.