<p>(remember, this was a PUBLIC event, not a political fundraiser)</p>
<p>DENVER, April 13 ? Lawyers for two men charged with illegally ejecting two people from a speech by President Bush in 2005 are arguing that the president?s staff can lawfully remove anyone who expresses points of view different from his.</p>
<p>Alex Young and Leslie Weise said they were ejected because of an antiwar bumper sticker.
Lawyers for the two, Michael Casper and Jay Klinkerman, said the men were working as organizers for a public presidential forum on Social Security at the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum in Denver on March 21, 2005, when they were involved in ejecting two audience members, Alex Young and Leslie Weise.</p>
<p>Mr. Young and Ms. Weise filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court here, saying they were ejected shortly after they had arrived in a car that had an antiwar bumper sticker, although they had done nothing disruptive. The suit charged Mr. Casper and Mr. Klinkerman with violating Mr. Young?s and Ms. Weise?s First Amendment right to free speech.</p>
<p>Mr. Casper and Mr. Klinkerman lost their motion for dismissal, and this week their lawyers filed an appeals brief arguing that their clients had the right to take action against Mr. Young and Ms. Weise precisely because the two held views different from Mr. Bush?s.</p>
<p>?They excluded people from a White House event because they posed a threat of being disruptive,? said a lawyer for Mr. Casper, Sean Gallagher.</p>
<p>The brief filed by Mr. Gallagher and other lawyers refers to a 1992 case involving a woman who wore a button supporting Bill Clinton for president as she tried to enter a campaign rally in support of George H. W. Bush and Dan Quayle. She was denied entry until she removed the button…</p>
<p>This goes on all the time whenever the President is in town. I personally have no problem with it whether its Bush or Clinton, the secret service can’t take any chances. Save it for the counter protest outside the venue.</p>
<p>There’s no reason to eject people who arrived in a car with an antiwar bumper sticker from an audience in which the president is speaking. I agree that violates their First Amendment rights.</p>
<p>It’s not as if they were disrupting the speech by driving their car up to the podium.</p>
<p>kentstate, so anyone with a certain bumper sticker is not allowed to a public event with the president? alot of assumption going on there, it wasn’t about danger, it was about disagreeing with the president…two very different things, unless you thing the president shouldn’t have anyone who disagrees with him in his audiences…sounds kind of authoritarian to me, and paranoid</p>
<p>they hadn’t done anything, they had a bumper sticker, and so what if they wore Bush is a Bad President TShirt…</p>
<p>Imagine you are a secret service agent, you see message buttons in the crowd, or t-shirts with messages in the crowd, you are going to kick out everyone no matter what the scenario. Why take the chance?</p>
<p>The same thing happened in reverse during our last senatorial election. At Bellevue Community College, campaign staff for Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell and officials of the college had campus police eject student members of a Republican group for wearing t-shirts with the name of her Republican opponent on them. They weren’t even allowed in the building. It’s not just a Bush thing.</p>
<p>If such profiling really takes place, smart agents would kick out everyone who looked like a SUPPORTER. After all, why would you ever attract attention to yourself if you were trying to do anything the secret service tries to protect against?</p>
<p>Take the chance that what? That few protesters in the crowd will do something “bad” even when knowing they have federal agents watching their every step?</p>
<p>[edit]Similarly, what Cantwell’s officials did is just as bad. Disagreeing without disruption does not violate any limits on the First Amendment – regardless of party – so kicking the “protesters” out was unconstitutional.[/edit]</p>
<p>Our president is such a wimp, afraid of so much as a campaign button or bumper sticker. Heck he declined to throw out the first pitch because he was afraid of getting a few boo’s from the fans.</p>
<p>When is the last time he had the courage to mingle among us common American people. It seems that every time he speaks it is in front a military, veterans or handpicked audience.</p>
<p>Washdad–I am not in favor of this in any case, but I do think there’s a difference between a partisan campaign event and a forum led by the already elected President who is supposed to be responsive to all citizens, don’t you?</p>
<p>Cantwell was a sitting US Senator speaking in at an event open to the public in a public space on a public college campus. No, I don’t think there is a difference.</p>
<p>campaign staff = private citizens.<br>
Campaign stop = personal business</p>
<p>presidential staff = people I pay to fairly administer my gov’t.<br>
Presidential forum = work the president who represents me is doing on my behalf.</p>
<p>I registered this screen name as an alter ego after a banning a while back, and I use it whenever I get banned. (look at the register date) It is actually my alma mater nothing specifically to do with this.</p>
<p>WashDad, I think what makes the difference under the First Amendment is who pays for the event. If a political party was paying for the event, it’s a private function. It may have been distasteful or wrong to exclude the people they did, but it wasn’t illegal.</p>
<p>The event in the article was paid for by the taxpayers. Kent State, I don’t think you can legally limit a taxpayer-funded event to only those taxpayers whose bumper stickers he approves of.</p>