Publicly criticizing the Iraq War has been the pretext for a lot of flimsy government actions, but does hearing someone publicly criticize the occupation rise to the level of probable cause? That’s the question that the Supreme Court will be considering in a new case agreed upon today.
The plaintiff, Steven Howards, was arrested by the Secret Service in 2006 after he told Vice President Dick Cheney, who was at the Colorado mall for a hand-shaking event, that he thought the Iraq War was “disgusting.”
Interestingly Howards wasn’t arrested right away, but was being followed when the Secret Service overheard him talking on the cellphone about how he wanted to ask Cheney “how many kids he’s killed today.”
Howards was arrested later, with Secret Service agents claiming that his previously touching Cheney on the shoulder constituted “assault.” He was never charged, however, and is now trying to sue the two Secret Service agents who captured him.
The agents are explicitly claiming that the antiwar comments he made constituted “probable cause” and they cannot be sued for making an arrest based on probable cause. The Obama Administration, unsurprisingly, is defending the agents, saying they acted appropriately in capturing the dissident Howards.
It is preplexing that Howards could be so foolish as to have made physical contact with Cheney. I can remember a video of a similar incident years ago; an individual heaps well-deserved verbal abuse on Cheney from sufficient distance as to leave the SS helpless to defend him…
Yeah, Howards is probably still scrubbing the blood off his hand.
Physical contact at a hand-shaking event of all places!
Wow. If America was still a free country with a constitution, this case would be a slam-dunk for the defendant and should never have reached the Supreme Court. I can't think of a more constitutionally protected bit of free speech than during one of the rare moments when a citizen actually gets to talk for a second with the privileged elite that holds political office. Surely a citizen is allowed to speak his mind on issues of public importance when talking to an elected official.
At least the lower courts ruled correctly on this one. Hopefully the Obama administration is wasting our tax dollars in appealing this one, and the Supreme Court only took the case to use this as a strong opportunity to rule in favor of free speech rights. Then again, this is 21st century America where most of the Senate would probably vote to send this patriotic American citizen to Gitmo for daring to oppose their Terror Wars.
"The agents are explicitly claiming that the antiwar comments he made constituted “probable cause”"
yet your own linked source says:
"The agents say they can’t be sued for retaliatory arrest because they had “probable cause” to apprehend him. They agents say they had reason to believe that Howards violated the law by lying to them about touching Cheney…"
There is NO mention on any other article anywhere that they are using his anti-war comments as probable cause. Still an interesting and newsworthy topic, but the reporting is equal to the MSM. W/O some fantstic reasoning or future revealing of unknown facts – you've just lost a reader. BTW, there are plenty of us out there that share political mindsets, you don't have to resort to propagandist approach to beat your drum, sad.
Freedom of political speech in the USA is a myth. Sure, it exists sometimes, but it depends on where and when. Google DENNIS STEELE ARRESTED. See photos of a Vermont candidate for governor being arrested because he wanted to participate in a pre-election debate. Arrests such as this are common in Vermont.
Currently a Vermont PUBLIC library is banning political books that are not in agreement with the dem/repub party. One such book is titled BANNED IN VERMONT. Also, books of certain religions are also banned. Contact me if you are willing to stand up for the First Amendment in Vermont.
I remember that brave soul in Louisiana who told Cheney to go F*** himself. He had great difficulty getting close enough to do so and apparently did so only because the S.S. thought he was a Cheney supporter.
He was arrested in 2006 – I'm wondering how long he was imprisoned for – if at all.
We are really and truly (and quite obviously) on the road to an outright police state. Protecting murderous scum like Cheney from UNWANTED WORDS places the secret service in the same league as the KGB. Our political class and the public and secret police who serve them have beomce the enemies of the people. They stand in relation to us as the SS stood in relation to the German people – a menace. Remembver that the SS did not begin mass murder right away; it started with an outrage here, and an outrage there, as the borders of what people would accept were tested. They will do whatever they can get away with — and apparently we will put up with massive abuses, perhaps even military run concentration camps for anyone who is inconvenient for the DC Harem and the Wall Street Predators and War Profiteers who pay them off. We really need to absorb and ACT UPON these words from Fredrich Douglas. They should be our mantra, and we must act upon them as if our lives and freedoms depended upon it. Why? Because they do:
Yes indeed. Any inconvenient words directed at our corrupt political elite ,as defined by said vermin, are being used to arrest anyone uttering them. Who says this is a 'free country"?
“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”
At least we don't live in a country that has some aristocracy that you can't touch, talk to or sometimes even get close to without getting arrested by the government. Oh wait..
OH NO- A DISSIDENT !! Somebody alert the Founding Fathers – um, oh wait.