On Sun, 05 Feb 2006 09:06:12 -0500, dxAce
wrote:



David wrote:

On Sat, 04 Feb 2006 19:49:37 -0800, running dogg wrote:

mike wrote:


I was wondering why he needs to put the radio in a faraday cage myself.
I've read that a typical EMP pulse bomb like Al Qaeda would most likely
use would mostly work on anything *that was on the same frequency*.

Al Qaeda has no bombs. They don't need them. The destroyed the USA
with $20 worth of box cutters (and the help of an incredibly
incompetent [or worse] administration).

Destroyed the USA?

Silencing dissent a growing trendBy Steve ThommaKnight
RidderWASHINGTON - The ejection of two women from the U.S. Capitol for
wearing message T-shirts during President Bush's State of the Union
speech this week was the latest incident in a growing trend of
stifling dissent.
Capitol Police later apologized for ejecting the women -- after one of
them, the wife of a congressman, complained bitterly, as did her
husband. The police acknowledged they'd acted overzealously.
But their actions weren't atypical in today's overheated political
climate. Protesters outside political conventions are herded behind
razor wire far from the action, citizens wearing a rival candidate's
stickers are forcefully ejected from presidential campaign rallies on
public property, and those who heckle the president or broadcast issue
ads within 60 days of an election can be prosecuted.
Silencing dissent isn't unique to the national government. Former New
York Mayor Rudy Giuliani once ordered city buses to remove an ad for
the New Yorker magazine that made fun of him.
Nor is it limited to one political party, noted Robert O'Neill,
director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Freedom
of Expression at the University of Virginia. Both major parties limit
speech at their national conventions, inside and out, he said.
In 1992, for example, the Democrats refused to allow an abortion
opponent, the late Pennsylvania Gov. Robert Casey, to speak from the
podium.
And when three anti-war protesters stood in the upper balcony of San
Francisco's Masonic Auditorium last week during an appearance by Sen.
Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and yelled, ``Hillary, stop supporting the
war,'' they were quickly escorted away.
This trend has a chilling effect on those who disagree with people in
power, analysts say.
``The long-term consequence is a higher degree of self-censorship,''
O'Neill said. ``Society is the poorer when deprived of the marketplace
of ideas.''
The incident at Bush's State of the Union address was one of dissent
via T-shirts. Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan of Berkeley wore one
that proclaimed ``2245 dead. How many more?'' Police charged her with
a misdemeanor for unlawful disruptive conduct in the Capitol.
Police also ejected Beverly Young, wife of Rep. C.W. Bill Young,
R-Fla., for wearing a shirt saying ``Support the Troops -- Defending
Our Freedom.''
It wasn't the first time police have ejected Capitol visitors who wore
message T-shirts -- and the practice isn't limited to the Capitol.
In Denver last year, three people were thrown out of a Bush town-hall
meeting on Social Security after arriving in a car sporting a bumper
sticker proclaiming ``No more blood for oil'' and wore T-shirts under
their other clothes that said ``Stop the Lies.''
Evicting people who oppose the president, even if they don't say a
word, was a carry-over from Bush's 2004 presidential campaign.
In Charleston, W.Va., a couple was arrested for wearing anti-Bush
T-shirts to a Bush rally in the state Capitol building on the Fourth
of July. Police said they acted under orders from federal officials.
The charges were later dropped.
In Saginaw, Mich., Bush campaign workers ejected a woman for wearing a
pro-choice T-shirt. The campaign said it had to throw out people who
might make a scene.
In 2004, protesters at both national party conventions were herded
into areas far away from delegates, officials and the news media. At
the Democratic National Convention in Boston, protesters were kept in
enclosed areas surrounded by fences topped with razor wire and watched
by armed police.
It's a crime, punishable by up to six months in prison, to ``disrupt''
an event guarded by the Secret Service, which includes presidential
rallies. A proposed extension of the Patriot Act now being negotiated
in Congress would broaden such prohibitions to other vaguely defined
national events.
But no one's been convicted yet of a T-shirt violation, and such
prosecutions probably would be challenged as an affront to the First
Amendment's guarantee of free speech.
The Supreme Court ruled in 1971 that it wasn't illegal to wear an
obscene anti-Vietnam war jacket in a California courthouse, despite a
state law prohibiting such messages because they might incite
violence.
Bans on certain shirts and shouts are not the only ways dissent is
stifled. A 2002 campaign-finance reform designed to regulate the flow
of money into politics prohibited broadcast of issue ads within 60
days of elections.
``We were not allowed to take out radio ads,'' said Nadine Strossen,
president of the American Civil Liberties Union. ``We wanted to do ads
calling on both party candidates to oppose the Patriot Act. That is
now a crime. If we had done that, I would have faced a five-year
prison term.''
The Supreme Court recently ordered a three-judge panel to re-examine
the prohibition, which could lead to lifting the ban, but not until
after the 2006 elections.