On this week's Cindy Sheehan Soapbox, Cindy spoke with Law and Disorder Rado wco-host Michael Ratner (Center for Constitutional Rights) and among the topics they discussed was the de-legitimization of protest. Excerpt.
Michael Ratner: In that sense, it allows the Secret Service and others to really round up a tremendous number of people that might be protesting or otherwise the presence of a US official. So it's another, I look at it as really another step in what I call the de-legitimization of dissent in this country. And it's an important aspect that you can be arrested for that but, as you know from the many demonstrations that you've been on, Everything from pens, to batons, to pepper spray, to denial of permits, to mass arrests of people who are just protesting, this is all part of something that's been going on not just since 9-11 but really since Seattle in '99 and the G8 -- or the WTO [World Trade Organization] rather.
Cindy Sheehan: Well one of my cases, I was arrested in front of the White House at a protest and it was when Obama was president. When Bush was president, I got arrested in front of the White House I don't even know how many times. I lost count somewhere around a dozen.. And when Obama was president, I was arrested in front of the White House twice. And the second time I was arrested, we were held in DC jails for 53 hours, brought to court in shackles -- literal shackles -- and then we were given a stay-away order. from the White House for it turned out to be for four months. And that never happened when Bush was president. I just thought it was so extreme -- just for laying on the sidewalk in front of the White House. I thought that was a very extreme punishment. And if we violated the stay-away order, it would have gone to six months in jail
Michael Ratner: That's what they do. They're always -- I mean, I find that to be really outrageous. I've been arrested in front of the White House as well.. You know, even before -- I haven't been arrested while Obama's been president But in the old days -- I have a sister [Ellen Ratner] who works in the press in whatever the downstairs is, where they have the press people. She's a White House correspondent. And when I visit her, I'm not allowed to go in and just walk over there, I have to have an escort. I haven't done this for a few years. But once or twice, I went in to visit my sister and I'm not allowed into the front gate. And I'm sure you'd probably be worse --
Cindy Sheehan: [Laughing] Yeah, I'm pretty sure
Michael Ratner: But they had an escort follow me in through there. But I find the idea that they put those kind of conditions on civil disobedience -- which is a most honorable tradition in the United States -- really honorable. It's the way we get change got change. It's the way King got change. It's the way the auto workers got change. It's a key aspect. They would keep you out, keep you out, keep you from being in front of the White House the most important protest people can make in the United States around presidential policies is right in front of the White House. And that they would keep you away from there, in my view, is a violation of our broad view of the First Amendment. And my view is that it includes civil disobedience.