Protester jailed 5 years after free expression
Over the years, South Carolina Progressive Network director Brett Bursey has protested presidential visits by Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George Bush (the Elder) and Bill Clinton, all without incident. That all changed on October 23, 2002, when Dubya Bush came to town.
While in the gathered throng he held aloft a small cardboard placard with the words No Blood for Oil.
Whe police told him to move to a non-existant "Free Speech Zone" when he refused to be moved along again he was to discover he was in a restricted area around the president of the United States -- courtesy of an obscure federal law -- despite there being hundreds of Bush supporters all around him.
A number of congressmen signed a petition asking Thurmond to drop charges. He refused. Bursey asked for a jury trial but this was refused -- despite facing five years in jail, he was told the case was too "petty" to rate bothering his peers. The US Justice Department has again exhibited politically-motivated thuggery.
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