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[The Bobster]

The Progressive has been running a series on the abridgement of speech rights and the effects of mass hysteria about terrorism visited upon people who disagree with the US govt. A loot of the items they come up with have sometimes sounded lame, even to me, but this one is bothersome : in a nutshell, the woman has signs in her front yard which the locals don't like, so they drop a dime on her to the feds and the men in mirrorshades and with wires dangling from their ears come around and want to see her medical records ...

Secret Service Searches Home of Protester

Renee Jensen of Elkins, West Virginia, likes to express herself.

She has put up as many as a dozen signs in her yard over the past year, protesting the war in Iraq, Bush and Cheney, and the crackdown on civil liberties.

Some of her signs have said:

"Mr. Bush, You're Fired."

"Mr. Ashcroft, We Prefer Our America Remain the Home of the Free and the Brave."

"Mr. Cheney, What You Sow You Shall Reap. Those Who Destroy the Earth Will Be Destroyed."

"Mr. Rumsfeld, Human Beings Are Not Just Collateral Damages, but People with Hopes, Dreams, Relationships, and Lives to Live."

"O, Evil Doers, Bush and Cheney Are Destroying America. I Cry Liberty and Stand for Our Constitution."

"Love One Another: War Is Dead Wrong."

Her vigorous exercise of free speech has not been well received.

One day in early January, her signs were vandalized.

"I had gone to the movies, and when I came back, all my signs were stolen," she tells The Progressive. "And one had been turned over, and someone wrote, "We love George Bush" on it."

The mayor of Elkins, Judy Guye, tried to use a city ordinance to make Jensen take her signs down.

"Guye had said she believes Jensen's signs pose a potential traffic hazard, since people driving by her house often stop or slow down to look at them," Paul J. Nyden wrote in an article for the Charleston Gazette on January 16. Nyden pointed out that the mayor, "a Republican, had a pro-Bush sign in her own front yard."

Guye backed off.

But those were the least of Jensen's problems.

In the fall, the Secret Service gave her a call.

"They said they wanted to ask me some questions," she recalls. "I said sure. They said someone called them and said I had signs up in my yard that were threatening the President. I said I did have some signs in my yard, but I wasn't threatening the President. The worst I've ever said was that he's an Evildoer. And this Secret Service man specifically asked me about the sign about Mr. Cheney. He said, "That's from revelations." I said, "Yes, I have no desire to destroy anybody. I'm just quoting out of the Bible." His name, she said, was Agent Brian Atkins.

Then on January 11, she had some unexpected visitors.

ìI was actually taking a nap, and there was a knock on my door, there was a West Virginia State Trooper and a Secret Service agent,î she says, identifying them as Trooper R. J. Boggs and Agent James Lanham. ìThey asked to come in. And I let them. And they started interviewing me.î

Jensen, who at the time was running for city council, asked why they were there.

"Apparently someone had made a statement that I'd been canvassing door to door and had said I wanted to cut President Bush's head off," she says. "I told Agent Lanham that I was running for city council, but I hadn't started my door-to-door campaign yet and I never had said anything like that."

This didn't satisfy them, though.

"They conducted an extensive interview about my background, my family, and any political organizations I belonged to," she says. "I told them I belong to the ACLU and that's about it."

They continued to pry, she says.

Agent Lanham "asked me several times to sign a form about releasing my medical records, and I refused," she says. "That was kind of annoying. And he asked to search my house. He didn't have a search warrant, but I said go ahead. And they took some pictures of me and some pictures of my signs."

Before they left, she says, "I had to sign a statement that I never threatened the Presidentís life."

The Secret Service office in Charleston refused to give a comment to the Gazette, and a phone call from The Progressive to the Secret Service in Washington was not returned.

Though she hasn't heard from the Secret Service since, Jensen is not happy about the power citizens have to rat their neighbors out for merely expressing political views they disagree with.

"It's very easy for other people to call up the Secret Service or the Department of Homeland Security," she says, "and say things about you and have you investigated."

--Matthew Rothschild

[Cthulhu]

Looks like someone's doing their patriotic duty to watch their neighbors and report any activity unbecoming of a citizen. Nothing like a supersecret terrorist plot nipped in the bud thanks to the actions of someone spotting the telltale signs posted in the front yard.

[desultude]

Sweet Land of Liberty. . .

[hypnotist]

http://www.livejournal.com/users/anniesj/331112.html

Remember stumbling across this a little while ago.

[kimchikowboy]

Hypnotist's link also mentions medical records. Why are they so keen on those?

[dogbert]

[Teufelswacht]

Regardless of the motivations for reporting the lady or the politics (local and otherwise) involved, the secret service is required to investigate any/all threats made to the President. They do not have the luxury of ESP or other devices by which to determine if a threat is credible or not until they investigate. Part of the investigation involves an interview and can, depending on the original information received, include a review of medical records to determine any history of mental conditions that would be of concern. Remember John Hinkley? The visits are one part of the investigation process. They also serve as a warning to the "threat maker" that the Secret Service knows and is watching. In other words it (the interview) can act as a deterent (sp? just doesn't look right).

Once a report of a threat comes in they have to investigate. There are investigations going on everyday. Funny how no one seemed overly concerned with "liberty" and "individual rights" during the Clinton era when the SS were doing the same job, in the same manner, to persons who were on the other side of the political fence. The Secret Service has a set procedure they follow regardless of the politics involved in a situation. They have no discretion.

The SS also has an active updated list of people who have made threats in the past - once you're on the list you never come off. If you have ever gotten drunk and written a threat to a major politician, you may find your name on their list. It has nothing to do with quashing liberty, it has to with the very real need to protect elected officials from lunatics - left and right. In many countries the making of a threat would lead to immediate imprisonment and/or execution. The actions of the Secret Service, IMHO, are not unreasonable based on the "climate."

As for the reason for the original report to the Secret Service, who knows.

Take care

Teufelswacht

[Blind Willie]

[Teufelswacht]

[Ya-ta Boy]

Teufelswacht is right on this one.

The Secret Service must respond to reported threats. There is no telling what the original report sounded like. For all anyone knows, the neighbor who contacted the authorities said something like, "There's a crazy woman next door who has lots of signs threatening the president."

Have you noticed that you can't carry a placard on a stick at a political rally? The Secret Service will take it away from you. Even if it says something positive about the politician. It's the stick that matters. They don't want you whacking the guy over the head with it. It's a reasonable precaution.

As for this sentence:

[desultude]

Civil libertarians will speak in the future of pre and post Patriot Act days the way that politicians do pre and post Septermber 11. A new threshhold for eroding liberties has been reached with this law and this administration.

Oh, and yes, I am not naive enough to believe that any president is a saint in this regard. Governments want to control- it's as natural as fish in water. There are finite differences, and these are important to maintain. The ACLU doesn't close shop during Democratic administrations.

[Teufelswacht]

[Ya-ta Boy]

[Teufelswacht]

[R. S. Refugee]