Reprehensible You

[Steven] Howards approached the vice president and told him, " 'Your policies in Iraq are reprehensible.'

Those words, according to the Rocky Mountain News, were sufficient to cause the arrest of the man who uttered them, Man files suit over Cheney encounter. Steven Howards has sued, arguing that he was "arrested in retaliation for having exercised his First Amendment right of free speech, and that his arrest also violated his Fourth Amendment protection against unlawful arrest." The article explains:

The lawsuit stems from a chance meeting on an outdoors mall in Beaver Creek on June 16, when Howards and his wife were walking their two sons to a piano camp.

They were surprised to see Cheney there, posing for pictures and shaking hands with members of the public.

"Many of us fantasize what would we do if we had the opportunity to really tell Mr. Bush or Mr. Cheney how we feel," said Howards, 54, of Golden.

"And to be honest, when I passed him, my initial thought was to keep walking. And then I said, I couldn't with a clear conscience let this opportunity pass."

* * * *

But a few minutes later, according to Howards, he was walking back across the mall with his younger son, Jonah, then 8, when he was approached by an agent . . . .

The agent, Howards said, "came out of the shadows and literally said, 'Did you assault the vice president?'

* * * *

Howards denied touching Cheney, repeated for the agent what he had said to the vice president, and promptly found himself being handcuffed and taken to the Eagle County Jail, where he said he remained cuffed for three hours prior to being bailed out by his wife.

Howard obviously has a pre-9/11 mentality. See, e.g., Just Calm Down, Please. He states:

"This (lawsuit) is really about whether we in fact live in a free nation, whether we in fact still have the ability to speak freely in our opposition to government policies," Howards said.

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"Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us."

William Orville Douglas

Tags: Civil Liberties, Law, News, Quote of the Day