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58 Rutgers L. Rev. 245 (2005-2006)
Protesting the President: Free Speech Zone and the First Amendment

handle is hein.journals/rutlr58 and id is 253 raw text is: NOTES PROTESTING THE PRESIDENT: FREE SPEECH ZONES AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT Michael J. Hampson* I. INTRODUCTION The right of the people to criticize the government is a fundamental tenet of American democracy.1 As Supreme Court Justice William Brennan once wrote, the United States has a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.2 Indeed, a powerful tradition of political dissent has evolved over the course of American history.3 The government's reaction to the recent terrorist attacks on the American homeland, however, has impacted the rights of individuals wishing to publicly criticize the government.4 One example of how the government has redacted civil liberties since September 11, 2001, is the United States Secret Service's practice of placing political protesters into free speech zones at presidential appearances.5 The Secret Service has adopted a procedure of removing political protesters from the site where the President is making a public * Articles Editor, Rutgers Law Review; J.D. Candidate Rutgers University School of Law - Newark, 2006. I dedicate this note to two friends currently serving active duty in the military: First Lieutenant Richard J. Cannici, United States Marine Corps; and First Lieutenant Jared A. Levant, United States Army. 1. See N.Y. Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 269-70 (1964). 2. Id. at 270. 3. See infra Part IIA. 4. See, e.g., Kendra B. Stewart & L. Christian Marlin, Terrorism, War, and Freedom of the Press: Suppression and Manipulation in Times of Crisis, in AMERICAN NATIONAL SECURITY AND CIVIL LIBERTIES IN AN ERA OF TERRORISM 167, 167 (David B. Cohen & John W. Wells eds., 2004) (explaining the White House's reaction to political comedian Bill Maher's criticism of American foreign policy in 2002). 5. See infra Part III.

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