This is going to make the right-wingers hate the ALCU even more, but THANK GOD they are doing this and it's about time.

http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/ar...4255652,00.html
ACLU suing over ouster from event

The American Civil Liberties Union is taking up the case of two of the three people ejected from a presidential appearance in Denver over a bumper sticker and has named a federal bureaucrat in Denver as the mystery man who ousted them.

The ACLU is filing suit today in federal court in Denver, alleging violation of the pair's civil rights.

The suit identifies the man who ejected them as Michael Casper, a building manager in the General Services Administration in Denver. Casper has worked as a volunteer at several White House events since 1996.

The Rocky Mountain News has asked Casper several times if he is the man who forcibly removed the three. He has denied it, made jokes about it and, for some time, avoided being seen and identified by the three. He has acknowledged that he worked the event as a White House volunteer.

ACLU attorney Chris Hansen said the suit is being filed because "the government should not be in the business of silencing Americans who are perceived to be critical of certain policy decisions."

President Bush came to Denver March 21 to speak about Social Security at the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum. Alex Young, 26, Leslie Weise, 39, and Karen Bauer, 38, say they were ejected from the event even though they had done nothing disruptive. Young and Weise are suing.

All three had tickets to the public event, which was sponsored by the White House and paid for by taxpayers.

The man who forced them to leave was wearing a radio earpiece and a lapel pin that functioned as a security badge. The three say he was identified to them as working for the Secret Service.

He was investigated for possible charges of impersonating a Secret Service agent, but the U.S. attorney in Denver declined to prosecute, saying the man never identified himself as a federal officer.

His identity is known to the Secret Service and the White House, but both have repeatedly refused to reveal it.

The three say they were told by the Secret Service later that the man admitted ejecting them because they arrived in a car with a bumper sticker that read, "No more blood for oil."

Casper has denied that. He has been reported in the media as saying the three were asked to leave "because they were picked out by about 50 people inside the event as being troublemakers." He was quoted as saying he was told "they regularly come to events and disrupt them." He also said they had been heard talking about protesting as they stood in line. The three have denied saying anything of the kind.

Casper now works in the Byron Rogers Federal Building in downtown Denver. Last spring, he was the building manager of the Skaggs Research Laboratory in Boulder.

ACLU spokesman Paul Silva said his organization hired a private investigator, and then the plaintiffs were able to identify him.

Young and Weise are alleging violation of their First and Fourth Amendment rights, which guarantee free speech and protect against unreasonable search and seizure.

The suit is being filed not against the White House, which could claim governmental immunity, but against the individuals involved. They include Casper, Jay Bob Klinkerman - the head of the Colorado Federation of Young Republicans who has admitted to stopping Weise and Bauer at the gate - and five unknown persons involved in the decision to eject the trio. The ACLU hopes to identify them later.

Casper and Klinkerman did not returns calls informing them of the lawsuit and seeking comment early Sunday evening.

"Casper had an earpiece," said Mark Silverstein, legal director of the Denver ACLU office. "It appeared that he let them in, and then he came back and said, 'You can't be here.' "

"We're going to follow the earpiece," Silverstein said. The lawsuit will be used to discover who gave orders to Casper and "who set the policies, who directed that people who appear to have viewpoints in opposition to the president couldn't attend a publicly funded town hall meeting."

Weise and Young both said they were glad to have the national ACLU take their case, given its experience in civil rights lawsuits.

Weise cited a similar case filed by the ACLU on behalf of Nicole and Jeffery Rank, who had tickets to a presidential speech in Charleston, W.Va., on July 4, 2004, and were arrested after refusing to cover up or remove their T-shirts with anti- Bush slogans. The ACLU is suing the head of White House Advance, the head of the Secret Service and others directly involved in the ouster and arrest in that case.

"We're going to file a lawsuit to get the answers we deserve and make sure this doesn't happen to other people," Weise said.

At the height of the controversy last spring, White House spokesman Scott McClellan defended the actions of the man described as a "White House volunteer."

"If we think people are coming to the event to disrupt it, obviously, they're going to be asked to leave," McClellan said in a White House briefing.

The lawsuit says that at other presidential appearances around the country, people with views opposing the president's have been denied entry, ejected or arrested.

"This case isn't about just a couple of people here in Denver," Silverstein said. "It's really about a principle, about the rights and liberties of us all."

About time!!!!!! I had wondered when someone.......anyone would step up to the plate..........political descrimination is part of our U.N. agreement.

Oh great, so now Bush is using my tax dollars on his political events. Is there any way that we can all join this lawsuit?

I'm not a lawyer but I would think that the only way we could join this lawsuit would be if someone filed a friend of the court brief on our behalf.

Perhaps, a separate class action could also be filed by others who were treated in this way. I think it would be difficult to file a class action for those of us not directly involved because it would be hard to prove harm. But again I am no lawyer so I may be wrong.

Hi!

I am so happy to read about this! The ACLU spends a lot of time getting involved in some hair-brained causes, but this is one cause that EVERY American can benefit from.

God Bless,
TammyJo58

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh GOOD for them! These events are paid with public tax money and aren't campaign events, so it seems to me that it's arguably illegal to ban people based on their political beliefs.

Excellent news.

Several middle aged people were treated the same way in Tampa a few
years back. They did have anti-war signs but the signs were small
and they were not holding them up.

This nonsense of having to support a president to hear him speak
has gone on long enough !