Quarantining dissent: How the Secret Service protects Bush from free speech. This is truly outrageous. As one of TalkLeft's smart readers (whom we know personally) points out:

It is patently unconstitutional to treat persons who support the Administration differently from persons who oppose it. (And any security rationale is absurd: under this approach Osama bin Laden could be on the President's motorcade route if he he was smart enough to hold a sign that says he supported Bush, while the Pope would be barred if he held up a sign opposing the war). And, as is typical with this Administration, they just don't seem to care. It's also scary to think that the President is being kept isolated from any sense that there is opposition to him. But then again, he doesn't read the news papers either.

The author of the op-ed is James Bovard. We recommend reading his new book:
Terrorism and Tyranny

Instead of fighting the terrorist menace, the Bush administration's cosmetic gestures reward incompetence and establish dangerous legal precedents.it all comes down to a trampling of personal liberty and an end to privacy as we know it. From airport security follies that protect no one to increased surveillance of individuals and skyrocketing numbers of detainees, the war on terrorism is taking a toll on individual liberty and no one tells the whole grisly story better than Bovard.