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DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION
Free speech? Take a number.
BY DAVID S. BERNSTEIN

The Boston Police Department has started processing applications from protesters who want to use a planned "Free Speech Zone" at the Democratic National Convention this summer, and since it’s first come, first served, you might want to act now if you’ve got something you want to say.

Protest organizations will most likely be given reserved blocks of time to use the area — which, according to BPD spokesperson Maryellen Burns, will include a stage and sound equipment — through some sort of lottery. But there’s no guarantee where the space will be. Reports that the BPD has selected a sliver of land near Haymarket for protesters turned out to be as premature as reports that Howard Dean would be the one accepting the nomination inside the FleetCenter. "A lot of what’s been reported is not coming from us," says Burns. Final plans might not be made until as late as the week of the convention, she says. With the July 26-29 convention itself less than five months down the road, Carol Rose, executive director of the Massachusetts chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), doesn’t expect to see even a first "official" plan until early July.

But that won’t be the last word: ACLU and National Lawyers Guild attorneys are gearing up for a quick lawsuit if they don’t think the space is big enough or close enough — which they say the Haymarket space isn’t. It would hold only about 40 people, and wouldn’t be in view of delegates and press going from the planned parking area into the FleetCenter. "I hope it’s a trial balloon, because otherwise it’s going to be a problem," Rose says. She trooped down to City Hall last week to testify about it at a city-council hearing, but never got the chance to speak. (District Seven councilor Chuck Turner read Rose’s prepared speech into the record.)

Lawsuits over protester space have become as much a convention tradition as balloons and confetti — ever since the major parties started using designated protest zones in 1996 as a way to accommodate (and control) free speech in the midst of tight security. Four years ago, the ACLU spent much of the summer successfully suing the Democrats’ host city of Los Angeles and the Republicans’ host city of Philadelphia. Four years earlier it won a suit to move the protest area closer to the Republican National Convention in San Diego.

But in Boston this summer, the "Free Speech Zone" will not be the only area from which to speak truth to power. The BPD seems to have a better attitude toward protesters than police departments in other cities, says Urszula Masny-Latos, director of the Massachusetts chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. "They have assured us that they will do everything in their power to avoid mass arrests," she says.

"People have a right to express themselves in a peaceful way," says Burns. "People can demonstrate in other areas throughout the ‘soft zone.’" That’s the several square blocks surrounding the FleetCenter. For marches or demonstrations in other parts of the city, people should contact the appropriate city departments, she adds.

Both Rose and Masny-Latos say that multiple conversations with BPD representatives lead them to believe that peaceful protest and a certain amount of civil disobedience will be tolerated — unlike in Los Angeles and Philadelphia in 2000, where arrests and intimidation by police led to lawsuits long after the conventions had left town. So sign up for time in the Free Speech Zone, but don’t feel like that’s your only chance to speak out.


Issue Date: March 5 - 11, 2004
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