The First Amendment doesn't mean anything to any of us if you can't speak truth to power.  ?Keni Washington

By Thomas P. Healy

Thirty-two governors of the United States and its commonwealths and territories are in Indianapolis for the 95th annual meeting of the National Governors Association (NGA) August 16-19. Keynote presenters include U.S. Department of Interior Secretary Gale Norton, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and former U.S. Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen.

With so many nationally prominent political leaders in one spot, a  "green zone" restricting access to the Marriott Hotel in downtown Indianapolis is being enforced by a multi-agency security detail co-coordinated by the Indiana State Police.

The Indianapolis Police Department, using its independent intelligence gathering apparatus, invested considerable time and manpower to monitoring perceived security threats, including the Solidarity Books Collective, a small information center run by a collective of local activists.

Published and broadcast reports state IPD felt it had sufficient concerns to prompt them to accompany Indianapolis fire marshals and health department personnel August 14 to the Solidarity Books house, just north of Methodist Hospital, for a 9 p.m. inspection in search of violations of fire and health codes.

The following morning, the Collective held a press conference at the house and issued the following statement:

What we've seen here in Indianapolis, with the surveillance of peace activists, the unwarranted police intrusion our community faced last night, is more worthy of a dictatorship than a democracy.

Democracy allows us free speech and free speech is not guaranteed to be a quiet event. The Governors Convention has closed its doors to the public that it's supposed to represent. But they have opened its doors to corporations to help shape public policy. Likewise Indianapolis is trying to shut down its streets to freedom of expression and free speech while opening them to fear.

If our brand of democracy only works when it attacks its own citizens and its own founding principles, then perhaps i'ts time to look for new ways to structure our society.

It's been noted to us that $2 million has gone into security preparations for the NGA. Is it the American people or the American government that needs to be protected? This money is being spent to attack, defame and silence our voices. This money has been spent to send nearly 30 officers and fire inspectors last night onto our premises in an attempt to frighten us from demonstrating and turning out in the streets this weekend.

It's understandable that Indianapolis wants to become a city that's open to people and even conventions. But what we saw last night is only going to shut people out of our city and make it a place of fear.

Indianapolis, after all, has granted a permit to a neo-Nazi group that is meeting in two weeks here, but has repeatedly denied our applications for a permit for a peaceful protest.

Are we going to be governed by our fears or by our values?

Solidarity Books Collective values democracy. We value free and creative speech. We value community and we value nonviolence. What happened here last night is an affront to each of these principles that we stand for.

From harassment of activists ? pulling us over here last night ? to towing people's cars to entering our premises under the false pretext of a fire code violation at 9 o'clock last night. Whether we be mothers or clergy or anarchists, it is nothing short of political profiling.

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After reading the statement three members of the Collective ? Hugh Durruti, Eric Edgin and Gwen Frisbie ? fielded questions from the media.

Q: Who do you expect to attend [the protests]?

HD: The NGA policies are an affront to a wide spectrum of constituencies. So we're expecting a variety of different movements: environmental movement, people opposed to corporate control, people who are activists in gay rights movement, antiwar movement.

Q: How do these things [protests] get out of control?

GF: We're aware that a lot of false and misinformation have been given to law enforcement officers. We at Solidarity Books are completely committed to nonviolence. We have never participated in anything violent or property damage and don't intend to.

HD: What we're trying to do is to create a festival of resistance. We want to engage in a joyful protest and try to create an atmosphere as opposed to the austere formal and elitist nature of the National Governors Association. Violence breaks out due to police repression. It's up to the police whether there will be violence or not.

GF: I think more of our concern at this point is that the police repression that we've suffered last night and we've seen the last couple of weeks will actually quell people's want to dissent. We're afraid this is an attempt to make sure people don't turn out in the street.

I think any time that the use of force and intimidation is brought onto known local peaceful activists there can only be one reason for that and that is to [quell dissent].

Q: What is your take on this free speech zone that was in the paper this morning ? that they're going to allow free speech?

HD: I think it's a clear statement that if there's a free speech zone that's one block wide between Capitol west on Maryland Street then the rest of the city is a no free speech zone.

Q: So by excluding the rest of the area, they're repressing free speech?

HD: Certainly.

Q: An IPD spokesman said that one of [the violations] was operating a retail establishment in a building that was zoned residential.

EE: This is a residence. People live upstairs. The downstairs isn't a store. It's a community space that people can use. We do have books that sometimes people take but it's not a bookstore.

Q: According to the IPD spokesman and what appeared in the Star this morning, some incendiary language was used on the Web, "Smash the NGA." And they felt that since such incendiary language was used, they were obliged to investigate.

HD: As far as I know that message was issued a couple of months ago by an autonomous group. We made it clear that the protest was going to be nonviolent and [an exercise of] free speech. The snippet that appeared in the Star was taken out of context as far as I know.

Q: What's your take that neo-Nazis get a permit and here you are ? we'll take you at your word ? peace activists, and you can't get a soapbox from the City.

EE: It's kind of a history in this city for racist groups to be able to demonstrate. All the way back to the 1920s, the biggest Klan presence in the country was in Indiana, and they allowed no protests [against the Klan.] Same today ? they're allowing them to protest but won't give us one.

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Keni Washington, a board member of the Indianapolis Peace & Justice Center and owner of the Solidarity Books property, added a few words about what he characterized as a "campaign of harassment."

The First Amendment doesn't mean anything to any of us if you can't speak truth to power. If you can't say what you mean to George Bush or to the Governor or to the Mayor or to anyone in power, then the First Amendment means nothing. People all over the world can protest in their basements or in their living rooms but when you protest in totalitarian societies, you're repressed.

Situations like last night should be embarrassing to all citizens. The police had absolutely no reason to do what they did last night ? none whatsoever. They came here looking for guns. They came here looking for bombs.

Why would my family rent to a group like this? My family, the Indianapolis Peace and Justice Center and all the people in the peace community live by ? don't just preach but we live by ? nonviolence. That's why we would rent the property and proudly make it available to this group, because they live by the principles we all espouse.

Q. You've been involved in the peace community for a long time. Are you seeing a marked change in the way the city is dealing with activists?

KW: Thirty-five years. I think we've all seen a marked change over the last two years. There's an element of repression being used by people in power under the aegis of 9/11. Lots of elements of repression are being instituted now under that banner that would have been unthinkable just two years ago. We've allowed the First Amendment and the Fourth Amendment ? against unreasonable search and seizure ? to be completely violated.

Congressman Barney Frank has made the statement that the entire country is a Free Speech Zone. That's the principle under which we all grew up. That's the principle by which we're supposed to be operating this country and yet we see people who do nonviolent legal protest be herded into a free-speech zone. That's an obscenity. We should be embarrassed by that.

Thomas P. Healy is a freelance journalist and the publisher of Branches magazine. Read his report on the NGA meeting at www.bloomingtonalternative.com