The White House Crowd Control Manual

quizzicus writes "The Washington Post writes today about a sensitive White House document detailing how to screen for, silence, and remove protesters who show up at the President's public appearances. Obtained by an ACLU subpoena in the Rank v. Jenkins case, the Presidential Advance Manual (PDF) is dated October 2002. It lays out strategies such as searching audience members at the door for hidden protest material, strategically placing 'rally squads' throughout the crowd to intercept and shout down hecklers, and forcefully removing dissenters who cannot be squelched. The manual advises, however, that staff should 'decide if the solution would cause more negative publicity than if the demonstrators were simply left alone.'"

Comments

The Slashdot Crowd Control Manual:

[TripMaster Monkey]

Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

Re:The Slashdot Crowd Control Manual:

[splutty]

I think you intended that as "-1 Troll", which would be the prefered CC method.

Out of sight == Out of mind

[TripMaster Monkey]

From TFA:

But that does not mean the White House is against dissent -- just so long as the president does not see it. In fact, the manual outlines a specific system for those who disagree with the president to voice their views. It directs the White House advance staff to ask local police "to designate a protest area where demonstrators can be placed, preferably not in the view of the event site or motorcade route."

Not only does Chimpy not see it, but no one else sees it, either, thanks to the complicit corporate media.

If this was a Peter Sellers movie, it would be hilarious. Unfortunately, it's not a movie. We're actually living this.

After reading through the manual my opinion is:

[A beautiful mind]

The manual is [redacted], otherwise [redacted].

[redacted]

I think I should finish this long post by summarizing my opinion about the [redacted] manual which is: [redacted].

Re:After reading through the manual my opinion is:

[TripMaster Monkey]

I thought you were making a clever, but nonspecific, joke. Then I actually looked through the PDF of the manual.

You gotta wonder...if an open admission that this administration is actively working to squelch the First Amendment rights of American citizens wasn't redacted, what was?

Re:After reading through the manual my opinion is:

[Kymri]

That would be really funny if (literally!) nearly 90% of the document wasn't redacted.

Since it IS the cast that about 90% of the document is redacted, it is merely very, very sad.

Re:After reading through the manual my opinion is:

[Dausha]

"You gotta wonder...if an open admission that this administration is actively working to squelch the First Amendment rights of American citizens wasn't redacted, what was?"

What the Court said could be redacted, most likely to ensure operations of the Secret Service that safeguard the President are keep off /.

You should remember that in cases like this, the Secret Service exerts a great deal of influence. Their job is to protect the President and First Family (and political candidates in the right context). They are zealous in that endeavor. How they operate should be protected as a national secret to protect the Office of the President (not necessarily the man himself).

What you should ask yourself is this: since this is an "open" President, what about other recent Presidents (e.g. Clinton, Reagan, etc.)? You assume malice, when you could just be reading the way things have been done for a generation. Presidents complain (after they leave office) that they are increasingly isolated from "the real world" by their security detail and staff. This isn't a Bush-only issue.

Re:After reading through the manual my opinion is:

[Kjella]

Presumably all the technical details on how they operate? Security zones, agent placement, infiltrator placement (probably in any big crowd), sniper placement, escape route strategy, alert conditions, evacuation conditions, how to handle panics and stampedes and so on. Remember some of that military docs that weren't properly censored? It was basicly full of what to us was trivia on a small section of Iraq, but to them it was classified details on how they operate. It's not necessarily so that the information they were most interested in protecting is the most important for the public.

Tagged Republican?

[faloi]

Because Democrats would never do that, amirite?

Re:Tagged Republican?

[PJ1216]

Pointing out one event doesn't carry the same weight as an administration that apparently does it at every speech and who wrote a manual on the subject...

Re:Tagged Republican?

[svendsen]

So because one side did it, it justifies the other side doing it? Please.

Free speech zones, cant wear shirts, hire people to protect against the protesters, make people remove shirts to see if they have anything underneath someone might not like, etc. goes against what this country was founded on.

You can't be president and say you are protecting free speech at a rally, when at the rally you have people arrested for wearing a shirt with a red cross through your name.

And now I have to type this paragraph because of all the bush trolls. When kerry did the plus unbutton your shirt to make sure you don't have another bad shirt underneath disgusted me just as much.

Re:Tagged Republican?

[0xdeadbeef]

Know who else put six million people in a permanent free speech zone?

The But But! corollary: In any discussion of traditional political malfeasance, someone will find a similar but much less egregious offense by someone slightly less conservative and claim equivalence, and therefore, that no offense has taken place at all.

Feel free to add "Democrats" to a gun-grab or MPAA pandering, but the Republicans own this kind of shit, and that ain't ever going to change.

Re:Tagged Republican?

[Some_Llama]

"Just that it happens on both sides, neither is free from blame."

Then instead of pointing the finger at the other side when it DOES happen.. you should be lining up with your fellow Americans and decry the practice in whole. Otherwise it just makes you look like you are defending the practice of one side because "the other side does it too".

Then when democrats do the same thing you can decry that as well and not look a hypocrite.

This goes for all partisan bickering.. we need to point out EVERY infraction no matter which "side" is perpetrating the offense and show both parties that we won't stand for it.. just because they can't work together on issues doesn't mean WE can't.

nothing new here

[downix]

People have spoken of this issue since Bush was even campaigning. Are you surprised that they actually had a manual for it?

I'd have written the manual, too...

[halivar]

And I think a Democrat president, if he we smart, would have a manual on it, too. What is the big deal?

Just another inflammatory, irrelevant article from kdawson. This article belongs in politics, not YRO.

Re:I'd have written the manual, too...

[phoenixwade]

And I think a Democrat president, if he we smart, would have a manual on it, too. What is the big deal?

Just another inflammatory, irrelevant article from kdawson. This article belongs in politics, not YRO. You are right, he (or she) would. It would shock me to find out that every President since LBJ DIDN'T have a manual or an equivalent set of written orders. After the numerous sets of really negative (from the seated administrations point of view) protesters showing up in a crowd since the Vietnam era.

And you're right, it does belong in a different category that Your Rights ONLINE. It don't think it's inflammatory or irrelevant, though (except that it's not relevant to online rights).

As to what the big deal is; In the overall scheme of things, or looking back in history probably not much. But, the current administration has taken extraordinary measures to keep information out of the public eye. In that light, the release of the manual itself, rather than the details of it, was a fairly big deal.

White House CC

[Anonymous Coward]

OK. Sap "Circle". "Star" gets sheeped, "Square" gets banished, "Diamond" gets freeze trapped, and we all DPS down "Skull".

Got it?

Re:White House CC

[batquux]

You spent them in a different tree.

How low can you go?

[crackerjack911]

The manual advises, however, that staff should 'decide if the solution would cause more negative publicity than if the demonstrators were simply left alone.

With the President's approval ratings in the 30% area, why would they even care about negative publicity? Might as well throw some of those pesky dissenters into Gitmo while you're at it. Hell, start sending kids to war. I'm pretty sure the last 30% of the nation is so brain dead they would probably be behind anything the president said.

Re:How low can you go?

[faloi]

30% is still better than Congress right now. There's room to slide.

Re:How low can you go?

[DavidTC]

Not really. The GOP have unwavering people supporting them, and it's unlikely, at this point, that anything would make them change their minds.

Whereas the low ratings of Congress are due entirely to the fact that Democratic voters do not view the Democrats in Congress anything but scorn, because said Democrats are apparently fucking morons who don't have the slightest idea how to end a war. (Hint: You all could literally stay at home 24 hours a day and the war would end because it would become unfunded. You don't even need to do any active work at all.)

The GOP supporters, however, have no such discernment WRT to the actions of their leadership, (The ones that do, duh, have left already.) and would continue to support their politicians no matter what they do, be it invade Iran, withdrawal all troops from Iraq, or nuke Canada. If some stuff shows up and personally affects enough people, like the upcoming collapse of the economy and all their houses being foreclosed on, maybe those people will change their minds, but it seems a long shot at this point. (Changing their minds does. A recession is almost inevitable.) The GOP approval ratings may slowly slide down a percentage point or two every year, but they are not going to go down much more than that.

Re:How low can you go?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your analogy fails. Two people in fisticuffs are in close quarters. If the U.S. packs up and goes home, there's a major land mass and an ocean between the two combatants.

I don't know about you, but I'm not real scared of the 31st Amphibious Camel Brigade.

And if they start boarding planes to the U.S., kindly explain what about our presence in Iraq is preventing them from doing it now, short of the convenient presence of 160,000 targets (and, sorry, I don't support the use of the Zap Branigan handbook on combat technique when it comes to utilizing U.S. soldiers)?

Re:How low can you go?

[Dr. Manhattan]

The problem isn't primarily a military issue. It's a technological and political one, and military actions will not solve the problem. The key problem is that our country is helplessly dependent on oil. If we were not critically dependent on the oil, we would not care what happened in the Middle East. (Consider - Darfour is at least as screwed up as the Persian Gulf area, but that's a humanitarian problem and not a political/military one - for us - because we are not critically dependent on any resources there.) But, because we have allowed ourselves to become dependent on the resources there... we meddle, supporting thugocracies so long as they keep the oil flowing, etc. This gives motivation to the Islamist fanatics there. (Note: motive is not the same thing as justification. Homicide investigators look for motive when solving a murder, they don't look for justification. The Islamist lunatics are not justified in attacking innocents by our actions, but they are in part motivated by them.)

Since the problem isn't a military one, a military solution alone will not work. Military action is certainly justified as part of the overall strategy (e.g. in Afghanistan, now sadly neglected) but can't be the only means we use. The ultimate solution is to greatly reduce our dependency on oil.

This doesn't have to involve austerity programs and such. We could go nuclear - not just nuclear power plants, but nuclear rockets - e.g. this one (the good tech stuff starts in section 7). With that, we can lift a thousand tons into orbit in a completely reusable and non-polluting craft that even eliminates not only its own nuclear waste but also waste generated on Earth. Using those, we can put up solar-power satellites that send their energy down to Earth in the form of microwaves. (If you've ever played Sim City... forget it. It doesn't work that way, it can be done very safely with large margins of safety. See here especially the section on "Safety".) With the lower launch costs of nuclear rockets, we can make the U.S. a net energy exporter, in time. This has plenty of military applications, as well. Space is the ultimate "high ground" and a dominant U.S. presence in space should have obvious strategic benefits.

Of course, at the same time we can work on more efficient techniques for utilizing the oil we do need. Cars with better mileage (improving our overall fuel efficiency by less than 3mpg would eliminate our need to import oil from the Persian Gulf), more efficient means of generating and using fertilizers, a bit of thought about how we use plastics, etc. Even better, we can sell the technology we develop to other parts of the world - further reducing world demand for oil, driving the price down. The lower the price of oil, the less funds the Islamist fanatics have to work with, and the less of a threat they pose. (Reducing oil prices also impacts people like Hugo Chavez, as a bonus.)

(Not that, realistically, Islamist fanatics pose an existential threat to the United States. They can harm us, certainly, and even cause a relatively large amount of damage, sometimes. That's not the same thing as posing a threat to the existence of the United States. For perspective, more than 30 times as many American citizens have died in traffic accidents since 9/11 than have died in 9/11, Afghanistan, and Iraq combined.)

In Bushunist America

[Steeltalon]

Crowd Controls you!

tag: redacted

[Nimey]

What's the point of releasing this document if half of it's been censored?

Re:tag: redacted

[Nimey]

Make that rather more than half. Pages 36 to 66 have been censored.

What's really entertaining

[Moryath]

is that while those who insist on hating Bush think this is news, this has been "crowd control" tactics for pretty much every political rally or protest that has ever existed.

Democrats regularly strip off shirts and try to confiscate signs that are critical of them at their rallies. Try bringing a counter-sign to one of the Muslim KKK / "Pro-Palestine" events sometime, and see what happens. If you're lucky, they'll just try to cover your sign with theirs or grab it from your hands and rip it up and stomp on it; if you're not, you'll be physically attacked for being a "Jew."

I took a sign asking Obama what he thinks of the racial supremacist views of his "church": when I held it up at his rally, it lasted about 30 seconds, then one of his "staffers" pointed at me and sent cronies into the crowd to take it from my hands and rip it up. Seems they don't want the truth about him pointed out.

Re:What's really entertaining

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

void republician_retort(point accusation_of_fascism){

if(exists(democracts.spurious_similarity(accusatio n_of_fascism))){

    play_up(democracts.spurious_similarity(accusation_ of_fascism));

}
else{

    play_down(accusation_of_fascism);

}

if(exists(democrats.main_candidate.opportunity_to_ discredit(accusation_of_fascism))){

    democrats.main_candidate.discredit(accusation_of_f ascism)

}

    fox_news.discredit_democrats();

}

Re:What's really entertaining

[baldass_newbie]

Democrats regularly strip off shirts and try to confiscate signs that are critical of them at their rallies.

Or just beat the ever living crap out of them.

Re:What's really entertaining

[plague3106]

Seems like a legal case to me. What legal right gives one citizen the ability to take property from another citizen, because they disagree with the view?

Re:What's really entertaining

[morari]

I took a sign asking Obama what he thinks of the racial supremacist [blogspot.com] views of his "church">

From the link that you provided:

We are a congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian . . . Our roots in the Black religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent. We are an African people, and remain "true to our native land," the mother continent, the cradle of civilization.

Now that is interesting. Unapologetically Christian blacks that remain true to their native land...

Re:What's really entertaining

[RevHawk]

As a white member of the denomination Barack is part of, and someone who has attended many services, known many of it's clergy (including head pastor, and been friends with many members, I can say the church he belongs to is anything but racist. Yes, they are strongly afro-centric. But white people CAN attend (and are welcomed warmly), as well as join. So before going off, why don't you seek to understand WHAT they say and believe? Or is tossing out insults and soundbytes just too easy and convenient?

Re:What's really entertaining

[xappax]

When the president does it, it's not illegal.

Re:What's really entertaining

[posterlogo]

lol. instead of acknowledging the merits of this particular topic, you try and make comparisons. the good old "democrats did it too!" whine. when it's a democrat president, we SHOULD hold them to the same standards. RIGHT NOW, however, the buck stops with Bush. This crowd control is a pathetic attempt to stifle alternative, constitutionally protected view points. clearly you're on the republican side. i'm on the american side.

Re:What's really entertaining

[Anarke_Incarnate]

No, touching someone is technically BATTERY not assault. Assault is the threat of an action. Battery is the unlawful touching of another person.

Re:What's really entertaining

[Lord Ender]

From your website:

All of this should raise at least as many questions about Obama as Mitt Romney's Mormonism raises about him.

I don't see how they compare. In relatively recent history, the Mormon church tried to establish a theocratic state, and even executed non-mormons who entered their state (in front of their children). Only a few decades ago, the head of the Mormon church said that black people were representatives or Satan.

Obama's church has some "us vs them" and otherwise regressive philosophies, but they don't even begin to compare with what the Mormon church has done in the past 200 years.

The recent Mormon push to adopt some (but not all) of what would be considered ethical main-stream philosophies is progress, but cultures can't turn around as quickly as the Mormon PR machine would have you believe. Even today, the LDS is admittedly anti-intellectual. That is a pretty terrible property for a government to have.

Re:What's really entertaining

[htnprm]

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01010101 00110100 10011100 10001101 10100110 00100100 01010010 00101100 10100010
01010101 00101010 10011010 01001110 01000110 11010011 00010010 00101001 00010110
00010001 00101010 10010101 01001101 00100111 00100011 01101001 10001001 00010100
00101000 10001000 10010101 01001010 10100110 10010011 10010001 10110100 11000100
01000101 10010100 01000100 01001010 10100101 01010011 01001001 11001000 11011010
01000101 00100010 11001010 00100010 00100101 01010010 10101011 11001101 01010011

Re:What's really entertaining

[sumdumass]

The reason the "Democrats do it too" always get spouted is because they get a pass on it. This isn't a tit for tat attempt to say they are just as bad. It is a question to why is it an issue now when a republican does it but wasn't a problem at all when the democrats did it. There seems to be a huge double standard on a lot of things like this.

And even though it might be bad now, the real question is why is it bad now. Was it bad then and we just accepted it because the democrats were the ones doing it which is why the republicans now would think it is ok. Or is it bad now only because you agree with the other side of the speech. Instead of being on the side that paid for the platform your now on the side that is disrupting the platform and attempting to hijack it for their own purposes.

I don't find any of this wrong. If I rent a venue for a specific goal and someone attempt to corrupt that goal or hijack the arena, I see it as stealing what I have paid for. Have your own rally and make your own whatever and leave mine alone. If you want to stand outside, fine. But inside belongs to those who paid for it and you don't have any rights that impose on mine. I cannot follow you around and call you names or call you a liar every time I don't agree with you or because I want to slander your name in support of some other person or organization. And you don't have the right to do it to others. People have had these goon squads ever since other thought they could impose their rights above others and it has been perfectly fine for the longest of time as long as you weren't one of the rude people getting kicked out. And I believe this is the only reason people are finding this objectionable, because they are the one getting kicked out.

Re:Slashdot = News for Political Activists

[DogDude]

Slashdot is "news for nerds". There are a lot of other kinds of nerds and nerd interests than just tech stuff (which I happen find incredibly boring). There are biology nerds, mechanic nerds, plumbing nerds, etc.

well duh...

[band-aid-brand]

The last thing the secret service works is chaos while the president is vulnerable up on a stage. Our country allows you to protests pretty much any way you want to an time you want to as long as it doesn't endanger other people. I'd call a bunch of left wing crazies shouting about how the government caused 9/11 in a crowd of right wing war hawks is going to cause some issues.

When I visited ground zero earlier this year a group of conspiracy theorists showed up and started marching through the crowds of people with signs screaming about how 9/11 was an "Inside Job". Fortunately the police showed up and had them move to a designated area to protest. This isn't Big Brother censoring peoples dissenting views, is the police trying to prevent a massive street fight from breaking out between the people who feel that ground zero is a place to remember those lost and the people who are concerned with shouting their views at everyone within earshot.

Re:well duh...

[Quila]

This isn't Big Brother censoring peoples dissenting views, is the police trying to prevent a massive street fight from breaking

Valid general point, except that one of the explicit criteria for removing or minimizing the protesters is whether the media can see or hear them.

As far as protesters mixing with the loyal, their instructions are to send loyalists out to the protesters in order to drown them out. So this policy isn't about safety in a mixed environment. Plus, no matter how disruptive the protesters are, the orders are to leave them alone if confrontation would result in net negative publicity (where's the safety angle in that?).

Notice that within the document, security threats are handled differently -- the Secret Service handles those. These operatives deal with protesters who are, by their own definition, not a security threat, but "likely to cause only a political disruption."

This isn't about safety. This is about controlling what America sees on the news.

best bit: USA! USA!

[kisrael]

From the PDF:

The rally squad's task is to use their signs and banners as shields between the demonstrators and the main press platform. If the demonstrators are yelling, rally squads can begin and lead supportive chants to drown out the protesters (USA! USA! USA!) As a last resort, security should remove the demonstrators from the event site. The rally squads can include, but are not limited to, college/young republican organizations, local athletic teams, and fraternities/sororities.

I'm not sure which part I find less wholesome, the almost self-parodying use of yelling "USA! USA! USA!" or the idea of importing the local football team and/or frat to act as rhetorical muscle.

Before we get into a hissy fit about this..

[N3WBI3]

"BBC NEWS Wednesday, 1 December, 1999, 21:53 GMT Hundreds arrested in Seattle Seattle police have arrested about 200 activists protesting at the world trade talks as they tighten security ahead of a speech by President Bill Clinton." http://www.sbindependent.org/node/898 "According to Little, it was not the Secret Service that expressed concern to the police, but rather a member of Sen. Clinton's political staff." And protesters were removed..

Steve Jackson would be proud

[ickypoo]

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In Perspective

[kcarlin]

I remember an inaugural event, announced as a come one, come all, meet and greet with the people thing, that was reported a while back where the journalist focused on the controversy of the new President's people managing the gate, the quick construction of fenced off sections, the triage used to herd certain types into a holding pen with no line of sight to the media area, others into "away" areas, and pass-holders only (selected invitees) into the media-resident area. All documented in excruciating detail by the obviously appalled reporter, but buried deep in the A section by his editor.

At that time, the Arkansan President was the fresh face with high approval numbers.

That same fellow, by his second term, spoke for long stretches only from the Atcheson Auditorium in State Department HQ in front of his appointees. The State Department has far more political appointees than any other Federal department, and HQ probably has more political appointees resident any other building in Washington with the possible exception of the White House.

And, of course, when the going got tough for the Georgian he spoke only from the White House grounds.

Bush may turn out to have the first administration to fumble their strategy to the press, or may be the first to have it receive real media coverage, but he is hardly the first to baldly have such a strategy.

As for those other gentlemen, I am amazed to hear that they were Republicans, my recollection being otherwise.