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:

[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?

[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.

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?

In Bushunist America

[Steeltalon]

Crowd Controls you!

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

[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

[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: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.

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.)

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..