Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Anti-illegal immigration group censored

We read:
"When members of an anti-illegal immigration group offered to sponsor litter cleanup on local roads, they never imagined California officials would offer them an Adopt-a-Highway stretch near a Border Patrol checkpoint on Interstate 5, the main artery carrying illegal migrants north from the U.S.-Mexico border.

On Friday, lawyers for the San Diego Minutemen told a federal judge that the state had no right to rescind the offer after state legislators complained to the California Department of Transportation. The group asked that its blue Adopt-a-Highway sign be put back where it stood without incident for about six weeks until the agency removed it in January. "We were moved to silence our message in response to pressure from the open border advocates and the Latino caucus," said Minutemen attorney Robert Fuselier. "It all comes down to one thing: We can't have our speech because if we do, people who don't like it might become unruly and unlawful."

Attorneys for the state contend the sign was removed because of concerns that demonstrators or vandals could create safety hazards for the 160,000 drivers who pass the checkpoint daily and for Minutemen volunteers collecting litter by the roadside.

Hayes asked whether the state would continue moving the Minutemen sign if protests followed it. "It would seem you're saying you're allowing the people who are unhappy with the message to dictate who can be in the program," the judge said. "We can do that," Benowitz responded. "It is not a public forum."

Courts have found otherwise. In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the Ku Klux Klan after Missouri officials sought to bar the group from its Adopt-a-Highway program under a regulation prohibiting groups that deny membership based on race or with a documented history of violence.

Source

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

So, we are now letting a group of people wih no legality, or those supporting them, to dictate what a lawful group can say? I say lets rid our government of those who will run the country for their own gain and not the good of the country, or, in tis case, State.

Anonymous said...

I just love the veiled reference to the Klan as if the minute men were the Klan. You gotta love the race baiting.

Anonymous said...

The Minute Men should continue to take care of that portion of road and erect their own sign while doing the cleanup.

Anonymous said...

Well, it is Mexifornia after all. And why is it that most of the politicians in southern Mexifornia have Mexican names? If this state has in fact been lost to Mexico, as most realistic people realize has happened, then why not cut-off all federal money we send there? Perhaps Gov. Worminator and his dead-ugly wife should start wearing Sombrero's! And since Mexifornia has long-ago stopped being part of the US, why don't we simply make it official, via a constitutional amendment? I mean think of it, would this be any great loss to America?

Anonymous said...

Given the history of the 9th Circus Court of Appeals, this is another case that will have to go all the way to the Supreme Court to tell California that the right to free speech is NOT only to "inoffensive, politically popular" speech.

Anonymous said...

(;)

Anonymous said...

It's time the country started cracking down on treason. Too many enemies, particularly domestic, have been allowed to slide for far too long.

Anonymous said...

Sadly, the American people no longer have the strength, or the mental capacity to stop any thing! This nation of fools is dying before our eyes, and no one has the will to do anything about it. There have been people in history who said we wouldn't last. (historically, 300 years is nothing) It seems they were right!