Free Speech Zones?
Next year, as you probably aware, Vancouver will play host to the Winter Olympic Games. These Games will be an amazing event, whether you support them or not. But the Games come with some downsides. Quite a few Vancouverites seem blind to these downsides. I am a Vancouverite, and it seems that many of my my fellows either don’t know or don’t care about how their personal freedoms and safety will be affected by the new laws and rules being enacted for the sole purpose of the Olympics Many of these problems have been documented elsewhere, so I will focus on one particular one. The implementation of so-called “Free Speech Zones”.
The Olympic security officials have been very vague about the use of these “Free Speech Zones”, and so their purpose is very unclear. Take this one quote for example:
“Anywhere you participate in lawful protest is legal and lawful in Canada. It doesn’t have to be in a free speech area.” Bud Mercer, head of security for the 2010 Olympics.
Now if you can protest anywhere why in the world would you need a “Free Speech Zone”? The security officials haven’t given any reasons for using these zones, so they seem pointless. These “Free Speech Zones” might be in low profile locations, so protesters hoping to get media coverage would want to pick a higher profile location. Also, there would be the possibility that people would avoid these zones because it would get too busy, and therefore the protesters would fail to get their message out. The only upside I see to having “Free Speech Zones” would be that media can cover all the protests at once. But even that has downsides. The protests could possibly amalgamate, causing the original messages behind the protests to become unclear.
I have suspicions about the intention of security forces creating “Free Speech Zones”, because why would someone create a “Free Speech Zone” unless they intended to have “Regulated Speech Zones”? I have no proof saying that they intend to break up protests outside “Free Speech Zones”, but it is food for thought.
Vancouverites have shown an amazing amount of apathy to to the goings-on in the world of Olympic security. Did you know that the BC government was trying to pass a bill that allowed police and security forces to enter your home without a warrant if they believed you had anti-Olympic propaganda? (That bill failed.) Or that in high security areas there will be random searches by private security? I encourage you to educate yourself on the security measures that will be taken during the 2010 Olympic Games. I also encourage you to check the news daily for breaking stories, because they are often very pertinent to your daily life. Read all the stories you can, and form your opinion carefully.
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Filed under: Uncategorized | 2 Comments
Tags: apathy, free, speech, zones, olympics, security, vancouver
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Contributers to Apathy = Death
delliot11
thefreedomite
We hosted the 2002 Winter Olympics here in Salt Lake City, Utah, and security was very tight. When you see the hordes of people that will descend on your city you will, I believe, appreciate the efforts of security forces to keep matters under control. If you don’t remember what occured at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, Google it up. It may make you think about what the lack of security can produce.
I realize the importance of protecting the athletes and spectators, but these laws I outlined are targeted towards individuals citizens, not military groups.