Free speech vs. walker.

• Author: Rothschild, Matthew
• Position: Editor's Note - Editorial

Ruth Conniff brings you up to date this month on the fate of Wisconsin's reactionary governor, Scott Walker. He's been a total disaster, not only because of his assault on public sector unions but across the board--and that includes civil liberties.

Starting in August, his Republican cronies in the state legislature ordered law enforcement to start hauling people away for merely holding signs or filming in the assembly gallery.

That was my breaking point. So I talked with an activist friend of mine, and we decided to try to bring more people into the assembly to challenge this policy. Others had the same idea and announced "Concealed Camera Day" for November 1. This was a play on "concealed carry," the new law in Wisconsin allowing gun owners to carry weapons under wraps. The Republicans in the assembly said it was OK to carry guns even into the assembly gallery. They were evidently more afraid of free speech and accountability than they were of a bullet.

Preparing for the protest, I printed out part of the First Amendment, as well as sections of the Wisconsin Constitution protecting the right to free speech and to petition for a redress of grievances, and I taped the clauses to my buttoned-down shirt. I joined about sixty others, and we entered the assembly gallery at around 6 p.m.

A young, well-dressed woman warned us that we couldn't hold signs or take pictures and to put away our cameras and our cell phones.

I saw a man named Bart Munger get taken out of the gallery for silently holding a sign that said, "I Love Wisconsin."

I saw other people being arrested for simply taking pictures with their cell phones. So I got out my cell phone and took pictures of them getting arrested for taking pictures, and for that I was arrested--not by a state police officer or a capitol police officer but by a warden from the Department of Natural Resources. (I asked him whether he wouldn't rather be at Devil's Lake...