Balancing protection and free speech

Secret Service agents are given wide latitude when it comes to protecting the president. They can change a motorcade route in an instant. They can, and often do, keep the president's exact itinerary vague. They can keep protesters far away.

Protecting the president is not an office job.

All of this is perfectly acceptable if it is done solely for the purpose of presidential safety. It becomes a much more dicey proposition when it is done simply to protect the chief executive from hearing what he doesn't want to hear or seeing what he doesn't want to see. Think Richard Nixon.
In both of President George W. Bush's visits to Stockton, the Civic Auditorium was rung with city buses and only a select few (that is, supporters) were allowed inside, much to the disappointment of those, say, who wanted to let him know they felt about America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. No doubt some believed their free speech rights were infringed by not being allowed to shout their views within earshot of the president.
That issue was before the Supreme Court on Wednesday in an Oregon case brought against two Secret Service agents who in 2004 moved protesters away from a restaurant where a visiting Bush suddenly decided he wanted to eat. Not moved away were Bush supporters and that prompted the lawsuit and the claim of a free speech violation.
The high court, which is often divided, seemed to speak with one voice, as in, we're not impressed.
Justice Antonin Scalia said that if there was any objective reason to move protesters to improve security, then "it doesn't matter whether there was any intent to suppress anti-Bush demonstrators."
Even Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who resides on the move liberal section of the political spectrum, seemed unimpressed with the suit saying the protesters were within "throwing distance of a bomb or shooting distance as well."
Although signals from the court seemed clear, justices aren't expected to rule until possibly June. But in addition to their rather dismissive questions, the justices have as precedent a 2012 case in which the court ruled that two Secret Service agents couldn't be sued by a man arrested after confronting then-Vice President Dick Cheney. In that case, the court said the agents were immune and left undecided the question of First Amendment rights.
Certainly free speech is important. It's a bedrock right in a democracy. But in this case it must be balanced against presidential security and the hair-trigger decisions the president's protection staff must make. The scales here tilt toward safety.