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Sheehan and other war protesters sue again over camping ordinance

Saturday, July 01, 2006

By Dan Genz

Cindy Sheehan and four anti-war protesters filed a lawsuit Friday afternoon asking a state district court judge to halt enforcement of two local laws that hamper their protests near President Bush’s ranch.

The group, which dropped a similar suit in a federal district court last fall, wants McLennan County ordinances against parking and camping along rural roadsides not to apply to their upcoming slate of protests in August.

“It’s wrong to prohibit us from camping there,” Sheehan said.

County commissioners passed two ordinances in September that prohibited parking within four miles of President Bush’s property and restricted people from camping or erecting portable bathrooms in the right-of-way area along county roads.

The plaintiffs’ 32-page suit claims the ordinances violate their rights to free speech and exceeded the county government’s authority.

“This is not about the president or politics. It is not even about the war,” said Will Harrell, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, which supports the suit. “It is about the county commissioners decision to overstep their own authority to restrict the protected activities of a group of protesters and the media.”

An attorney for the county, Mike Dickson, declined comment saying he had not looked at the suit. He has previously said the county ordinances do not restrict free speech by prohibiting people from living in a ditch.

The McLennan County Sheriff’s Office has made 26 arrests related to the ordinances in two separate events staged by war protesters in April and November.

McLennan County District Attorney John Segrest has pressed charges against two protesters.

Sheehan is the only plaintiff who has not been arrested in violation of the camping ordinance. The plaintiffs include Daniel Ellsberg, the former Defense Department analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times in 1971 during the Vietnam war.

http://www.wacotrib.com/hp/content/news/stories/2006/07/01/07012006wacsheehanback.html