{"id":22252,"date":"2026-01-23T08:25:35","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T13:25:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=22252"},"modified":"2026-01-24T10:33:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T15:33:15","slug":"will-trumps-dhs-zone-out-the-first-amendment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/23\/will-trumps-dhs-zone-out-the-first-amendment\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Trump\u2019s DHS \u2018Zone Out\u2019 the First Amendment?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Grok image created via my tweaking<\/p><\/div>\n

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Will Trump\u2019s DHS \u2018Zone Out\u2019 the First Amendment?<\/a><\/h1>\n

by James Bovard, January 23, 2026<\/p>\n

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Sunday called for Minneapolis to \u201cset up a peaceful protest zone<\/span><\/a> so that these individuals can exercise their First Amendment rights and do so peacefully.\u201d Since 9\/11, \u201cfree speech zones\u201d have been one of the biggest constitutional shams around.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Both major political parties have used \u201cfree speech zone\u201d restrictions to seek to silence dissent.\u00a0 <\/span>As I wrote in 2004 in The Baltimore Sun<\/em>, the Democratic National Convention that year was downright bizarre:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIn Boston, police and convention organizers aimed to restrict protesters to a large patch of asphalt in a dank and dark area below an elevated subway line, nearby highways overhead. Internet blogger Gan Golan described the area: \u2018It\u2019s like a scene from some post-apocalyptic movie \u2014 a futuristic, industrial detention area from a Mad Max film. You are surrounded on all sides by concrete blocks and steel fencing, with razor wire lining the perimeter. Then, there is a giant black net over the entire space.\u2019 The ambience was accentuated by the police helicopters patrolling overhead, by the omnipresent National Guardsmen in their camo outfits and by the state police occasionally prancing around in their black armor suits.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Federal judge Douglas Woodlock declared that the designated protest area looked like \u201can internment camp.\u201d Convention organizers justified covering the area with netting because of the danger that protesters might throw something at convention delegates. The possibility that one demonstrator might throw one apple at one delegate justified the preemptive caging of all demonstrators. Unfortunately, the U.S. government does not use the same stringent standard when bombing foreign countries.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The level of BS surrounding that \u201cinternment camp\u201d reached comical levels. A lawyer for the Boston Police Department claimed, \u201cNobody is being required to use the demonstration zone. The demonstration zone is provided merely for those people who wish to be able to express themselves directly to the delegates.\u201d The government pre-emptively decided that all protesters were collectively guilty and thus deserve preventative incarceration.<\/p>\n

The Boston \u201cfree speech zone\u201d illustrated how Democrats adopted one of W. Bush\u2019s most repressive trademarks used to pre-emptively silence protesters across the land. At a 2003 speech by Bush in St. Louis, the ACLU\u2019s Denise Lieberman complained, \u201cNo one could see [the protestors] from the street. In addition, the media were not allowed to talk to them. The police would not allow any media inside the protest area and wouldn\u2019t allow any of the protesters out of the protest zone to talk to the media.\u201d Protestors were also severely restricted at the 2004 Republican convention in New York City.<\/p>\n

Then-Congressman Ron Paul<\/span><\/a> (R-TX) and eleven House colleagues sent a letter to President Bush in 2003 condemning the administration\u2019s crackdowns on demonstrators:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cAs we read the First Amendment to the Constitution, the United States is a \u2018free speech zone.<\/strong>\u2019 In the United States, free speech is the rule, not the exception, and citizens\u2019 rights to express it do not depend on their doing it in a way that the president finds politically amenable\u2026We ask that you make it clear that we have no interest as a government in \u2018zoning\u2019 constitutional freedoms, and that being politically annoying to the president of the United States is not a criminal offense. This [Bursey] prosecution smacks of the use of the Sedition Acts two hundred years ago to protect the president from political discomfort. It was wrong then and it is wrong now.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Back in Minneapolis, Mayor Jacob Frey responded on Sunday to Noem:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cFirst Amendment speech is not limited to one park or one section of the city. You are allowed to protest, so long as you\u2019re doing it peacefully. And by the way, we\u2019ve got tens of thousands of people in Minneapolis\u2026peacefully expressing their First Amendment rights.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

DHS is seeking to enforce a \u201ccone of silence\u201d over all its operations\u2014<\/span>including information that has already been publicly disclosed.<\/strong> On Sunday\u2019s Face the Nation<\/span><\/a><\/em>, host Margaret Brennan asked Noem, \u201cTell me about the officer, Jonathan Ross.\u201d<\/p>\n

Noem was outraged at the question: \u201cDon\u2019t say his name! I mean, for heaven\u2019s sake, we shouldn\u2019t have people continue to dox law enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brennan replied, \u201cHis name is public.\u201d<\/p>\n

Noem answered, \u201cI know, but that doesn\u2019t mean it should continue to be said.\u201d<\/p>\n

When did the names of federal agents reach holy par with the name Jehovah in the Monty Python Life of Brian<\/em> movie?<\/p>\n

Noem derided Brennan\u2019s question about Ross\u2019s health as an outrageous intrusion into his medical privacy. Noem recognizes no obligation to provide evidence to substantiate the official claim that Ross\u2019s torso suffered internal bleeding. Unfortunately, Renee Good forfeited her privacy rights after Ross shot her three times. The Trump administration has already absolved Ross<\/span><\/a> for killing Good but federal lawyers are hot on the trail seeking to file charges against Good\u2019s wife.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It would be absurd to expect DHS to show good faith on \u201cfree speech zones\u201d when the feds have already proclaimed that it is a crime for citizens to videotape ICE officers in public.<\/strong> As Fox News\u2019 Minneapolis<\/span><\/a> reported, \u201cA DHS bulletin issued last June identified the use of cameras, live-streaming interactions with officers, and video recording at protests as \u2018unlawful civil unrest\u2019 tactics and \u2018threats.\u2019\u201d The DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs asserted last summer that \u201cvideotaping ICE law enforcement and posting photos and videos of them online is doxing our agents\u2026[We] will prosecute those who illegally harass ICE agents to the fullest extent of the law.\u201d An ongoing lawsuit claims that Noem \u201cestablished, sanctioned, and ratified an agency policy of treating video recording of DHS agents in public as a threat that may be responded to with force and addressed as a crime.\u201d Going back almost a decade, federal appeals courts have unanimously ruled that \u201cthere is a First Amendment right to record police activity in public.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Protesting federal abuses doesn\u2019t entitle angry citizens to commit violence or trespass. <\/span>Some Minnesota protestors deserve to be arrested\u2014the same way that a smattering of the protestors who destroyed property or assailed police on January 6, 2021 at the U.S. Capitol deserved arrest. Simply because some protesters are assholes doesn\u2019t mean everyone else within city limits loses their constitutional rights<\/strong>. The anti-ICE knuckleheads who <\/span>outrageously intruded<\/span><\/a> in a private church in Minneapolis and disrupted its religious service last Sunday deserve to be punished.<\/span><\/p>\n

Free speech zones are a pre-emptive strike against American freedom. To designate a free speech zone is to delegitimize free speech everywhere outside the pen. It is absurd to presume that no one has the right to get close enough to holler at a politician. If federal policymakers cannot stand to hear angry protests, they should commit fewer outrages.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Will Trump\u2019s DHS \u2018Zone Out\u2019 the First Amendment? by James Bovard, January 23, 2026 Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Sunday called for Minneapolis to \u201cset up a peaceful protest zone so that these individuals can exercise their First Amendment rights and do so peacefully.\u201d Since 9\/11, \u201cfree speech zones\u201d have been one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22253,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1261,1291,3125,1654,4666,228,708],"class_list":["post-22252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-democrats","tag-dhs","tag-free-speech-zone","tag-ice","tag-noem","tag-republicans","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"\nWill Trump\u2019s DHS \u2018Zone Out\u2019 the First Amendment? - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Trump's DHS is calling for free speech zones to quarantine protestors in Minneapolis. 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. Bovard\u2019s writings have been publicly denounced by FBI director Louis Freeh, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jimbovard.com","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","https:\/\/x.com\/jimbovard"],"url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/author\/admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22252"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22263,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22252\/revisions\/22263"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}