Free speech is not only under assualt in Washington but also in DeKalb County, Georgia.
Reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
It was 9:30 on a recent Friday night when Denise Grier saw blue lights in her rearview mirror.
She pulled over on Chamblee-Tucker Road, unaware of her infraction.
"The officer asked if I knew I had a lewd decal on my car and I thought, ‘Oh gosh, what did my kids put on my car?’ "
As it turns out, the decal was an anti-Bush bumper sticker Grier slapped on her 2001 Chrysler Sebring last summer. The bumper sticker — "I’m Tired Of All The BUSH—" — contains an expletive.
The officer "said DeKalb had an ordinance about lewd decals and wrote me a ticket" for $100, said Grier, an oncology nurse at Emory University Hospital who lives in Athens.
Grier said she thanked the officer — and vowed to see him in court.
"This is all about free speech," Grier said in a telephone interview Monday. "The officer pulled me over because he didn’t agree with my politics. That’s what this is about, not whether I support Bush, not because of the war in Iraq, but about my right to free speech."
Officer Herschel Grangent Jr., a spokesman for the DeKalb County Police Department, confirmed the incident Monday but said he couldn’t "speculate on or discuss another officer’s decision to write a citation."
Grangent said he not know of any ordinance dealing strictly with bumper stickers but noted the county’s sign ordinance prohibits public displays that "contain words, pictures, or statements which are obscene."
"Only that officer knows what his or her probable cause was, and only that officer can discuss it or testify to it," Grangent said.
Apparently the Atlanta Journal-Constitution doesn’t believe in free speech either since they edited the bumper sticker to say "I’m tired of all the Bush—." What the bumper sticker really says is "I’m tired of all the Bushit."
