Related post B

Back on April 21 I mentioned new restrictions on protest being enacted by towns in Georgia that expect to be the scenes of dissent when the next G-8 summit takes place there in June.

From an AP article for May 5 comes information on the more subtle means being employed.

For example: TOES, The Other Economic Summit, is a group planning round-table discussions of world economic issues in conjunction with the G-8 summit.

But when the group rented a conference hall for use during next month's G-8 summit of world leaders, the police took notice.

Savannah detectives visited the real estate office that rented out the hall to look at the group's contract. They also made calls inquiring about the hall's owners and the Georgia professor who signed the rental agreement.

The hall is the Progressive Recreation Center, owned by black employees of International Paper. And did the police call the owners? Did they look for criminal records? No - they called the owners' employer. Professor Margy Betz of the Savannah College of Art and Design was the one who signed the rental agreement. Who did the police call? Her? Of course not. They called the college, her employer.

Why we're supposed to image these people's employers would have knowledge of some secret destructive political tendencies I'm not sure. Frankly, it seems more likely to me to be an intimidation tactic: Dissent can get you in trouble at work, can get you maybe seriously fired.

Meanwhile,

Savannah detectives visited Oglethorpe Speedway Park, a race track in nearby Pooler, after hearing that a local protest organizer wanted to rent the venue for a benefit concert during the summit. Speedway general manager Ted Austad said he told the detectives he was leaning against the concert. A few days later, he said, Pooler Police Chief Clarence E. Chan also called.

"He just said he had concerns about that event and we might want to take a closer look before leasing it out to that person," said Austad, who backed out of holding the concert.

The police of course deny doing anything to dissuade Austad, but what other effect is intended to arise from getting a call from the Chief of Police advising you to "take a closer look" before allowing a benefit concert to take place?

Trent Schroyer, president of TOES, said "We have never had this degree of surveillance. I have no affiliation with any groups dangerous to the country in any way - unless rational discourse is a real threat."

That's called answering your own question.

Update: Broken link repaired