Anti-Obama sign returned (OK police report man with "Abort Obama not the unborn" sign to SS)

[sabra]

Source: AP

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - Police officials in Oklahoma City have decided that officers were "overzealous" when they seized a protest sign from a pickup truck.

The sign said: "Abort Obama not the unborn."

It's now been returned to the construction worker who made it and posted it on his truck.

Hal Harrison says Secret Service agents interviewed him at home after police stopped him last week. He says a police officer had told him the sign could be seen as a threat against Barack Obama.

Harrison says it seemed like "something from Nazi Germany." He said he's no fan of Obama, but that his sign is simply a political statement against abortion.

A police spokesman says an officer went too far in confiscating the sign, but that pulling him over and reporting his name to the Secret Service wasn't wrong.

The Secret Service concluded that Harrison wasn't a threat. But a spokesman says a sign like that is "going to get our attention every time."

Read more: http://www.kesq.com/Global/story.asp?S=9878609&nav=9qrx

[getthefacts]

1. Free speech is

free speech. The officers were correct in returning the sign. I only wonder how big the noise would be if this was an anti-Bush sign during the run up to the Iraq war...

[HopeHoops]

2. That's just wrong. Hal Harrison has a 1st Amendment right to prove he's an idiot.

That sign doesn't even make any sense!

How long until FOX has "Hal the Construction Worker" become a field reporter? Any guess?

[mshasta]

3. 1st amendment

I made many nasty signs against bush and it was mi right to express my self.

[No Elephants]

6. Could your sign be read as advocating violence toward Bush? Thing is,

calling for people to "abort" a man who already is not only born, but over 40 years of age, may well be interpreted as calling for Obama's death.

That may not be what this guy meant, but the Secret Service should have been told and this guy should have been questioned before anyone reached that conclusion.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

7. Quite right, we need to support the 1st Amendment even when we do not agree with the message

[Tempest]

4. "Abort Obama" is a threat against his life

When you consider how abortion doctors are murdered in this country, this is clearly a threat against his life.

[47of74]

5. Yes

I hope the cops reminded this asshole of 18 U.S.C. Chapter 41 Section 871.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

8. No, its free speech

[uppityperson]

10. That is my take also. I respect your right to have pictures of

dead babies on anti-abortion signs (though very much resent the inaccuracy and manipulation) but "abort Obama" is a threat against his life.

[treestar]

12. Exactly, free speech has nothing to do with it. No one is saying he

can't make the sign and show his idiocy by displaying it. They were reacting to the content in the sign and seeing the potential threat.

[Politicalboi]

9. So I guess if he had the N word

On his sign that would be free speech too. Just like Phelps has God hates Fags. Fags is a hate word so how come that is allowed and the N word isn't. If Obama was gay I guess it would be alright to call him a fag. We all know what this idiot meant just like the monkey comic. Just like the bumber sticker on the fundies car "Abortion Kills" Abort Obama means kill him. And now since he got his sign back he feels he won. That it's ok to do what he did. They should have had him reword it. But then again this is Oklahoma.

[LeftishBrit]

11. I would interpret it simply as 'abort his career'; 'get rid of him'

Very nasty but not criminal. Should come under free speech. And at least the sign warns people that he's an idiot!