National Mall Redesign Could Seriously Restrict Free Speech

The National Park Service (NPS) is planning to redesign the heavily trafficked National Mall -- the sprawling open area between the Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol that has become America's iconographic site of popular protest. It is where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his immortal "I Have a Dream" speech, where protests against everything from the Vietnam War and Iraq War have been launched, where locals and visitors alike lunch, jog and sightsee, and, in 2007, where Al Gore kicked off one of Live Earth's concerts.

In short, it is the premier destination for Americans from all walks of life to gather, relax, orate and bask in their collective freedoms.

But that might be coming to an end, as some organizations see it. Critics of the redesign including the ANSWER Coalition, Impeach Bush, Partnership for Civil Justice and more are complaining that the National Park Service's proposed redesign, still in its formative phase, is a subtle attempt to restrict that time-honored ability to congregate and complain.

For their part, they're suspicious of the National Park Service's recent partnership with the private foundation Trust for the National Mall to secure funding for the redesign, and they're not too happy about how current NPS Director Mary Bomar and the one she replaced, Fran P. Mainella, have connections to a Bush administration that is not exactly enthusiastic about either protest or the public trust.

And it isn't much of a stretch to figure out what the National Park Service thinks of that theory. "That is a complete red herring," explained William Line, communications officer for the National Park Service for the last six years and one-time journalist for ABC and NBC News. "It is completely and wrongly mischaracterizing what is going on to say that the national park service is limiting speech. The national park service reveres the First Amendment as much as any other American, and any statement by whatever groups to the contrary is patently false. I think they are interested in stirring up controversy."

Line and the National Park Service he serves, for their part, claim to harbor no such sinister plans. NPS, which was created in 1916 by Congress through the National Park Service Organic Act to "promote and regulate the use of the federal areas known as national parks, monuments and reservations," is currently considering four alternatives, including "doing nothing at all." In fact, according to Line, only one proposal suggests moving protests or gatherings be moved to a specially sanctioned area.

"The typical place where the marches and demonstrations take place is the eastern end," he added. "One alternative explores the possibility of an area on the eastern end, referred to as the Capitol reflecting pool, be made into a park service area."

But Partnership for Civil Justice has an alternative explanation. as one would expect in a battle this pitched. It is a conflict that promises to become more heated in coming weeks. The redesign's public comment period expired on Feb. 15, and plans have been turned over to everyone from cultural and environmental resource specialists to Bomar, who makes the final decision and, as Line reminds me, "serves at the pleasure of the president."

"They have issued proposals," countered Partnership for Civil Justice co-founder and attorney Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, "which include restrictions on protest activities, including the erection of stages because they might temporarily block the pristine view between the Washington Monument and the Capitol; mandatory 'rest' periods for the grass where the Mall would be off-limits; and, most significantly, the creation of a space where protesters would be expected and likely directed to gather near the Capitol. This is to be a stage-managed view of protests to turn the powerful opposition of the people coming together in mass assembly into a prettified outdoor lobbying group."