Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) continues to make federal waves in response to a December 1995 rally held outside the offices of Boston radio station WBCN to protest the airplay of the NORML benefit CD, Hempilation.
Having previously written to Attorney General Janet Reno this winter both condemning the actions of rally organizers, the Governors Alliance Against Drugs, and requesting an inquiry into whether federal law enforcement officials were involved, Frank is again pressuring the Attorney General to take action. “I’m writing to express my severe disappointment in the response I received [from DEA Administrator Thomas Constantine] to a letter I sent you in December about the conduct of the Drug Enforcement Administration in an effort by officials of the state and federal government to put inappropriate pressure on a radio station, and to do so in an inappropriate manner,” Frank asserts. “The response confirmed my fear that the Drug Enforcement Administration does not have the respect for free expression which ought to exist in the federal government, especially the Department of Justice, charged as it is with the protection of constitutional rights.”
According to eye-witness accounts, the Massachusetts based anti-drug group, in cooperation with representatives from the DEA and local law enforcement, organized and participated in a protest outside the offices of WBCN Boston to voice their disapproval of the station “giving airtime” to the NORML benefit CD, Hempilation. Witnesses note that protesters arrived in state vehicles, attendees were encouraged to “bring their squad cars,” and that an individual identified as the Boston liaison to the DEA accompanied Georgette Watson, Executive Director of the G.A.A.D, as she entered the station. This action prompted Bill Downing, president of Mass Cann NORML, to charge that “Th[is] sort of [behavior], when performed by government agents, [is] specifically [prohibited] by law.”
“It is one thing for government officials to express their opinions as to what is appropriate behavior by radio stations,” writes Frank in his follow-up letter to Ms. Reno. “It is quite another for a law enforcement official to arrive in these circumstances and participate in what is clearly an effort to pressure them on the spot. … We are talking here about a situation where a law enforcement officer — I assume armed with both a weapon and with the power of arrest — enters a radio station in the company of a state official who has organized a demonstration and joins with her — indeed at her specific request — in trying to persuade people at the station to stop playing certain music. …
“My impression is that we do not have enough law enforcement officials available to do actual law enforcement. Diverting one of them to spend his time seeking to pressure radio stations into changing their selections is it seems to me both a misuse of scarce resources as well as a misuse of the authority of law enforcement officials where people’s first amendment rights are involved. I therefore must ask that you promulgate policies which prohibit law enforcement officials from engaging in this sort of activity.”
For more information, please contact either Bill Downing of Mass/Cann NORML at (617) 944-2266 or Allen St. Pierre of NORML at (202) 483-5500.