Clear and Present Danger: University of Florida Student Tasered When he Refused to Give up the Mic

As law students we should all be very disturbed when we see a student being arrested and tasered for peacefully asking an elected representative some questions during an open mic question and answer session. Andrew Meyer, a University of Florida student, was wrestled from the microphone while he was asking Senator John Kerry some questions and he was subsequently tasered while being held on the ground by multiple police officers. Here is the video:

As you'll notice, Meyer is holding a yellow book, which has been identified as a book entitled, Armed Madhouse, written by investigative journalist Greg Palast. From this book, Meyer formulated and asked Kerry the following three questions:

1. Given that you won the 2004 election per Greg Palast's book, "Armed Madhouse", why did you concede so on the day of the election itself when there were many reports on the day of the election of disenfranchisement of black voters and corrupted vote count?
2. If you are really so opposed to the Invasion of Iraq(Iran?), why don't you urge impeachment of Bush now before he can invade Iran? Clinton was impeached for a blow job, invading Iraq/Iran is much for serious than that?
3. Were you a member of the secret society Skull & Bones in college?

Is this a dangerous book? Dangerous enough to justify tasering a student? And who is threatened by this book?

Democracy Now has a good interview with Palast about his book, which reveals how the 2000 and 2004 elections were fixed. It also delves deeply into the motives behind the Iraq war, which is about oil but not in the way most of us think. He also points out that Chavez is willing to sell the US oil at a price far cheaper than the oil the US purchases from the Middle East, and he explains why the US would rather assassinate Chavez than lower the price of gas.

We should not forget that this is not the first incident of university police tasering a student. During fall semester 2006, a UCLA student was tasered when he failed to show his student ID card (see it here on Iranian Truth).

UPDATE: FP Passport has posted an article entitled, Ahmadinejad Has More Rights Than a US College Student, which is worth reading. Here is an excerpt:

Something is seriously wrong with this picture: An American student enrolled at the University of Florida is denied his constitutionally-protected right to question an elected leader in a nonviolent way. He's tackled by a half dozen police officers, tasered, and thrown in jail. Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be given free reign to hold court before a group of students and faculty — and hordes of television cameras — at Columbia University next week.

***

What's more worrisome, however, is the realization that, while Ahmadinejad will enjoy and test the very limits of the freedoms Americans are supposed to enjoy, a U.S. citizen was denied this priviledge earlier this week. American universities, one is left to assume, value the insights of a man like Ahmadinejad more than they do those of their own students.

There is something rotten in America.