Paper: ACLU should chill out on DNC plans

The News editorialates:

What are the city of Denver and the Secret Service thinking? Don't they know their concern for the safety and security of delegates and others at this summer's Democratic National Convention is seriously crimping the style of any number of protesters?

Plans have to be made, after all. The anger of everyone from Re-create 68 to the American Indian Movement to Troops Out Now, not to mention CodePink and Americans for Safe Access (to marijuana, that is), must be accommodated. It's guaranteed by the Constitution, for goodness' sake, that protesters be informed months before the event where they'll be allowed to go. . . .

But seriously, folks:

Up to a point, we're sympathetic. But here we are nearly 3 1/2 months from the event. If the ACLU is right that the Secret Service might not settle on its plans until July - and we can scarcely imagine the logistical nightmare a security operation of this magnitude must present - that still leaves demonstrators nearly two months to arrange their activities or protest whatever strictures will be placed on them.

The trouble comes if an early-July decision is substantially delayed. Then the situation really would approach the intolerable. So, we understand the anxiety of the ACLU and those for whom it's fighting. Until July, though, we think the ACLU should shelve its lawsuit and exercise something other than its free-speech rights - a little patience.