Not only was Ralph Nader barred from engaging in the first presidential debate on October 3, he was threatened with arrest should he try to enter a nearby viewing room with a valid ticket.

Then, the same Massachusetts State Police officers prevented him from visiting a Fox News van providing live coverage of the debate. The Fox broadcast was fully authorized by the Presidential Debate Commission, and had invited Nader onto their broadcast.

PDC Chairman Paul Kirk said Nader was evicted as a "point man for the protests" that occurred outside of the debate hall. Protests that were partly, and vocally, about Nader's exclusion from participating in the debate.

Nader says he "took no part in those protests" and pointed out that simultaneous "demonstrations by pro-Gore supporters did not result in similar exclusionary treatment for Vice President Gore."

Never shy about giving as good as he gets, Nader threatened to sue in a letter to the PDC.

"As the Green Party candidate for the office of President, I am not used to being barred by police officers from attending public events for which I hold a ticket. Nor am I accustomed to being physically prevented from attending approved on-site newscasts and reaching national audiences from venues where I am invited to appear.

Indeed, the Commission's decision to deploy public officers at a public university to bar me from viewing the presidential debates and participating at a subsequent onsite newscast because of my political viewpoints and affiliation with the Green Party violates both Massachusetts State and federal civil rights laws."

Nader has demanded a formal, written apology from the PDC on behalf of both presidential candidates, a $25,000 contribution to the Appleseed Center for Electoral Reform at Harvard, and assurance that he will not be barred from attending future debates with a valid ticket.

He intends to file a suit if his demands aren't met by the morning of Tuesday, October 10.

Conditions being what they are, Nader will almost certainly end up filing his suit. But Nader being who he is, he probably won't be waiting for justice to ring him up on the telephone. He'll no doubt be at the next debate, holding a valid ticket.

The latest threatened suit by Nader joins another lawsuit he has against the PDC, currently under review by the Court of Appeals. This one challenges the corporate-sponsored PDC as being an illegal campaign contribution to the two corporate parties.

This latest incident illustrates how tenuous free speech rights are at the moment. The PDC invokes Nader's relationship to "protests," themselves fully protected free speech events, as if that justifies everything. The powerful have decided that they are threatened by certain speech--the anti-corporate, business-as-usual kind. They've declared open war on the speakers.