So What's the Point of the Freedom Walk Again?

To commemorate the fourth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the Department of Defense has organized a much-discussed "Freedom Walk" from the Pentagon to the Mall, where Clint Black will regale marchers with a concert. So is this a demonstration of American democracy in action? Well, you'd never know from appearances.

As described in yesterday's Washington Post:

Organizers of the Pentagon's 9/11 memorial Freedom Walk on Sunday are taking extraordinary measures to control participation in the march and concert, with the route fenced off and lined with police and the event closed to anyone who does not register online by 4:30 p.m. today.

The march, sponsored by the Department of Defense, will wend its way from the Pentagon to the Mall along a route that has not been specified but will be lined with four-foot-high snow fencing to keep it closed and "sterile," said Allison Barber, deputy assistant secretary of defense.

The U.S. Park Police will have its entire Washington force of several hundred on duty and along the route, on foot, horseback and motorcycles and monitoring from above by helicopter. Officers are prepared to arrest anyone who joins the march or concert without a credential and refuses to leave, said Park Police Chief Dwight E. Pettiford.

. . .
Pettiford said officers would patrol to keep interlopers out because the Pentagon restricted the event in its permit application. "That is what their permit called for, so we have those fences to keep the public out."

. . .
One restricted group will be the media, whose members will not be allowed to walk along the march route. Reporters and cameras are restricted to three enclosed areas along the route but are not permitted to walk alongside participants walking from the Pentagon, across the Memorial Bridge to the Mall.

Despite that last restriction, a few local TV and radio stations are still co-sponsoring the event (The Washington Post had been an early sponsor, but they pulled out for PR reasons a few weeks ago). Other sponsors include AOL, McDonalds, and Subway.

Marchers are being separated from the general public, and the media is not allowed to cover it. Does this mean that only the people protected within the fences are celebrating freedom? Are those of us free to roam the world outside of the fences against freedom somehow?

I'm looking forward to how this will play on TV. Fenced off against the rest of the world, the Freedom Marchers won't be able to avoid sending the wrong message.