Case in point

Teachers wearing "Protect Our Civil Liberties" t-shirts were thrown out of a Bush rally:

"We chose this phrase specifically because we didn't think it would be offensive or degrading or obscene," said Tania Tong, 34, a special education teacher.

The women got past the first and second checkpoints and were allowed into the Jackson County fairgrounds, but were asked to leave and then escorted out of the event by campaign officials who allegedly told them their T-shirts were "obscene."

Oh, and so much for the first Amendment:

When Cheney visited Eugene last month, the Register-Guard newspaper reported that Perry Patterson, 54, was cited for criminal trespassing for blurting out the word "No" after Cheney claimed that the Bush administration had made the world safer.

Maybe Sargeant Jennifer Bills of Eugene Police Internal Affairs (541-682-5126) has some insight into when we started living in a police state.