This time, they’re protecting us from protestors outside a Honey Baked Ham store. I’ll sleep better tonight.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia today filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of two vegan protesters who were subjected to false imprisonment, false arrest and harassment by officials of the Homeland Security Division of DeKalb County and the DeKalb County Police Department.

The lawsuit stems from an incident on December 20, 2003, when Caitlin Childs and Christopher Freeman were participating in a peaceful animal cruelty protest on public property outside a Honey Baked Ham store on Buford Highway in DeKalb County. After the protest, Childs and Freeman noticed that they were being observed and photographed by a man in an unmarked car. They approached the car and wrote down the make, model, color and license plate number on a piece of paper. After leaving the protest site, they noticed the unmarked car was following them so they pulled over into a parking lot.

According to the lawsuit, both a uniformed police officer and the man in the unmarked car, who was later identified as Detective D.A. Gorman of the Homeland Security Division, pulled in behind Childs and Freeman and ordered them to exit their car. Detective Gorman then demanded that Childs turn over the piece of paper on which she had copied his license tag number. Childs refused to hand the paper over to him, and was handcuffed and searched by a male officer, despite her request to be searched only by a female officer. Both Childs and Freeman were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, and police confiscated the piece of paper and Childs’ house keys. Both individuals were released from custody, but neither the piece of paper nor the keys were returned to Childs.

At this point, a criminal case against Childs and Freeman has not been pursued by DeKalb County.

The ACLU argues that by stopping and detaining Childs and Freeman for no legal reason and then refusing to tell them why they had been pulled over, Detective Gorman and the DeKalb County Police Department deprived them of their right to be secure in their person and to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. The officials’ actions violated the First, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the federal and state constitutions, charged the ACLU.

So it’s o.k. for Homeland Security to stand around taking pictures of protestors, but it’s not o.k. for those whose photographs were taken to walk over and get the license plate of the unmarked car. Reminds me of the KGB stories that a Russian literature professor I knew used to tell.