By Courthouse News Service

Two Secret Service agents must face claims that they violated the First Amendment rights of protesters at a 2004 campaign stop for President George W. Bush, the 9th Circuit ruled Monday.

The federal appeals court in Portland, Ore., denied qualified immunity to agents Tim Wood and Rob Savage, finding that they may have engaged in viewpoint discrimination when they ordered anti-Bush demonstrators to move two blocks away from the president’s hotel and undergo security screening. Bush supporters, meanwhile, were allowed to get closer to the hotel without screening.

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