A group protesting the Bush administration's use of electronic surveillance planned to host a rally today at 4:30 p.m. at the New Boston Kmart parking lot.

However, those plans changed after Kmart management decided against allowing the Fellowship of Reconciliation to rally on its property.

The rally will now be on the sidewalk near Wagner Rental on U.S. 52. The time has not changed.

“It's not affiliated with Wagner Rental, it's just on a sidewalk near there,” group member Connie Altman said.

Altman first spoke to Mayor Jim Warren before rescheduling the event.

“It's public property,” he said. “You can't stop an assembly as long as it's under control.”

Kmart store manager Debbie Hanes originally gave the group permission to have the rally in the parking lot.

“I told them as long as there are no customer complaints and they don't disrupt traffic, it's OK,” she said on Monday.

However, on Tuesday, Hanes said she was originally told the event was to honor two servicemen returning from Iraq, not a protest against the Bush administration.

She said she could not authorize a political rally and would not comment further.

But Altman disagreed with Hanes.

“When I asked her if we could have it, I told her what it was about,” she said. “She didn't ask any more questions about it.”

The group opposes a National Security Agency surveillance program because some say it bypasses the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. That act forbids domestic eavesdropping without a court order.

Part of the purpose of the rally is to ask Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Loveland, to hold President Bush responsible for the program.

But Schmidt said the program does not affect ordinary citizens. Instead, she said it is in place to monitor incoming telephone calls from known terrorists.

“We are at war and we cannot forget that,” Schmidt said. “We are fighting an enemy that wants to destroy us.”

JEFF BARRON can be reached at (740) 353-3101, ext. 236.