Over the weekend I’ve been following reporting of the anti-war protests in Washington D.C. and hearing the number of attendees described again and again as “tens of thousands.” Today one of my favorite bloggers, while posting on the protests, said that the National Park Service has calculated the number of attendees at 10,047.  A total that is clearly embarrassingly low given the “hundreds of thousands” being claimed by some, and even the more reasonable “tens of thousands” being claimed by the media.

But what I found odd about the 10,047 number is that I wasn’t aware that the Park Service was even allowed to issue crowd counts after the brouhaha over the attendance at the Million Man March.  According to this National Public Radio report:

The US Park Police have been barred by Congress from issuing crowd estimates ever since they said that the Million Man March drew about 400,000.

I don’t know where the 10,047 number came from, but the larger issue here is one of the public’s right to know the true nature of these protests.  These protests are organized with the aim of influencing national opinion.  The number of attendees at a protest is a bellwether for how effective of influential that protest will be.  If we don’t have anyone doing a head count at these protests, or even providing an objective estimate of attendance, the only source we have for the size of the protests are the organizers themselves. 

And they, as we can see from their attendance claims for this most recent anti-war protest, are prone to wild exaggerations.

Update: A spokesman for United for Peace and Justice is claiming 400,000 attendees:

Police officials declined to provide crowd estimates, but Hany Khalil, a spokesman for United for Peace and Justice, said the protesters numbered about 400,000.

Dude’s off his rocker.