Tom Dube calls it a “moment of aggravation.”

“As they were coming by us, they were all waving,” recalls Dube, of Greene, about the gaggle of Maine game wardens that had just stopped his snowmobile on a trail outside Greenville and Millinocket, last March.

“They were just antagonizing us.”

So Dube, exasperatead about his latest run-in with the wardens, raised his forearm and transmitted a one-finger gesture as old as civilization itself. Romans called it the “digitus impudicus,” drivers call it the “expressway digit” and President Bush calls it the “one-fingered victory salute.”

“I flipped them the bird,” says Dube. “I guess I hurt their feelings.”

Dube’s done more than that. He’s made a federal case – literally – out of his middle finger. Wardens charged Dube with disorderly conduct for his indiscretion, a charge the Piscataquis County District Attorney later dropped.

But Dube didn’t drop anything. He’s filed suit against two of the wardens, Michael Boyer and Ronald Dunham, for violating his civil rights. The case is scheduled for trial in federal court in Bangor on March 3.

Dube, who owns a car dealership in Lewiston, is representing himself.

By just approaching him after he conveyed a four-letter-word with one finger, Dube claims wardens violated his rights. What the wardens think is apparent by their terse, four-letter-word response to this allegation: “Deny.”

Roland “Danny” Martin, the commissioner of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, has said he’s unconcerned about the suit. “I don’t believe we have violated Mr. Dube’s civil rights,” Martin said, in a June statement to the Portland Press-Herald.

So what’s in a finger, anyway? The expression is called many things by many cultures. Now the federal court can lay a label upon it. While extending a middle finger has generally been deemed “legal” – as in, not basis for a criminal charge – whether it’s protected by law is debateable.

State-by-state examinations have resulted in many interpretations, everything from First Amendment protection to exclusion as either obscene or “fighting” speech. It depends how, when, where and how angry one is, when they flip.

Take Texas, for example, which is known for unforgiving justice. In 2003, courts vacated a disorderly conduct conviction for bird-flipping, even though the flipper unleashed it while passing another vehicle he had been tailgating.

In that case, judges said while the bird could provoke violent reactions, the gesture isn’t a “breach of the peace.”

The U.S. Supreme Court has yet to consider a case about protections for the finger. Legal scholars believe the court would side with the Founding Fathers.

“These days, even if the ‘bird is flying everywhere,’ it is a small price to pay for the freedom of speech the Constitution protects,” writes Ira Robbins, a law professor at American University, and author of “Digitus Impudicus: The Middle Finger and The Law,” which was published this year.

In it, Robbins says the Supreme Court has stated speech cannot be banned, even if considered offensive. And, in a point related to Dube’s case, the court has also said law enforcement officers – the frequent target of the birds – must exercise higher “degrees of restraintwhen faced with vulgar or offensive language or behavior.”

In other words, police not only cannot charge a bird-flipper with a crime, they must also endure the abuse.

The finger, it seems, is above the law.

Dube’s case is more complicated, though, than just a First Amendment test. Certain circumstances about Dube’s “aggravation” are debateable – he claims a warden shot from behind some trailside bushes to stop his sled, causing him to take “evasive action” and become “distraught, anxious or otherwise unsettled.”

He also claims this meddlesome behavior happens all the time. “I was stopped seven times last year,” says Dube. “When is enough enough? America can’t do this.”

Then there’s the quirk that Dube was armed with tape recorders (although they were malfunctioning) and a digital camera at the time of this confrontation, which has amplified allegations of a set-up. Dube denies this was the case.

The real problem, he maintains, is the warden service. “I’ve gotten dozens of phone calls [about this],” he says. “Everybody is fed up.”

And he’s willing to pay to make his point. So far, pushing the case has cost him about $1,200, not including his travel for court hearings first in Dover-Foxcroft, and now Bangor.

Dube says he’ll settle for his expenses and $1 as a victory. Oh, and changes to the Maine warden service, too, starting with their policies on stopping motorized vehicles.

“This is a pretty simple case – I flipped them the bird,” he says. “[But] this will change the way they do business. Win or lose.”

Anthony Ronzio is the Editorial Page Editor for the Sun Journal. He can be reached at [email protected], or 1-800-782-0759, ext. 2285.