I am so-o-o-o not a Constitutional scholar, but I had always interepreted the First Amendment to mean that it was unconstitutional to make laws that prohibited or abridged the right of the people peaceably to assemble. Moreover, I had interpreted that to include all American people…not just rich ones. Public saftey must be weighed in considering requests for a permit, but other than that, We, the People, (even poor people) have a “right” to bring our greivances directly to those who we feel need to hear them.
For all the talk of patriotism flying about these days, this strikes me as incredibly unAmerican:
Georgia Passes Laws Limiting Protests
The coastal city of Brunswick, where [Robert] Randall hopes to gather up to 10,000 people to protest the world leaders’ [G-8] summit, passed a law last month that places conditions on public demonstrations.
Organizers of protests like Randall’s “G-8 Carnival” must put up refundable deposits equal to the city’s estimated cost for clean up and police protection. Demonstrations may only last 2 hours, 30 minutes. Signs and banners may not be carried on sticks that might be brandished as weapons. And the signs may not be larger than 2-by-3 feet.
“This law would not exist if the G-8 was not coming here,” said Randall, 51, a local therapist who has attended demonstrations since the Vietnam War. “It makes it impossible to express oneself through assembly or speech on public property unless you have money.”
Perhaps most disturbing in the growing trend of such laws is, as Randall notes, that they are clearly being passed only for one upcoming event…creating a temporary, but still unlawful, protest free zone that otherwise wouldn’t exist…and probably isn’t intended to last.
Miami banned props such as water pistols, balloons and sticks before demonstrators arrived for a global trade summit in November. The city repealed the law last month in the face of lawsuits.
I can’t blame cities for trying to curb the violence they’ve seen in other places—the money hosting an event like this must bring in makes it attractive; the prestige even more so—but toying with First Amendment rights is a deplorable way to try and do that. With the money and pestige comes responsibility. Passing laws that attempt to shirk that responsibility is shameless.
Eddie see 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts which should give you some pause on how some of the Founders viewed the First Amendment.
The irony is that the precedent for this kind of law was set in the 1980s to combat pro-life protestors.
Let’s not forget the so-called “First Amendment Zones” set up so that the news cameras won’t pick up anti-Bush protests when the President comes to visit.
Timmy,
Not completely sure how that relates, but thanks for the heads up…interesting reading…especially this factiod
That’s the system working as it should…
The irony is that the precedent for this kind of law was set in the 1980s to combat pro-life protestors.
Agreed that those attempts to protect individuals seeking health care were misguided, but when you compare one woman to the gathered leaders of the 8 most powerful nations on the planet, you do have to wonder if there’s a real parallel here?
Besides, the Supreme Court corrected any unconstitutional inconsistencies there…I’m still waiting for them to stop this current wave of nonsense.
I’m still waiting for them to stop this current wave of nonsense.
Betcha they don’t do anything about it till January 2005 – at earliest.
Not completely sure how that relates
Well if you read the acts you would.
Jes, please remember who started that wave of particular nonsense.
Jes, please remember who started that wave of particular nonsense.
Sure. George W. Bush did. Next question?
Well if you read the acts you would.
I read them in their entirety Timmy…(thanks for the faith)…still don’t see the connection you’re inferring…
It’s OK to suggest that people go read something as part of a discussion up until that includes your mind… 😛
Sure. George W. Bush did.
Ding, that would be wrong.
Eddie, you should know better than most that I’m mindless.
Ding, that would be wrong.
Ding! That would be wrong.
We can go on like this forever, Timmy, but facts are facts. George W. Bush’s handlers invented the idea of having a “First Amendment Zone” to avoid having negative placards in the news cameras. You may not like it, but so it goes. Roll on November.
I know better than most that you have a point, Timmy…I’m just hestitant to jump to some conclusion about what it is.
The 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts were dispicable, clearly. But assuming that Adams became corrupted while in power, and was not necessarily so while helping shape the Bill of Rights, this suports my original point that toying around with the First Amendment should not be tolerated. Doing so is an indication of corruption.
Somebody help me out here, please.
I’m having trouble finding the part of the Constitution that talks about “Free Speech Zones.”
Is it in the first amendment? Or somewhere buried in one of the articles? Maybe I’m just not reading the thing carefully enough.
Asdf: You have to wonder why gun control people didn’t come up with the idea of “Second Amendment Zones” – small fenced-off areas in which people could freely exercise their second amendment rights. But it evidently took someone like George W. Bush to decide that it’s wrong for the whole of the US to be considered a First Amendment Zone – just as if the Constitution really applied to everybody, and not just that set of people right-minded enough to support President Bush!
In fact, keep going through the whole bill of rights: in Third Amendment Zones people have the right to refuse to have soldiers quartered in their house: in Fourth Amendment Zones people have the right not to be subject to illegal searches: in Fifth Amendment Zones (carefully chosen so as not to include any actual courts of law, I’m sure) people have the right not to bear witness against themselves: in Sixth Amendment Zones (outlined as for Fifth Amendment Zones) people shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial: in Seventh Amendment Zones people shall have the right to trial by jury: in Eighth Amendment Zones excessive bail shall not be required… and the best one, as far as Bush & Co are concerned – nowhere in the US except in Ninth Amendment Zones shall Constitutional rights “not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
Roll on November…
“Agreed that those attempts to protect individuals seeking health care were misguided, but when you compare one woman to the gathered leaders of the 8 most powerful nations on the planet, you do have to wonder if there’s a real parallel here?”
That isn’t how the precedent worked. Operationaly the violence of an extremely small sub-set of pro-life protestors was imputed to the whole movement. As a result the protests of the whole movement were forced out of public areas near abortion clinics.
Considering that nearly every anti-globalisation protest nowadays turns violent, and almost no pro-life protests were ever violent (but the one or two that were got imputed to the whole movement), it is crystal clear that if you can severely limit pro-life protests (and you can) you ought to be able to severely limit anti-globalisation protests on the same saftety grounds.
One of the keys to First Amendment jurisprudence is that the government doesn’t get to discriminate on the basis of the message. So it can make safety choices, but it doesn’t get to notice the difference in pro-life protestorts and anti-globalisation protestors except insomuch as they have a noted proclivity to dangerous activity.
Actually I’m not even sure that any violent pro-life protests are really the issue. I believe that the violence of the abortion clinic bombings was imputed to the protestors, but I could be wrong about that. In any case, the nexus between anti-globalisation protests and violence is far closer than the nexus between pro-life protests and violence. So if safety concerns make it Constitutionally permitted to restrict the latter (and apparently they do) there isn’t much room to complain about restrictions on the former.
Welcome to Constitutional blowback.
If Georgia or Florida are concealed-carry states, the protestors should apply for the concealed-carry permits and show up and see what happens. It would be fun to watch second-amendment conservative zealots react judicially and legislatively when they find out first amendment zealots on the left (if we’re assuming this is who is protesting) are carrying lethal and legal force to protect themselves against governments run by conservatives who, last I looked, hated government.
Then we can have real noisy constitutional blowback.
I can’t speak to the comparison as far as constitutionality goes, but from a pragmatic point of view it’s hardly fair to compare protests at abortion clinics with protests at the G-8 summits. While the latter are aimed at policy makers, the former are targeting ordinary citizens who have no say on abortion policy.
I was gearing up to deconstruct your statement Sebastian, but KenB did it perfectly.
One woman walking into a clinic making a private decision
Leaders of 8 nations making decisions that affect us all
If there has to be one that’s more protected from protest than the other, it’s a no-brainer.
…but this is a nice subtle way to hijack the thread and make it about something other than First Amendment rights…I’ll have to add it to my list of things to look out for…
And that is your opinion which you would like to be free to express.
Pro-life demonstraters have their own views which they would like to express.
The Supreme Court has totally removed the influence of leaders from the abortion decision. The only people are allowed to be influenced at this point are individual women.
“…but this is a nice subtle way to hijack the thread and make it about something other than First Amendment rights”
No hijacking intended. I thought that political speech through protest had something to do with the First Amendment. I thought you might appreciate the irony that precedents designed to hamper conservative speech have been turned to hamper left-wing speech. I thought that you might want to make that a lesson about not restricting anyone’s speech because you can’t trust the rules to go in your favor forever.
Sorry for being so stupid.
Sebastian, it would be nice if you actually answered Edward and KenB’s point, which is:
Which group of people more deserves to be protected from a group of protesters exercising their First Amendment rights?
-Individuals making private medical decisions that affect no one except themselves
-Leaders of G8 nations making decisions that affect the world
You can certainly argue that neither group deserves protection, because the First Amendment overrides all. Or you can argue that the First Amendment should not apply except inside small fenced areas far away from anyone who could be affected (that the First Amendment should now be repealed.) Both would be consistent viewpoints.
But what you appear to be doing, Sebastian, is arguing that “protecting” the G8 leaders against the First Amendment is justified because of actions to protect individual women going into medical clinics on their own private business. And that’s absurd.
“Which group of people more deserves to be protected from a group of protesters exercising their First Amendment rights?
-Individuals making private medical decisions that affect no one except themselves
-Leaders of G8 nations making decisions that affect the world”
ON the record? Neither. Off the record? The first group, of course.
Now we flip it on its head: which group has abused their ‘peacefully assemble’ rights more?
– The prolife movement
– The antiglobalization movement
In that case, I’m going to go with the latter… to the point where I don’t have an issue with cities using Seattle as a Horrible Example when regulating their own antiglobalization ‘visitors’. This right cuts both ways.
Moe, your last comment is pretty much an argument for collective punishment. “The antiglobalization movement” is not one unified group: it’s many, many different groups, each composed of many individuals, and the vast majority of individuals and groups are there to demonstrate peacefully. This was so even in Seattle.
Some “prolife protesters” have committed deliberate, cold-blooded murder. By your logic applied to “the antiglobalization movement” we should assume that all “prolife protesters” might commit murder, because some have. The truth is far more complex with regard to prolife protestors, who no more all deserve to be assumed to be coldblooded murderers, than all globalisation movement protestors deserve to be assumed to be violent rioters.
im going to be ducking tomatos with this comment – but here it goes (yieeks)
They could completely avoid the evil necessity of these laws by simply beating the crap out of any vandals that they catch… or… using acid filled water guns on the eyes of anyone they catch shooting such devices off…
That might infringe less on the constitution, and at the same time teach some of these loons a lesson or two about personal responsibility.
Now lets discuss how this isnt cruel and unusual punnishment….
Sorry — but vandalism and acid filled water guns are not constitutionally protected privlidges, and are infact illegal. I have an extreme distaste for people abusing private property “… to the point where I don’t have an issue with cities using Seattle as a Horrible Example when regulating their own antiglobalization ‘visitors’.” To quote someone a bit more elegant than my-self.
“But what you appear to be doing, Sebastian, is arguing that “protecting” the G8 leaders against the First Amendment is justified because of actions to protect individual women going into medical clinics on their own private business. And that’s absurd.”
It only appears that way because you aren’t listening to my explanation of the actual Court decisions.
It isn’t about protecting people from speech. It is about protecting people from violence associated with a type of speech.
In the context of abortion, the speech was linked to violence (extremely rare violence which makes it quite UNLIKE the anti-globalisation protests). This violence was said to lend to an air of intimidation that the individual women ought to be protected from. But it all comes back to the violence and threat of harm because that allows you to link to old First Amendment doctrines like ‘fighting words’ or the danger of yelling ‘Fire’ in a crowded theater. This very narrow fear was turned into extremely broad restrictions on pro-life protestors of all types.
The steps are violence by someone who agrees with you–>this creates an ‘air of intimidation’–>this means your speech gets limited.
Anyway I don’t think you have to take those steps with the anti-globalisation protests. They are violent in almost every instance. Therefore, even under older rules you could probably restrict them, but under the regime trailblazed by pro-choice groups you can definitely restrict them.
I don’t think you restrict the protests in either case, though when a group has a history of violence you are certainly justified in taking the precaution of watching them more closely than other groups.
I’m much more hard-lined on free speech. I don’t think that anti-globalisation protestors should be limited in their legitimate protest (though they should be heavily policed since they have a well established history of violence.) I definitely don’t think that pro-life protestors (with a much smaller history of violence and almost none at the protests) should be restricted. Speech shouldn’t be regulated on general content, at all. Pretty much the only exception is related to violence or immediate injury, and I’m ok with the traditional fighting words/’fire’ exceptions.
And once again as far as who should be protected from speech (in a non-legal sense), G8 leaders certainly should not be protected from speech. And if you want to protect women who are thinking about abortions from pro-life speech, you are completely removing the right of pro-lifers to change the situation at all because they already can’t protest to Congress or the President, as the Supreme Court has dictated that legislatures and Executive branches have almost no power in that area. And if you think that stripping people in general of the ability to communicate with decision-makers on crucial issues at or near the time of the decision, you aren’t a free speech advocate at all.
This very narrow fear was turned into extremely broad restrictions on pro-life protestors of all types.
Except that pro-life protesters are in fact still allowed to hang around outside clinics where women can terminate pregnancies and make whatever comments they like to the women going in. cite And, you know, while I find this behavior objectionable, I concede that it’s their First Amendment right to peaceably assemble, providing they do nothing to interfere with other people going about their lawful business.
Anyway I don’t think you have to take those steps with the anti-globalisation protests. They are violent in almost every instance.
Rubbish. The vast majority of anti-globalisation protests are non-violent.
And if you want to protect women who are thinking about abortions from pro-life speech, you are completely removing the right of pro-lifers to change the situation at all because they already can’t protest to Congress or the President, as the Supreme Court has dictated that legislatures and Executive branches have almost no power in that area.
Any pro-lifer has the same right anyone else has to state their opinions publicly. What I think is creepy and distasteful is that some of them hang around outside medical clinics and make nasty comments to women going in. The argument that they’re just trying to change the situation is silly: there are literally dozens of more productive ways that pro-lifers could decrease the number of abortions carried out in the US* than by hanging around outside clinics making nasty comments.
*For example, they could be out there lobbying against the “abstinence education” movement and for thorough, detailed, and early sex education in schools. Or they could be working to provide free contraception to all who need it. Or they could campaign for free daycare centers and child-friendly working hours.
And if you think that stripping people in general of the ability to communicate with decision-makers on crucial issues at or near the time of the decision, you aren’t a free speech advocate at all.
Well – as I’ve just pointed out – “prolife protesters” are in fact free to hang out near medical clinics and make whatever creepy remarks they like to women going in, if they think those women intend to terminate their pregnancy. If “prolife protesters” like to think of this as “communicating with decision-makers”, that’s their problem. Providing they make no threats and do not attempt to block the women entering the clinic, what they are doing is creepy and distasteful, but hardly going to stop any woman who has already consulted with her doctor and made the medical decision to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.
Where “prolife protesters” have been stopped is when they have in fact committed acts of violence against clinic property, or threats against clients attending, and this is hardly the same as a crackdown on all anti-globalization protesters because a very few are violent. There is a difference between private citizens making private medical decisions that affect only themselves, and public figures making public decisions that affect the whole world – a distinction which, in raising the “prolife protester” placard, you are trying to blur.
owww, my eyes
Oh, damn… sorry!
Let this be a lesson to me to click the preview button first – I forgot to close the HTML tag.
Sorry, sorry, sorry.
No, in some states, pro-life protestors are required to stay a very long ways away from the abortion clinics to hold their protests. I researched the issue a few years ago (on an old computer so I would have to dig to get the details). But in any case, my view is that neither group should be restricted in general communicative action and both groups should be restrained from engaging in violence.
But in any case, my view is that neither group should be restricted in general communicative action and both groups should be restrained from engaging in violence.
I agree.
Which may be the first time that you and I have ever agreed on anything…
I would, however, argue that if a group of “prolife protesters” outside a clinic is in the habit of yelling ugly remarks at women going in, and if they don’t police themselves after warnings, then I’d be fairly sympathetic towards a decision to temporarily make them stay far away from the clinic until they agree to quit doing it: they have a right to make their point, not to try and scare women off.