Protecting Face-to-Face Protest

From The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/09/opinion/protecting-face-to-face-protest.html

By RONALD J. KROTOSZYNSKI JR.

Published: April 8, 2012

Tuscaloosa, Ala.

EVERY four years, we witness the spectacle of the presidential nominating conventions. And every four years, host cities, party leaders and police officials devise ever more creative ways of distancing protesters from the politicians, delegates and journalists attending these stage-managed affairs.

The goal is to trivialize and isolate dissenting speech without actually banning protest outright. One result is something of a Potemkin village: government proclaims its full commitment to respecting the First Amendment without actually permitting any observable dissent to take place near the convention.

Tampa, Fla., which will host the Republicans from Aug. 27 to 30, and Charlotte, N.C., which will host the Democrats from Sept. 3 to 7, are already following the trend. Charlotte has adopted an ordinance that expands the power of the local police to detain, search and arrest persons in its downtown core. (The Charlotte ordinance also bans camping on city-owned property, a clear response to the Occupy movement.) Tampa is also considering new municipal laws to limit, and in some instances flatly prohibit, downtown protest activity.

Citizens generally have a right to use public streets, sidewalks and parks for expressive activity — unless the government has a substantial reason for requiring expressive activity to take place somewhere else or at another time. Because the rights of speech, assembly and association do not include a right to communicate a particular message to a particular audience, the government’s willingness to let would-be protesters speak somewhere else, some other time, has usually been seen by courts as satisfying the First Amendment.

No reasonable person could argue that local officials or federal courts should ignore the genuine imperatives of security. In the post-9/11 world, and only a year after a gunman killed six people and critically wounded Representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona during an outdoor public meeting in Tucson, it might seem naïve to suggest that ordinary members of the public should have a right to communicate directly with elected government officials. Yet if democracy is to function properly, the ability of ordinary citizens to petition their government — directly and in person, if they choose — is essential.

Although virtually ignored today, a right to petition is part of the First Amendment, and the Constitution does not leave it to the government to decide who should have access to it.

Continue reading at: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/09/opinion/protecting-face-to-face-protest.html