Posted on 02/10/2003 10:11:50 AM PST by areafiftyone
(1010 WINS) (NEW YORK) The First Amendment rights of anti-war demonstrators have not been violated by the city's decision to block them from marching past the United Nations on Saturday, a federal judge ruled Monday.
Citing "this time of heightened security," U.S. District Judge Barbara S. Jones said the city's need to protect the public outweighs the right of demonstrators to proceed with plans to march past the UN.
"While the court recognizes the distinct importance of marching, the city's restriction on marching is not a restriction on pure speech, but rather a restriction on the manner in which plaintiff may communicate its message," Jones wrote.
The protesters will be allowed to demonstrate in a designated area near the United Nations. The demonstration is being organized by United for Peace and Justice, a coalition of anti-war groups that is sponsoring rallies throughout the world on Saturday.
The city had rejected a parade permit for Saturday's rally because police could not assure public safety for up to 100,000 people without better information from organizers, city lawyer Rachel Goldman argued in court last week.
"The First Amendment right is not absolute. The plaintiffs do not have a right to march or protest any way they want, wherever they want and how they want," Goldman said. "We don't have a general ban against protest marches in the city of New York."
Chris Dunn, a staff attorney with the New York Civil Liberties Union, argued that the city was using "a theoretical possibility something terrible is going to happen to cancel the right of people to participate in peaceful protest."
He accused the city of quietly adopting a blanket policy of refusing parade permits for certain parts of Manhattan.
The United Nations is considered an especially sensitive security landmark after it was included in 1993 as a target of terrorists who plotted to blow up five New York City landmarks. The plot was thwarted and a dozen men were eventually convicted and sentenced to lengthy prison terms.
While I disagree with IAC/ANSWER'x message, I gotta give it up to them for at least being consistent.
I guarantee you that the vast majority of people protesting this war (not to mention germany, France, Belgium and Luxemburg) totally looked the other way when Clinton unilateraly bombed Serbia, so as to remove Lewinski's testimony off the front page.
I have honestly lost count of the number of times that libs have been blatantly hypocritical.
That was the earliest I could ascertain from their website but of course I could be off on the timeline.
i know answer sprung up right after 9/11 and is made up of IAC folks. I think IAC has been around for a while complaining about the sanctions on iraq, but I don't know if they "sprang up" at the time of the kosovo campaing.
It is also possible that IAC came about when Clinton pulled the inspectors(after Saddam accussed them of being spies and threatened to kick them out) and decided to launch a few airstrikes. Either way their roots and connections with WWP are disturbing to say the least and should be shown the light of day at every convienience. The organizers are unrepentant stalinists who support any brutal dictator or regime provided said brutes hate the US.
Can you imagine if something like Operation Rescue had been run by an arm of the Klu Klux Klan and how that would be covered and preceived? And they still used/are using government force under the BS RICO act to kill these people's right to protest abortion.
I am very glad the founding fathers did not care about inconvenience.
It is a shame we are letting the founders down by yielding our rights for something important to us at the moment.
If as you say, they do something other than protest, fine, we have laws to cover that without violating the Constitution. We should expect NYC to enforce the laws against violence, vandalism, blocking traffic with vigor, but we should not call for a ban on "peaceful protest" even if it is from scum.
Preventing the free speech, right to assembly of these sub-human, ungrateful, communist maggots is not proper and would simply lower us to their level. The left has succeeded for years in stifling the voice of the Conservative by marginalizing our opinions, ridicule, their dominance of the media and plain outright lying. I for one will not play their games.
I prefer to let them make fools of themselves. They do a very good job of that with their shrill voices spouting their Marxist BS. It's like a gay pride parade. How many people do you think see these prancing idiots and say to themselves "you know, I think they are right and I will now support their cause" or do you think maybe we look at them and say: "what friggen idiots, they better not come around my kids"?
And I am glad they were not in the habit of demanding that the exercise of their rights be funded by the forced appropriation of the money of others. I'm also glad they were content to leave some decisions to state and local governments.
It would seem to be pointless to discuss this further with you.
If you read my entire post, you will see that there are many legal and Constitutional ways for NYC to control this protest.
I am not willing to let NYC ignore the Constitution when they have other legal avenues at their disposal. If you chose otherwise, then you become part of the forces erroding our Constitution. I doubt that is what you want to do, but that will be the result. Good day my friend.
I agree. You make too many assumptions about my positions on this matter to make it worth my while.
A little less sanctimony and hyperbole would have been nice, too.
Have a good one...
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