You guys really like taking a losing position, don't you? Who said the 1A is subject to interpretation by the Courts? Marshall in 1803?
That has nothing to do with majority rule. Sure it does - a majority elects representatives, who along with others, pass laws restricting core Constitutional rights. In this case, a minority of dirty hippies, leftists and other malcontents now need to "follow the law" governing the 1A.
Suppose a few hundred protestors decided to link hands across all the bridges/tunnels leading into/out of Manhatten (all public property), blocking traffic, and singing songs. Maybe they decide to set up camp right across those highways.
As an earlier poster noted (finally thank G_d), the core issue is "peaceable". Is purposely blocking traffic by linking hands "peaceable"? Of is the sheer number of people overflowing into streets "not peaceable", and therefore in need of some serious hand banging to 'follow the law'?
I'll say it once more, because I'd like to see conservatives come out on the right side of this issue, but we should be paying attention to these movements. Anyone foolishly supporting arbitrary restrictions is simply giving cover to other restrictions, such as the 2nd and 4th. (Or do people here like TSA booty calls?)
Question for you semantic, is the production of & possession of bestiality kiddie porn & yelling fire in a crowded theater when there is no fire protected by the 1st amendment in your view of it?
Does your right of free speech include spray painting graffiti on public structures & the private property of others ? Does the right of free speech include interfering with the free movement of emergency medical service personnel in the performance of their duties thru the city streets?
The police cited several incidents of vandalism ,health code violations ,interfering with EMS services as reason for declaring the squatter camp an “Unlawful assembly “ ie a not peaceable mob. The members of this camp were given days worth of warning .
The government duly elected by the citizens of Oakland had come to the conclusion that the squatter camp was no longer a peaceable assembly & acted in accordance with the laws of the state of California & the City of Oakland . If you have a case that there was wholesale violation of either the US Constitution or the California constitution sue the city of Oakland it’s your civic duty .
Wow. You've really mixed up your apples and dishwashers here. You're right - Marshall came up with judicial review in 1803, to which you apparently are objecting here. But that's the exact opposite position to the one you should be taking. Because absent judicial review, there is no mechanism to protect the rights you claim to be protecting.
You are arguing here that a state law that restricts assembly in this manner is unconstitutional. But it takes a court to strike down a state or municipal law for impermissibly restricting First Amendment rights. Yet here you are arguing that courts shouldn't have the right of judicial review at all. No Marbury v. Madison (I'll skip all the 14th amendment incorporation stuff), no Supreme Court to tell Oakland that it can't do this. So who tells Oakland that it can't ban protesting period, if not a court decision saying that it violates a Constitutional right?
Yet, you are against judicial review. That's just...an odd position to take.
As an earlier poster noted (finally thank G_d), the core issue is "peaceable".
Really? Where does that word appear in the First Amendment? Who decided that it is only peacable protests that are okay, because that limitation doesn't appear in the Constitution. Whose role is it to interpret the First Amendment as only protecting peacable protests?
Is purposely blocking traffic by linking hands "peaceable"?
I don't know. Who decides what is "peaceable" and what isn't? Who decides whether or not protestors can block a road? You?