akagoldfish:

amandaols:

occupylouisville: Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is urging his City Council to enact strict new restrictions on many forms of protest on Wednesday, January 18. Local advocates say the Council is distracted by a fierce redistricting battle and that the new ordinance is likely to pass unnoticed, unless there’s a huge outcry. Occupy Rogers Park and Occupy South Side started an urgent petition on Change.org to tell Chicago’s aldermen to block these new restrictions on free speech in Chicago. Sign their petition now telling the Chicago City Council not to pass the Mayor’s new anti-protest legislation on Wednesday. According to the Chicago Tribune and the Wall Street Journal, the proposed ordinance imposes impossible-to-meet requirements, confusing restrictions and sky-high fines on protest organizers and participants, including: A 2-hour time limit on all protests;

on all protests; An increase in minimum fines from $50 to $1000 for violations of “parade regulations”;

for violations of “parade regulations”; A curfew in public spaces; and

in public spaces; and A requirement to pre-register “attention-getting devices”, including signs and megaphones, at least 1 week before the event. Pre-registering signs? Protest time-limits? Sounds like an Anti-Occupy bill to us. Putting limits on protesting at a time like this only exemplifies the reason why Occupy Chicago exists in the first place! Either allow them to protest and exercise their first amendment rights 24 hours a day, or assist them in establishing a better form of government and resolve their grievances! Love this movement.

Oh boy, the Nine Fingered Mayor of Chicago is at it again.

Let’s see here…

A 2-hour time limit on all protests;

Almost certainly unconstitutional

An increase in minimum fines from $50 to $1000 for violations of “parade regulations”;

Not strictly unconstitutional, but since the motive for the increase in fines seems to be an attempt to chill speech activity this is probably open to challenge on 1st amendment grounds.

A curfew in public spaces; and

Sadly this is probably consituitional vis-a-vis precedent regarding ‘time place and manner’, unless there’s something particularly odious about how it’s implemented or the Supreme Court gets involved and decides to overturn a substantial amount of case law.

A requirement to pre-register “attention-getting devices”, including signs and megaphones, at least 1 week before the event.

A requirement to pre-register signs? Get the fuck out of here. What good faith basis does the city have for that?

Hopefully if the city is foolish enough to enact any of these restrictions the ACLU will get involved and seek an injunction. I think the city will have a very, very hard time defending the necessity of these measures in a court of law.

Rahm Emmanuel is a dictatorial autocrat who’s used to getting his way. He has absolutely no regard for the constraints of the Constitution or the authority of the judiciary, and would seem to hold the rights of the city’s citizens in complete contempt.

I never thought anything could make me miss Mayor Daley, but there you have it.