TRI In The News

Democracy is Messy, and Noisy

March 14, 2012

From The Daily Press

One of the burdens of public office is that, on occasion, you actually have to listen to the public.

I mean this literally: Cock an ear in their direction, brace yourself and let them have their say.

They might be challenging you at a town hall meeting, or wagging a finger as they scold you on a street corner. They might carry big signs and chant things that would make your grandmother blush.

Nobody said free speech was always polite and well-groomed and G-rated.

But efforts are underway from Williamsburg to Washington, D.C., to prevent citizens from exercising their constitutional right to speak out. To restrict both the content or manner of their speech and precisely where they can express it.

In Williamsburg, the City Council is weighing an ordinance that would corral any citizen who wishes to speak out into designated free speech zones. It would also restrict, ironically enough, the Colonial Williamsburg Historic Area, dedicated to preserving and dramatizing the roots of our democracy.

In Richmond, meanwhile, citizens sitting on the steps of the Capitol Building recently to protest controversial bills were handcuffed and arrested, while state troopers geared up for a full-blown riot cordoned off orderly demonstrators chanting nearby.

And in Washington, Congress overwhelmingly passed, and President Barack Obama just signed, a bill that essentially criminalizes speech as silly as glitter-bombing a presidential candidate.

First, the Williamsburg ordinance. This proposal isn't intended to protect public officials, per se, but apparently to protect the public from street preachers and anyone else with a soapbox. But the ordinance is so broad, the restricted spaces so narrow, it tramples free speech like a bull in a pewter shop.

"While other communities have succumbed to the authoritarian impulse to adopt free speech zones as a thinly veiled effort to minimize or altogether mute dissent and the free exchange of ideas in public," writes John Whitehead of The Rutherford Institute in a letter to the council, "it would be a profound misstep … that flies in the face of the First Amendment's guarantee to freedom of speech" for Williamsburg to do so.

The arrests on the Capitol steps resulted when protesters technically had no permit to be there at the time, and refused to move when asked.

But bear in mind this is a public building, and protestors weren't unruly or impeding anyone. They were sitting in a small area and, if precedent were any indication, would have left just as peaceably once they felt their message was delivered.

But law enforcement came loaded for bear in armor and riot shields, a SWAT team at the ready.

It's one thing to be prepared, and quite another for peace officers to manifest as the oppressive (fire)arm of a police state.

Finally, chances are you've never heard of the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011. By its title, you'd think it had to do with grounds keeping at the Mall or shooing tourists off the White House lawn.

Instead, it's an interesting tweak to existing law that many fear can — and will — make it a federal crime to, for instance, heckle the vice president during a speech, wander into a restricted area during a political protest, or, as has happened many times already, shower glitter on Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich.

Nicknamed the Trespass Bill, it extends to anyone protected by the Secret Service — including high-level presidential candidates — and any building or grounds designated, even temporarily, a "special event of national significance."

This includes a ballgame attended by someone under Secret Service protection, a diner when a presidential candidate stops by to schmooze, up to and including G8 and G20 summits, which are catnip for political protests.

The law criminalizes the obvious, like someone with a dangerous weapon intending bodily harm, to the less so, like someone who knowingly "engages in disorderly or disruptive conduct" that impedes "the orderly conduct of Government business."

It basically lumps would-be assassins in with, say, Code Pink Ladies.

Just as with the Williamsburg ordinance, Whitehead calls the Trespass Bill "overly broad." So broad, in fact, "as to put an end to free speech, political protest and the right to peaceably assemble in all areas where government officials happen to be present."

Or, as government officials might say: mission accomplished.