How is the U.S. government getting away with 'free speech' zones? That seems clearly unconstitutional.

July 26, 2004 9:29 PM

WhatAmIMissingFilter: I've been waiting for an optimum time to ask this on the main page in an appropriate thread, but the opportunity hasn't arisen. Thus: Exactly HOW is the government getting away with enforcing these so-called "free speech" zones? Allowing for reasonable public safety measures, it's still clearly at odds with the constitution. (I'm sure places like Planned Parenthood would dearly "love" to relocate protesters to a deserted roped-off area 6 blocks away.) Is it just that no one has called them on it yet?
posted by RavinDave to law & government (22 comments total)

Try a Constitutional law course or two before you insist that free speech is totally free--sorry, it isn't.
posted by ParisParamus at 10:12 PM on July 26, 2004

Obviously you can't legally barge onto the floor of congress and stage a protest either. But I think the source of RavinDave's confusion is not how particular places can be restricted, but how only one tiny cage in a large area, like where the DNC is being held, can be free.

It's pretty pathetic, legal or not. The media knows where to show up to get their 2 seconds of protestor video. The cops have an easier time keeping the crowd limited. And the dispiriting gloom of the whole arrangement just keeps the people home.

Remember that most significant protests have involved at least some people getting arrested.
posted by scarabic at 10:41 PM on July 26, 2004

(IANAL) The Supreme Court established the principle that government is free to impose "time, place, and manner" restrictions on expression as long as the restrictions are content-neutral (i.e. don't favor one side over another). This is how, for instance, gov't gets away with requiring permits for demonstrations or dictating how big a protestor's placard can be, etc. In theory, as long as everybody has to play by the same rules, it's okay to have rules governing "free" speech. (Yes, this is the Official Land of Oxymorons.)

Supposedly "free speech zones" (cough.) fall under T/P/M, though the Bush adminstration has frequently been accused of ignoring content-neutrality, i.e. requiring opposition to be expressed far away from public view while their supporters get to make their point unrestrained and in front of the cameras.

One could argue that since a political convention is a massive expression of a particular point of view, that any regulation that sticks the opposition in a cage far away from the conventioneers and reporters is, um, less than completely content-neutral. Presumably they get around this by requiring party boosters (those who don't have convention tickets, that is) to also go to the cage.

Write your congresscritter. Here's something worth amending the Constitution for. Again.
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 10:46 PM on July 26, 2004

Re: the Planned Parenthood analogy, there actually was a Supreme Court decision related to that too. Clinics get a 15ft "bubble" around their property, essentially a "no free speech zone". There are plenty of legally accepted exceptions to the 1st Amendment, even for what is obviously political and/or religious speech.
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 11:02 PM on July 26, 2004

Oh, and no, it's definitely not for lack of people trying to call them on it. A federal judge agreed the cage is appalling in concept and that comparing it to a concentration camp is not inappropriate; but in the post-9/11 era the Secret Service's "security" card trumps all.
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 11:15 PM on July 26, 2004

Exactly HOW is the government getting away with enforcing these so-called "free speech" zones?

Because so many Americans are ignorant cowards with no true sense of patriotism or responsibility for defending the freedoms they inheirited?
posted by rushmc at 11:33 PM on July 26, 2004

What rushmc said, except for those others who are happy with such violations, providing its in their favor.
posted by Goofyy at 12:19 AM on July 27, 2004

providing its in their favor

While I don't necessarily identify as a Democrat, I am cheering them on during their whoopty-doopity this week. It made me sad to see that no right-wingers bothered to show up and populate the "freedom cage" where protestors are allowed to make themselves heard. On TV it looked like an area the size of a tennis court, situated in a lot under a distant freeway overpass, surrounded by 20-foot-high chain link fence. And there *was* razor wire at the top of that.

I'm more than happy to allow people I disagree with a better space than that to protest in.
posted by scarabic at 1:21 AM on July 27, 2004

The cages are ridiculous, but I believe that the bill of rights guarantee the right to assemble and freedom of speech, but they do not guarantee comfy surroundings with plenty of access to television cameras and delegates. Boston's a big city, there's plenty of room to protest.
posted by Frank Grimes at 4:25 AM on July 27, 2004

I was under the impression that a federal judge through out the free speech zone at the democratic national convention, so protesters don't have to be confined to that area. Is this not so?
posted by willnot at 4:25 AM on July 27, 2004

Here's a constitutional law professor's take on it.


> Remember that most significant protests have involved at least some people
> getting arrested.

What scarabic said. Starting at least with the civil rights movement, it was pretty much assumed that if you were a protester you were likely to get tear-gassed, fire-hosed, police-dog-bitten, beat up and arrested. I can't exactly imagine Martin Luther King allowing himself to be penned up in any free-speech playground in Selma. When did protesters get so polite and compliant?
posted by jfuller at 5:12 AM on July 27, 2004

If we ever get a protest that actually means anything or results in change rather than posturing, the people involved won't care about "free speech zones" and they will be too numerous for the cops to shepherd around in a corral.

So the Free Speech Zones are good. For a run-of-the-mill "I want to holler and be seen being outraged" demonstration, they ensure that the hippy girl you want to chat up won't be able to wander too far and get lost in the crowd. And if by some miracle a protest is going to turn into something that scares the bejeezus out of The Establishment, it provides a nice place for the nucleus of it to assemble.
posted by Mayor Curley at 5:17 AM on July 27, 2004

Why is this an issue now? The left has been bitching about this since 2001. Suddenly, some righties get a taste of their own medicine and we're in a constitutional crisis. I can't want until they get a taste of tear gas, pepper spray, etc or is that just for us uppity liberals?
posted by skallas at 6:10 AM on July 27, 2004

Exactly HOW is the government getting away with enforcing these so-called "free speech" zones?

They have more firepower than the protestors.

I expect at some point there will be a civilized SCOTUS ruling throwing these out. Time/place/manner restrictions, I think, don't merely need to be equitable, but also reasonable; Free Speech Zones are neither.

But really, protestors are just getting soft. "I want to rise up and proclaim my deep-rooted opposition to the entrenched corruption of the system, is that OK with you, Big Brother?" Grow a pair, people, if you don't like this kind of shit meekly going along with it is not the way to get anywhere.
posted by IshmaelGraves at 6:44 AM on July 27, 2004

Grow a pair, people, if you don't like this kind of shit meekly going along with it is not the way to get anywhere.

My point exactly.

"And everybody's doing
Just what they're told to
And nobody wants
To go to jail!

All the power's in the hands
Of people rich enough to buy it
While we walk the street
Too chicken to even try it

Are you taking over
or are you taking orders?
Are you going backwards
Or are you going forwards?"
posted by Mayor Curley at 7:24 AM on July 27, 2004

My office is half a block from the Fleet Center. The "free speech" pen is as depressing as described, but is in fact just across Causeway street from the convention. But the Fleet Center itself is walled off with opaque barriers, so I'm sure no one inside sees them.

And there has been protesting outside the area, most visibly a pro-life demonstration I had to careen through on my bike heading home last night.

Given I'm only here during the day, I may not be the best reporter, but it's been pretty quiet so far. The most rancor I've heard is from the television crews lugging their equipment far and wide given the vehicle restrictions. Security is very visible but has been far more hands-off than we were led to believe in the weeks leading up to the event.
posted by jalexei at 7:27 AM on July 27, 2004

Supposedly the "free speech zone" in Boston is adjacent to the parking lot where the buses drop off delegates. I believe the organizers designate protest zones within ear- and eye-shot of delegates and dignitaries, or else the courts would definitely throw 'em out.

From what I can tell with maps and the like, the zone in Boston is closer to the convention than the zone in Los Angeles in 2000. (I was in LA and am not in Boston.) The LA protests were right across the street -- a wide one -- from the Staples Center, but outside a big metal fence. It was kind of interesting...the left-wing protesters that thought the Dems were too conservative ended up lining the fence closest to the convention. The right-wing protesters that thought Democrats weren't conservative enough usually wound up on the far side of the zone (which was fairly big, looks much bigger than Boston's) at the entrance to the convention compound.

What made things fun, of course, was that I usually had to walk through the protest zone when I was going to and from the convention to work. I took off my ID badge and security pass as soon as I could, but I usually got "baby killer" screamed at me.
posted by Vidiot at 8:21 AM on July 27, 2004

"but I usually got "baby killer" screamed at me."

why, were you in a military uniform?
;)

anyway, old but still good:


"calm,
fitter,
healthier
and more productive

a pig
in a cage
on antibiotics"
posted by matteo at 8:57 AM on July 27, 2004

Supposedly the "free speech zone" in Boston is adjacent to the parking lot where the buses drop off delegates. I believe the organizers designate protest zones within ear- and eye-shot of delegates and dignitaries, or else the courts would definitely throw 'em out.

RNC protestors in New York in September will be stuck across town.
posted by Zed_Lopez at 10:21 AM on July 27, 2004

why, were you in a military uniform?

No, but I wasn't dressed like a protester and was emerging from the secure area, so I just MUST have been A Tool Of The Establishment in this guy's mind, I guess.

(I was there to cover it. Just doing my job, buddy.)

Zed, I believe there will be a "free speech zone" set up close to Madison Square Garden...but the big peace rally/march will indeed go up the West Side Highway. (but before it turns west on 34th Street, it will go right past the Garden's Seventh Avenue side.)
posted by Vidiot at 12:22 PM on July 27, 2004

scarabic, the protestors at the DNC are mostly left-wing - Larouche supporters, socialists, and other mishmash that doesn't really fall within a particular ideology.
posted by PrinceValium at 1:50 PM on July 27, 2004

skallas:

> Suddenly, some righties get a taste of their own medicine and we're in
> a constitutional crisis.

PrinceValium:

> the protestors at the DNC are mostly left-wing - Larouche supporters,
> socialists, and other mishmash

FULLER SITS ON HANDS
posted by jfuller at 3:37 PM on July 27, 2004