Making us safer, part two

The next G-8 summit, scheduled for June, is to be held on an island off the coast of Georgia. There are of course plans being made for protests nearby. Local citizen Robert Randall is hoping to bring 10,000 people to a "G-8 Carnival" he wants to organize in the coastal town of Brunswick, the nearest town to the meeting site.

If he can meet the new requirements, that is.

As reported by the Macon (GA) Telegraph on Sunday, last month Brunswick passed a new ordinance severely restricting the ability of protesters to gather. It requires groups of six or more to apply for permits at least 20 days in advance (so much for a quick public response to an event). In addition,

[p]rotesters must now put up refundable deposits equal to the city's estimated cost for clean up and police protection. Demonstrations also can't last but 2 hours, 30 minutes. Signs and banners can't be carried on sticks that might be brandished as weapons. And the signs also can't be larger than 2-by-3 feet.

There is no limit on the size of the deposit.

Perhaps most astonishingly, the law says permits may be denied if a protest is likely to congest traffic, impede commerce or endanger the public.

"This law would not exist if the G-8 was not coming here," said Randall, 51, a local therapist who has attended protests since the Vietnam War. "It makes it impossible to express oneself through assembly or speech on public property unless you have money."

Actually, even having the money isn't good enough unless you can prove, in effect, that no one will notice you. Otherwise, you might "congest traffic" or "impede commerce," provisions that are a wide-open opportunity to deny permits to any disfavored group or activity, since any protest could potentially interfere with traffic or the convenient flow of people into stores and other businesses. (I recall a series of demonstrations outside a naval base near where I grew up. Police started arresting people for "blocking traffic" on the grounds that passing cars were slowing down to see what was going on. I also recall a store manager trying to get a police officer to make me move from where I was giving out leaflets on a public sidewalk because, he claimed, my presence would deter people from coming in even though I was nowhere near the door.)

This is part and parcel of new tactics employed by cities to control and limit dissent. Miami was one of the first to do so in advance of FTAA protests last November, banning a variety of items such as water pistols and balloons. Under threat of a lawsuit, the city dropped the ordinance - but of course the protests it was designed to limit were already over and by repealing it before it could be ruled unconstitutional the city left itself the option the pass it again.

That, too, seems to be part of an emerging pattern: Pass a restrictive law too close to an event for an unfavorable ruling to be issued beforehand, then repeal it after the fact before a suit can be filed or at least before a judgment is issued and then call for the case to be dismissed as moot.

Savannah, 60 miles north and the place were journalists covering the event will be housed, has passed a similar law, except it sets no lower limit on the size of an action requiring a permit. It also says protesters wanting to use public parks will be charged the same fees as those who want to rent them for private functions and for groups of 150 or more a maintenance deposit of $1.50 per person will be required. Together, that means a demonstration of 200 people could cost $1000 in fees and deposits.

Cities "are choosing sides and what they're doing is trying to silence people from speaking out," said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, a Washington attorney and co-founder of the Partnership for Civil Justice. "And they're using the law as a political tool to do it."

Back on December 3, after noting that I don't use words like "repression" lightly, I expressed my conviction that

what we are seeing both here and abroad is by any reasonable definition deliberate and conscious political repression, not just of actions but of ideas - and as that repression moves from the covert to the overt, from the subtle to the openly violent, as the brutality of Miami becomes a "model for homeland defense" to be admired and imitated, we have to, first, rededicate ourselves to that image of justice we carry in our heads, second, accept that the personal risks of pursuing that dream are greater than we, in our for the most part comfortable existences, have faced before, and third, realize that the risks of failure are also greater, perhaps much greater, than before.

To that I would add now that the subtle repression of shifting laws and ever-stiffening "reasonable" requirements is no less of a threat than the military-style crackdown that Miami saw. Never forget: Free speech is inconvenient. It is an annoyance. It is a congester of traffic, a hinderer of business as usual, a disrupter of our busy schedules, a disturber of our peace of mind. It could not be otherwise and still be of value.

Footnote: According to the article, Brunswick Mayor Brad Brown

had to crack a joke when his pastor and five others rode bikes past the mayor's house Easter weekend.

"I jokingly said, 'You know, you need a permit to do that.' Technically, you could say that's a permittable event," he said.

The Mayor, apparently, thinks that funny. I guess I was wrong: Sometimes I can't see the humor in things.

Update: Minor edits for clarity.