# So when does Peaceful Assembly become Unlawful Assembly?



## Gypsybones (Oct 24, 2009)

citizens, including a significant number of journalists, were getting arrested for the crime of “unlawful assembly.”

They were rounded up like cattle by indistinguishable police officers clad in riot gear and gas masks. They were doused with pepper spray and suffocated with smoke bombs. And they were stripped of their rights and dignity and in many cases, their journalistic credentials and cameras.


Thomas Jefferson, the Father of Democracy, would have been disgusted, judging by his following comment.

_“The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.”_

Jefferson would have been especially peeved at the arrests of the journalists.

_“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”_

Unlike the protests that took place at earlier G20's which were marred with violence, Pittsburgh's demonstration was peaceful, which is why police resorted to charging them with “unlawful assembly” instead of “conspiracy to riot” (a shaky charge in itself considering almost half of those arrests were thrown out by the County Attorney’s Office the following day).

In other words, their only crime was continuing to protest after their permit had expired. Some protesters even claim that their permit was originally scheduled to expire at 7 p.m. instead of 5 p.m.

The fact that you even need a permit to protest in the first place is about as unconstitutional as getting arrested for photographing police in public. Even more so considering that the right to peacefully assemble is specifically stated in the *First Amendment.*

_Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
_
According to Lectric Law Library, unlawful assembly means the following:

*UNLAWFUL ASSEMBLY* - _A disturbance of the public peace by three or more persons who meet together with an intent mutually to assist each other in the execution of some unlawful enterprise of a private nature, with force and violence; if they move forward towards its execution, it is then a rout and if they actually execute their design, it amounts to a riot._

And the First Amendment Center describes peaceful assembly in the following:

According to the Supreme Court, it is imperative to protect the right to peaceful assembly, even for those with whose speech we disagree, “in order to maintain the opportunity for free political discussion, to the end that government may be responsive to the will of the people and that changes, if desired, may be obtained by peaceful means.”



suspending our rights? war on my people the testing of weapons on the innocent and for what? 


notice how they keep showing the same video clips over and over again. (this is national news) and notice how poorly it is filmed.
cant MSNBC a major network hire professional camera men?
with so much jumping around it looks like total chaos and thus making the protest look non peaceful 



this was an experiment on our people in my city and not just in a protest zone but in neighborhoods where the protester where pushed, to invoke anger to residents and disrupt the message of the protest. 



An UNLAWFUL assembly? wait what?:fuckoff:

this was a breach of our rights as Americans!
if your from Pittsburgh then you notice all of the places where the protesters where pushed to and all of the are very far from downtown.

this is very disheartening to find out that the people of Pittsburgh and the people of the protest were used as experiments in a full police state type push against our civil liberty's.

its only gonna get worse


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## little_owl (Oct 27, 2009)

It becomes "unlawful assembly" when a cop just decides that's what it is. It can be very subjective and only applied to certain people they want to mess with out of a crowd of many or just as many people as they would like. I know of someone who was recently charged with that and it seemed ridiculous since if it was "unlawful assembly" then the rest of us should have been apprehended too.


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## bote (Oct 27, 2009)

it´s just people with training and equipment of one kind or another, either in a control center somewhere watching screens or on the street with armour on. They make whatever decisions they make and then there are other people on their team that do public relations, painting them in the best possible light until the very last, because that is their job. 
so in answer to the question: the status of any assembly regardless of its nature, is ambiguous. go team.


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## veraladd (Oct 28, 2009)

when you assemble for a purpose opposing the current office.


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## Gypsybones (Oct 30, 2009)

veraladd said:


> when you assemble for a purpose opposing the current office.



but the first amendment states;
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."


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## LovelyAcorns (Oct 30, 2009)

I always thought the difference was whether you were right wing or left wing.


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## connerR (Nov 2, 2009)

I think the key word is "peacefully" protest. I think if you ideologically scare the _average citizen_ (an ambiguous labeling, I know), that makes an otherwise peaceful protest turn into a non-peaceful one. 

Put yourself into a different position. Imagine that the world was anarchist and groups of right-wing, Fox News activist types started protesting (peacefully) all over the place. And imagine that your anarchist friends actually started to listen to them. That would be dangerous for the anarchist society. Might you begin to have feelings of resentment towards the right-wing protestors?

This is all hypothetical nonsense, and I don't agree with any of it, but unfortunately, I think that's how it is.


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## IBRRHOBO (Nov 3, 2009)

not that anyone really cares, but it deals with several items: _mens rea_ is the most critical. area of the assembly (may require a permit), security parameters can force suspension of certain rights and G20 qualified there due to heads of state. _habeas_ is suspended under the patriot act so no big jump there. the government also says that it provided an area for demonstrators to gather legally; those who chose to go elsewhere went at their own peril.

i don't support the government nor really care about the G20 as it doesn't impact me too much. the above is merely an answer to the question so let's not come down on me like a ton of bricks philosophically............


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## stove (Nov 3, 2009)

::comes down on IBRR like a ton of railspikes::

A good factual answer to the actual question, without actually throwing much opinion in the mix. Excellent!


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## IBRRHOBO (Nov 6, 2009)

yup. opinion? i don't agree w/how the government is circumventing the constitution (First Amendment to be precise). i mean i could start another thread and propose initiatives to effectively address it, but they wouldn't jive w/say the anarchist theme. the reality is that we live in a participatory democracy and that legislative change has to occur to be effective.

oh, you could throw the seattle melee/G20 and say, 'Hey, we did something here...' when really nothing happened but some negative PR and a shitload of damage. the costs of the G20 in Pittsburgh and Seattle were _abosorbed_ by those protesting them by and thru the taxes they pay on fuel, food, tobacco and alcohol to name a few requirements that ALL folks have to have. hell, even CBC cited at the Montbello protest that the police went undercover to incite riot (CBC News - Canada - Quebec police admit they went undercover at Montebello protest ). nah, you want change you have to first realize that complacent folks just like YOU and ME allowed what has transpired. you have to reverse the cycle and ma and pa in the midwest who _control_ the Beltway in DC aren't gonna be swayed by a bunch of staple faced kids kicking in windows.

my opinion? once again i'm a libertarian and really don't think the gov't should be involved in much other than the military and maybe the weather service. frankly, i don't give much of a fuck and won't unless there is a logical and _sane_ platform put forth for change. why? that 'ol 'red badge of courage' don't mean nothing when you're sitting in a federal detention cell. see, that's where you gotta start; before you go running off to join up and change the world w/this group or that, ask those trying to get you to do shit (and there's a thread on here about a guy who got fucked and is now whinning as he's facing prison) how many of those trying to motivate you have been to prison for that which they want _YOU_ to do!

i try not to voice opinion on here much anymore as it generally stirs up discontent stove; figure stick to the facts and that allows me to meaningfully participate and keep the status quo. 

BTW get ahold of me in re: val's project SHE in NYC


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