Gypsybones
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jan 20, 2009
- Messages
- 457
- Reaction score
- 508
- Location
- Your mothers house
- Website
- highonwheels.tumblr.com
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
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
