> >From the article, New York Civil Liberties Union President Stephen > Gottlieb says, "We believe, most of us, in the Bill of Rights, and we > believe that protects the freedom to speak." How is Constitutionally- > protected freedom of speech imperiled when an agent of a private > corporation asks someone to leave because his speech is offensive?
Ummm... peace is offensive? Denying free speech on the areas of private corporations is legal, but potentially dangerous. Can become a very effective workaround for 1st Amendment rights. LOTS of areas with lots of people are private. There is no problem for The Adversary to just send agents to harass the owners of places where "peacemongers" aggregate, then they will tend to be thrown out from just about everywhere. (Or Coca Cola could pay the owners of the premises to kick out people wearing Pepsi tshirts. Insert any other crazy legal scenarios.) With diminishing number of owners of increasingly larger areas, such control becomes more feasible. Government property, where the 1st Amendment applies, tends to be more and more privatized, opening further loopholes. Buying (or selling) off areas then can become an easy an effective way of getting rid of those pesky protesters. Don't want the pesky picketers in front of your gates? Buy the road, kick them off. > Gottlieb is presumably a lawyer, since they tend to infest *CLUs. > Either he missed Constitutional Law class the day they talked about > scope of applicability of the Bill of Rights or else he's just a > dumbass. Round 2: Publicize. (Which is what happened.) Portray the mall owners as warmongers, suggest - directly or indirectly - to not shop there. Make them lose what they cherish the most: money.
