On 9/26/07, P. J. Alling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The first amendment: "Congress shall make no law... 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." This doesn't seem to cover meetings held on private > property where the owners can have idiots ejected or arrested for > trespass, simply by revoking their permission for said idiot to be > there. Secondly he didn't seem to petitioning the government, just > badgering a public official. The fact that the cops who were called by > the management over reacted is not per se a violation of the idiots > freedom of speech, certainly not by congress, or the state government, > .though he may have basis for an action against those police officers > for battery.
Private property? That appears to be a school (funded by taxpayers) or a church (exempt from paying taxes and as such "state funded") or a town hall. No matter what it is, I'd say they're in a public or pseudo-public space, and in any event it's surely a meeting to which the general public was invited. What those cops (or security people, or whoever those goons were) did was ~absolutely~ a violation of his freedom of speech, right to assemble, etc. The question would be, "were the capitalist stormtroopers acting as authorized agents of the state, or did they go beyond the scope of their jurisdiction to the point that their actions do not constitute state intervention, thus rendering them solely liable for their inexcusable actions?" If they were private rent-a-cops, they and their employers will be liable for (at the very least) assault and battery, if they were real cops, there could be a whole bevy of constitutional actions that could arise from this. cheers, frank -- "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." -Henri Cartier-Bresson -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
