por admin » Dom Nov 20, 2011 8:22 pm
El first amendment (libertad de expresion, religion, etc.) no protege ningun tipo de conducta que pone en peligro la salud y la seguridad de los ciudadanos.
Tomo 150 horas de trabajo de los trabajadores de Sanidad limpiar el parque ocupado por los manifestantes en contra de Wall Street, las estadisticas de crimen y violencia reportados por la policia se incrementaron durante los dos meses de ocupacion de los manifestantes. Se realizaron robos, violaciones sexuales, abuso de drogas, etc, etc.
Se econtro basura, alcohol, drogas, excremento, etc.
Los alcaldes ( en su mayoria izquierdistas perdieron la paciencia y expulsaron a todos los ocupantes de los lugares publicos en sus respectivas ciudades, en algunas se reportaron muertes)
NOVEMBER 21, 2011
.Are Tent Cities Free Speech? The First Amendment does not protect behavior that threatens health and safety.
By L. GORDON CROVITZ
Last week, the New York City Police Department's First Precinct issued the latest crime statistics. Typical offenses in the financial district and Tribeca usually are limited to minor matters such as hawking fake Rolexes and operating unlicensed food carts. This time there was a big increase in violent crimes. "Almost all of these crimes were in and around Zuccotti Park," commanding officer Edward Winski reported, adding wryly: "Many of these were assaults against police officers."
From Oakland, Calif., to Portland, Ore., to New York, the Occupy Wall Street movement has worn out the patience of even the most liberal cities. The protesters were shocked when politicians stopped excusing their unlawful behavior by referring to their First Amendment rights and instead forcibly removed their tent cities as threats to health and safety.
The protesters never-ending endgame is a reminder that under the First Amendment, speech may be subject to time, place and manner restrictions that do not include the concept of "occupation."
The global movement began in New York's Zuccotti Park, which Mayor Mike Bloomberg finally cleared out last week after nearly two months of a tent city even the police feared to enter. By the end, it featured rapes, drug use and public health dangers. It took 150 Sanitation Department workers hours to clear the mess, finding everything from used hypodermic needles to buckets of human waste. "These were some of the worst smells I've ever experienced," a veteran garbageman told the New York Post.
Local residents and businessmen had grown weary of the health and safety violations, drum circles late into the night, and trashing of shops and restaurants. A group called Downtown Community Coalition was formed by unlikely community organizers, including local parents, health professionals, small-business owners and this columnist.
New York City police arrest an Occupy Wall Street protester on Friday.
.One lesson of Occupy Wall Street is that if local authorities permit campouts, people will camp out. This permissive approach created a false impression of the strength of the movement. The crowds dispersed once the authorities applied typical time, place and manner rules.
Occupy Wall Street is suing to bring their tents and sleeping bags back to the park, but in Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence (1984), the Supreme Court held that the National Park Service could enforce its rules against sleeping in tents at Washington's Lafayette park and National Mall, even for a symbolic protest about homelessness. The tents in Zuccotti Park were shelter, not symbolic speech. As First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams told Reuters, it's a "real stretch to maintain that sleeping in a designated area itself is anything more than what it appears to be."
Indeed, the park that protesters selected offers fewer speech rights than public parks. Zuccotti Park is one of 500 "privately owned public spaces" in New York, created when planning regulators allowed a taller building in exchange for maintaining a park. It must be open 24 hours a day, unlike public parks that have curfews, but subject to specific rules ensuring "passive recreation" and the "enjoyment of the general public."
The owner, Brookfield Properties, expressly prohibits tents, tarps and sleeping in the park—rules ignored by the protesters. It also has a history of denying use of the park for political activities, which is within its rights. Last year the city and Brookfield Properties denied a request by a group to use the park to protest against the planned new mosque near the World Trade Center. A content-neutral approach, the cornerstone of First Amendment jurisprudence, should also have kept Occupy Wall Street out.
In a 2002 case, the federal appeals court in New York turned down a union seeking to protest in the publicly owned plaza outside Lincoln Center. Among the judges making the ruling was Sonia Sotomayor, appointed to the Supreme Court by President Obama. Courts will apply a time, place and manner standard even more restrictive of speech in a privately owned park like Zuccotti than in a public park like the Lincoln Center plaza.
The mostly young Occupy Wall Street protesters seemed genuinely shocked when Mayor Bloomberg ordered their tents removed. This probably fueled their violent and abusive reaction.
Their false expectations were set by politicians who should have known better. Shortly after the protests began, their "general assembly" debated whether to risk bringing in tents. New York politicians and the liberal community board representing Lower Manhattan issued statements suggesting that First Amendment rights were absolute, emboldening protesters into thinking they could take over the park indefinitely.
Protesters are free to demonstrate peacefully in Zuccotti Park, provided they follow its regulations. If they have to rely on unlawful campouts and disrupting neighborhoods instead of using speech, their message must not be very persuasive. They might occupy that sobering thought as they consider their future.