Southampton Bans First Amendment

Suffolk County is officially within the boundaries of the United States, but one of its exclusive towns wants to distance itself from our founding fathers and the First Amendment that they drafted to the Constitution. Free speech is a cherished protection afforded to people in our country but Southampton begs to differ when protesters do not look and sound as the people and the messages that are similar to them.

From 1010 WINS:

Officials in this swanky village on eastern Long Island, apparently fed up with anti-day laborer protesters gathering in front of the mayor's house, have passed a local law making it illegal to demonstrate at a private home or on any residential street.

The move follows nearly two months of protests in front of Mayor Mark Epley's home after he suggested allowing day laborers to gather in a village-owned park near a convenience store. The day laborers, many of whom are suspected of being in the country illegally, stand near the site every morning waiting for contractors, landscapers and construction workers to hire them at hourly wages for the day.

(snip)

An attorney for the New York chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, Donna Lieberman, said she was concerned about the blanket nature of the ban. She said the First Amendment protects all speech, whatever the message.

"It's very dangerous,'' she said, "when government tries to promulgate rules to silence an entity whose message is unpopular or for the convenience ... of any individual.''

The new law carries a fine and possible jail time for the "crime" of protesting. If Mayor Epley and the city council out there think they are going to get away with this, they have another thing coming. This attempt at eroding our Constitution has no place in Suffolk County, New York or anywhere in the United States of America. We are better than this type of abrogation of our nation's laws.

Loitering Is Free Speech

A Supreme Court decision in 1992 deemed loitering and begging a right provided for in the first amendment of the bill of rights. Despite that ruling, hundreds of the less fortunate among us have been arrested for their (in)activity. Eric Hoffstead is now fighting his arrest and his lawyer, Carl D. Birman and now Matthew D. Brinckerhoff are trying to turn the case into a class-action suit. Nearly 800 summons have been issued from June of 2005 to February of 2007, using considerable city resources in order to do so.

From The New York Times:

The United States Supreme Court has struck down several loitering statutes, but it has never considered the particular issue of loitering for the purpose of begging, and whether prohibiting it constitutes a violation of the First Amendment, said Michael C. Dorf, professor of constitutional law at the Columbia University School of Law.

In upholding the 1992 New York City case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said begging constituted “protected communicative conduct, and city streets and parks were classified as a traditional public forum.”

“A lawyer is certainly entitled to make the argument that the lower federal courts have ruled the law unconstitutional and tell the state it should be persuaded by this ruling,” Professor Dorf said. “The state, however, is free to issue a decision based on its own interpretation of the Constitution.”

So even with the U.S. Supreme Court decision, the matter is up in the air here in New York. The state contends that these misdemeanors are often accompanied by other crimes, such as Mr. Hoffstead having possessed a crack cocaine pipe at the time.

Instead of using this as an excuse to put the homeless in jail, the situation is evidence that the problem of loitering and begging needs to be dealt with in a more productive manner. It has often been shown that treating and rehabilitating the thousands of people on the streets is more cost efficient from a budgetary perspective. More importantly, it is better from a humanitarian perspective.

Hypocrisy Alert: Bush Chastises Other Countries Media Restrictions

President Bush is out there again, criticizing other countries for doing exactly what he is doing at home. This time it is over the media. He claims it is a terrible thing for nations like China, Egypt, Russia and others to restrict the press, yet he is doing the same thing here and condoning it in Iraq.

From the horse's mouth:

"In undemocratic societies where governments suppress, manipulate, and control access to information, journalists are on the front lines of the people's battle for freedom. The danger journalists face in such repressive States can be great -- and even deadly," he said.

"The United States values freedom of the press as one of the most fundamental political rights and as a necessary component of free societies," he said.

Funny, this democratic society has seen the suppression, manipulation and limited access to information that journalists need to do their jobs here too. Bush and his loyal Administration have been hard at work to control the press (which has controlled itself as well) and get their unfiltered propaganda out to the masses. Bush doesn't care about our freedoms if they get in his quest to win an un-winnable war in Iraq and who knows where the hell else he wants to go (Iran, Syria, etc).

It used to amaze me that he can get up and speak about something to ridicule other countries for limiting freedoms while he is doing the same exact thing here. Now I just want it to be over. I am tired of his hypocritical bullshit and so is most of the rest of the country. We want our democracy back already.

Borat The Victim

According the U.S. State Department, Borat is considered a victim of human rights abuse in a list compiled on the unethical behavior of Kazakhstan. Besides Borat, the Kazakhs are accused of murdering an opposition politician, Altynbek Sarsenbaiuly, his bodyguard and driver last year. Other offenses include limiting freedom of speech and torture among other abuses. Borat was specifically listed because his website hosted on a Kazakh site was pulled after the government took offense to how Borat (Sacha Cohen) was displaying Kazakhs and the country.

Of course no one in their right mind would condone these sorts of things, especially murdering politicians and limiting the freedoms of a nation's citizens. Nevertheless, this is a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black. The United States government condones torture and limiting freedom of speech here at home. Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, sending prisoners to Uzbekistan and Syria to be tortured and using 'free speech zones' are all part of the Bush Adminstration's plans to make the United States into a land of the fearful and skitish.