How can this happen – woman arrested for speaking out in Grand Central station about NDAA (good thing a citizen journalist got this video) and what the citizenry can do is share, and share, and share again to keep acts like these from being swept away into darkness http://youtu.be/Cg6ayc-w3bE
So please watch, and if so inclined, tweet, share on facebook, send the link. We retain the right to speak up, speak out, frame the dialog through the internet. These rights may just fall within “use it or lose it.”
Please share widely!
…but before we start getting all paranoid, I think this was a simple “disturbing of the peace” which I’ve seen in police blotters for as long as I can remember. The final frame also gets it wrong about indefinite detentions for American citizens. The legislation in question very explicitly says the provisions do not apply to American citizens. Plus, this was the annual must-pass appropriations bill for the Pentagon, which unfortunately is routinely used to carry more objectional provisions precisely because that aspect is so important.
As you so correctly said, “The police could have let this go…”
Really?
I just never thought of a subway as peaceful.
Interestingly there is a site devoted to explains the legal rights of street performers in the NYC subways that contain regulations and case law protecting their free speech rights.
Isn’t the phrase of “standing on your soapbox” descriptive of the centuries old tradition of impromptu public political speech?
Political speech is even more precious than entertainment.
This is how police in a police state like China, Syria, the former Soviet Union, or the old East Germany behave.
This MUST be stopped.
I truly do not understand where you are coming from, Christopher. I truly do not.
The bill absolutely will allow indefinite detention, Chris. You’ve simply fallen for the spin, as has much of the media. http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/01/obama_administration_pushes_back_on_liberal_criticism_over_ndaas_indefinite_detention.php
My suggestion: Always carry a digital camera, and if possible, one that is capable of taking clip video – or a phone that you can use to send photos – the right to take a picture or a video is critical to freedom these days – the right to bear a gun is NOT.
Clearly designed to provoke a reaction, for the sake of making a video.
And yet she was peacefully removed. How do we even know she was arrested?
Now here’s a real incident. Chris Christie threatens a protestor.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/zekejmiller/christie-heckles-occupy-wall-street-protesters
The point of the action was to highlight how the right of free speech in a public space is being unfairly restricted by the state. All these actions are ‘staged,’ in the sense they are designed to incite a reaction from the police or state. That’s the point – the fact that the police reacted the way they did is a problem.
It doesn’t matter if she was arrested or not, she was forcibly removed from a public space for expressing a political opinion.
I am ASTOUNDED by the abuses some of us apparently accept from police — always, of course, when it is somebody else getting arrested.
And how it differs from the protection of the rest of the people in the subway, whose peaceable assembly in the subway was being interfered with. They have rights too.
Would you feel someone screaming racist things should not be removed?
Or do we now believe that any action that calls attention to our “police state” should be accepted without question?
Are you saying we all have a sacred right to yell loudly at subway stations? I suppose we do, when it comes down to it, but I’m not sure what good is served by challenging the long-established tradition of suggesting that unruly people leave, whether they were yelling about politics or just singing drunkenly.
How about we flip this around? How many hearts and minds did Occupy win by doing this? Or were they just offering a web-ready video for their existing supporters?
Sorry but I prefer my protests to have a point. Not saying the whole movement didn’t have a point, it did. But this video does not advance the cause, in my opinion.
Maybe we need to amend the constitution to protect only polite, quiet, unobtrusive speech that doesn’t disturb or challenge listeners. if you’ve got nothing nice to say, better just talk to the walls in your own house.
On a tactical level, I tend to agree. The beauty of the mic check was that OWS transformed something designed to suppress speech into a cultural meme that had a bit of theatrical flair and facilitated communication within a large group. Like a bullhorn, however, it’s better at conveying chants and slogans than it is actual content. In this situation, screaming at Grand Central is hardly the most effective way to engage people about NDAA. Of course, that’s not what they were trying to do.
This, as you say, however, was staged, and as a piece of theater, it conveys the message perfectly. Here’s a woman expressing her first amendment rights attacking a bill that would limit said rights, and the police come and haul her off. I don’t know what someone who doesn’t support OWS might think of this video – for me, however, it reinforces my view that the police are not there to support the citizenry, but rather to carry out the whims of those in power. It pushes me farther away from the establishment, it makes me think that organized struggle against both parties is the only way forward. In my opinion, that was the point.
I can see your point.
Whatever one thinks of Chris Christie’s behavior, or the NY Grand Central station protestors – everyone is better protected when citizen journalists can capture contemporary footage. Period.
n/t
…even after watching it a second time. I agree that carrying a camera in public falls under the freedom of the press. As for the Christie incident, I’m honestly not that upset. First of all, it’s his style which I don’t take as literal threats. He said in Iowa that he would be back “Jersey style” if Iowa didn’t vote for Romney. I’m also not least bit upset that a heckler was escorted out. I know I said during the health care “Town Hells” of 2009 that I’d have disrupters removed in a heartbeat. They can yell and chant outside the venue all they like, but the first amendment does not give you the absolute right to be rude.
You seem to say that it’s ok to arrest protesters in a public space like Grand Central Station under the guise of “disturbing the peace”. You pronounce that the “the first amendment does not give you the absolute right to be rude.”
When a GOP campaign is permeated with race-baiting, gay-bashing, immigrant-bashing, and similar pandering to the most vile elements of our electorate, how on Earth do you NOT “take as literal threats” statements like Mr. Christie is making? If you have any evidence that these guys don’t mean these things, will you please share it with us? I find your tolerance of these kinds of threats particularly difficult to understand given that this is the first anniversary of the Gabriel Gifford’s shooting.
How much more extreme do events have to be before you admit that these cretins are serious?
I don’t see camera confiscation mentioned in the post, video, or comments. Only the advice to have a camera available to record incidents such as this. Please point to the claim if I missed it.
…Gov. Christie to come invade Iowa with armed NJ goons now that there does appear to be a question about Romney’s victory (ie an alleged miswrite of the vote totals in one Iowa precinct that if true would put Santorum in the lead by a handful of votes)? I mean SERIOUSLY?! In my mind true freedom of speech means we all agree not to shout each other down, so that we may in fact all speak freely. This is why the ACLU has been known to defend the KKK, because true commitment to free speech can only be measured by your willingness to allow the ideas you most detest to be heard.
But still, the man with the microphone is not an on equal footing with people in the audience, and it would be nice if our leaders had the art to deal with tough questions without resorting to threats, even in jest.
I get that he’s a loudmouth. But he’s nothing else. The GOP basically loves him because he talks trash.
but Occupy can’t deliver its message at a train station? Disturbing the peace is a sham justification if I’ve ever heard one. A great tool for speech suppression, though. And as to JimC’s indictment of Christie, do you thunk he should be arrested for using colorful rhetoric? Both of you fellows seem to be selling the First Amendment a little short. I think that speech, particularly political speech, should be given a wide, wide berth.
When I referred to the chilling threats of Mr. Christie, I was referring to his comment in the cite offered above:
This is a sitting governor threatening protesters with illegal arrest or worse. In that context, his reference to winning the election “New Jersey style” is enormously inappropriate. Exercising free speech in New Hampshire should NOT require a willingness to face the second half of the state slogan (“Live free or die”).
I ask you again, how far does this GOP mob have to go before you realize that they are NOT joking and these ARE serious threats?
peace are intentionally broad enough to include all sorts of minor transgressions. People can be arrested for either one and then beat the charge. There’s a trade off: police can keep the peace, which sometimes needs to be kept, but they can also abuse their power with the charges.
There are probably legitimate public safety reasons to prevent people from making extended protests in Grand Central Station. They might, for example, make people more vulnerable to pick pockets or make it harder to get to them trains. The police, however, could have let the protesters say their peace and agree to move on. Disturbing the peace might be the charge to prevent this from happening.
In our time, there’s a dangerous lack of tolerance of protest. We use the excuse of security to silence it. As political theater, this event doesn’t seem to be singularly effective, but I think it’s important for reinflating the idea of protest in public spaces.
No, I did not fall for any spin. I did a novel thing and read the bill. There are very specific provisions that I read that clearly exempt American citizens.
They don’t think it’s as clear as you do. In a world where we can kill American citizens with drones before this law was passed, I tend to assume that when they think they need to, they’ll have no problem interpreting the law whatever way they please.
That did not stop the Bush-Cheney Administration from doing it. Obama has not been reticent to use all the other “anti-terror” tactics of the B-C Administration. What makes you think he would draw a line at indefinite detention of citizens?
…which I’m pretty sure should make people liable to prosecution and if holding an applicable office, impeachment. The resident aliens exemption even made reference to “the extent allowed under the constitution”, but to me that’s a “duh!” clause. Every elected and appointed official down to the lowest bureaucrats, soldiers, and civil servants in all branches takes an oath to the constituton. I even took an oath to the constitution when I was hired as a seasonal National Park ranger some years ago. Given that, and that the Constitution is the supreme law, every law is implicitly applicable only “to the extent allowed under the Constitution”. We have three branches for a reason and if one branch abuses or misinterprets it is up to the other branches, usually culminating with SCOTUS, to correct it.