[nathanbedford]

Let me ask a couple of theoretical questions.

We have the example in these videos of the police ejecting citizens from an open town meeting conducted on public property. It is not clear to me whether the ejection was done at the instance of the congresswoman or on the policeman's own initiative.

My question is, will she get to control free speech in such a forum? Are these not citizens exercising a constitutional right to free speech, and right of assembly, and petition of their government and redress of grievances? Of course they were. They were doing so in a public building. Police appeared not to be municipal police but university police. I presume the university police are operating under some mandate from the state legislature and have some degree of police powers, more or less than the police powers normally to be exercised by ordinary municipal police force. Are they constitutionally or legislatively mandated police or they merely university rent-a-cops? Have they been properly trained?

The citizens were ejected for making statements before the question and answer period. Why would the police eject a person for such conduct? Were they operating under instructions from the congresswoman? From the University? From their own sense of decorum? What are the rules?

It seems to me that we are by default permitting the Arlen Specters of this world to define our free speech when they can order the police to enforce their own notions of decorum. If it is the police alone who are making these judgments, should they not exercise a bias in favor of citizens rights? Or is decoram more important?

If anyone has any case law or precedent I would be happy to be educated.

[cashless]

Great questions. You'd think that the media there would have had an interview with the Congresswoman and asked her directly and if she had denied she instructed Police as such then the Police commander at the event should have been asked what his authority was. But then that means the media would actually have to do their job and report the facts versus what they want to report.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Sounds like a rather vague “disorderly conduct” situation.

[donna]

What happened to the Democrat National Committee “Listening Tour”?

When did if become the Democrat You-Shut-Up-And-Listen-To-Me Tour?

[DB]

Check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z32Ayet7SKU&eurl=http://curmudgeonlyskeptical.blogspot.com/&feature=player_embedded

Under what authority do these people limit free speech?

[wastoute]

I keep pointing this out. When the Brown Shirt media ignores us, the politicians mock and slander us, the courts contain no justice when we are beaten, and our tax dollars are given to organizations that run vote fraud what do the libtards think our response will ultimatley be? When they remove all other options they can't claim to be blameless with the result. Of course at that point blame will be the least of their problems.

Μολὼν λάβε

[offduty]

In Ohio, university police officer undergo the same trainning and certification as municipal officers. They have the same police powers as any other leo. Their “jurisdiction” for misdemeanors is confined to areas that are owned by the university just as city cops misdemeanor powers end at the city limits. They do have arrest authority for felonies anywhere in the state, again, just like a city officer.

I imagine since this was happening on University property their position was to keep disruptions to a minimum to “keep the peace.” Sometimes there is a very fine line between freedom of speech and disorderly conduct. If you look at the Ohio statute the key words are “inconvenience, annoyance or alarm” in a public place. Since there appeared to be a Q&A as part of the program, the protesters were probably escorted out of the meeting under the D/C disturbance portion of the statute.

I know I’m going to take some hits on this by those who will argue the first amendment issue and I respect their position, but by dirupting the meeting, the rights of those who were there to listen to her BS were also infringed. A classic case of damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Hope this helps you understand.