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"...to the end that human rights shall be regarded as more sacred than property interests."
The National Lawyers Guild is dedicated to the need for basic and progressive change in the structure of our political and economic system. Through its members -- lawyers, law students, jailhouse lawyers, and
legal workers united in chapters and committees -- the Guild works locally, nationally and internationally as an effective political and social force in the service of the people.
Our aims:
. to eliminate racism;
. to safeguard and strengthen the rights of workers, women, farmers and minority groups, upon whom the welfare of the entire nation depends;
. to maintain and protect our civil rights and liberties in the face of persistent attacks upon them;
. to use the law as an instrument for the protection of the people, rather than for their repression.
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Dude, Where's My First Amendment?
The “free-speech designated area,” if you can find it, has roses to the left
and toilets to the right.
If you can find it may depend on whether the police will tell you where it is.
Whether the police will tell you where it is appears to depend on what day
(or what police shift) it is.
On Sunday, July 2, Chicago police commanders and officers were full of
information. One lieutenant, while adamantly refusing to listen to an NLG
Chicago attorney, intoned: “Did you understand it now? Where's the area that
I told you? Listen to me: Say, 'Jackson.' Say, 'Behind the Rose Garden.' Now
let's go!”
It was a different story the afternoon before, when a young woman on a
summer internship with the American Friends Service Committee discovered
that the location of the "protest pit" seemed to be a state secret.
"The police wouldn't tell me where it was!" exclaimed the exasperated "Peace
Recruiter" (whose name we won't post on the website, pending decisions about
litigation). "They kept shooing me away from where I was, but I couldn't
find out where I was supposed to be!"
On the Sunday afternoon before the Fourth of July, it turned out that where
7 people where "supposed to be" was inside the lockup at the Chicago Police
First District Headquarters. One of them, a National Lawyers Guild Legal
Observer, was "supposed to be" there until 4:30 in the morning, with a
boloney sandwich, but without his diabetes medication.
Of the remaining six activists arrested, not one was protesting.
As Indymedia Chicago put it:
Six members of local peace projects, including Code Pink, the Chicago
Coalition Against War and Racism, AFSC's Chicago Committee Opposed to the
Militarization of Youth, and the Latina/o counter-recruitment project CAMI -
an acronym for Contra Antimilitaricion - were arrested this afternoon for
handing out flyers and talking to the public near a military recruiters'
booth at the Taste of Chicago.
One young woman with a handful of small, yellow flyers, asked a police
officer, "If there's a free-speech zone in a Rose Garden, then is the rest
of the festival a no-free-speech zone?"
By way of answer, officers broke out their "flexi-cuff" plastic handcuffs.
Charges are City of Chicago Municipal Code alleged violations (below the
level of state misdemeanors) of 8-4-010(D)
Disorderly conduct - Failure to obey a lawful order from a police officer to
disperse. Court dates are in early August.
Click here for update.
For more news on the arrests and the First-Amendment-protected activity
Sunday, July 2, go to Indymedia Chicago:
http://chicago.indymedia.org/.
For a national perspective on free-speech and right-to-assemble litigation,
go to the ACLU:
http://www.aclu.org/freespeech/index.html.
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