Video: Cops Arrest Activist For Yelling About NDAA In Grand Central

[Huey P. Long]

Uploaded by udipl on Jan 3, 2012

On January 3 2012 Occupy Wall St. protesters concluded a full day of action at New York's Grand Central Terminal for a flash mob.
After one woman repeatedly used the human-mic to read our statement to the people at the terminal, the police decided to silence our dissent by arresting this one woman.


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Video: Cops Arrest Activist For Yelling About NDAA In Grand Central

Three protesters were arrested and four issued summonses yesterday in Grand Central Terminal, where approximately 150 demonstrators formed a "flash mob" to protest President Obama's signing of the National Defense Authorization Act [NDAA], a military spending bill that also authorizes the military to detain American citizens indefinitely without due process. Obama signed it in Hawaii on New Year's Eve, and it hasn't gotten that much attention in the media, but some people at least are a little alarmed about this, and they were expressing their outrage during rush hour yesterday. In this video, protester Lauren Digioia gets arrested around the two minute mark:

full-
http://gothamist.com/2012/01/04/video_cops_arrest_activist_for_yell.php

[99th_Monkey]

1. I'd heard about this incident, but didn't know there was such a good video that shows whole thing

Near the end, the crowd has 4-5 cops backed into a stairwell yelling SHAME, SHAME!! ... and the cops started
looking pretty nervous about that,given how they'd just roughed up and wrongfully arrested a OWS woman for
the "crime" of mic checking in GC Station. Since when has mic checking become a crime? Somehow I missed that.

[Fire Walk With Me]

2. "Crime" is obviously anything cops don't like, at least until a judge calls them on it.

Here's looking forward to more judges calling them on it.

[99th_Monkey]

3. Thumbs Up!

:twinkles:

[JDPriestly]

4. Incredible!!

Grand Central Station -- the symbol for crowded, noisy, public places in which free speech should be allowed. We are guaranteed the unabridged right to free speech.

This woman was doing nothing wrong. She was making noise in one of the noisiest, busiest places in the country.

This is insane. Can Mayor Bloomberg be impeached? He seems to have no respect for the Bill of Rights.

That arrest was uncalled for. I hope this woman takes her case to a federal court -- violation of a civil right.

You could hardly hear her above the din.

How much worse will this repression get?

[lunasun]

8. Oh much worse with the NDAA ... think about it & I agree - could hardly hear her- what the hell???

[JDPriestly]

5. Excerpt from Citizens United -- slightly edited to apply more generally to this situation

The regulatory scheme at issue may not be a prior restraint in the strict sense. However, given its complexity and the deference courts show to administrative determinations, a speaker wishing to avoid criminal liability threats and the heavy costs of defending against . . . enforcement must ask a governmental agency for prior permission to speak. The restrictions thus function as the equivalent of a prior restraint, giving the . . .[NYPD?] power analogous to the type of government practices that the First Amendment was drawn to prohibit. The ongoing chill on speech makes it necessary to invoke the earlier precedents that a . . . [ordinance] that chills speech can and must be invalidated where its facial invalidity has been demonstrated. Pp. 12–20.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-205.ZS.html

The original text (at same web address):

The regulatory scheme at issue may not be a prior restraint in the strict sense. However, given its complexity and the deference courts show to administrative determinations, a speaker wishing to avoid criminal liability threats and the heavy costs of defending against FEC enforcement must ask a governmental agency for prior permission to speak. The restrictions thus function as the equivalent of a prior restraint, giving the FEC power analogous to the type of government practices that the First Amendment was drawn to prohibit. The ongoing chill on speech makes it necessary to invoke the earlier precedents that a statute that chills speech can and must be invalidated where its facial invalidity has been demonstrated. Pp. 12–20.

And also from Citizens United at the above web address:

Because speech is an essential mechanism of democracy—it is the means to hold officials accountable to the people—political speech must prevail against laws that would suppress it by design or inadvertence. Laws burdening such speech are subject to strict scrutiny, which requires the Government to prove that the restriction “furthers a compelling interest and is narrowly tailored to achieve that interest.” WRTL, 551 U. S., at 464. This language provides a sufficient framework for protecting the interests in this case. Premised on mistrust of governmental power, the First Amendment stands against attempts to disfavor certain subjects or viewpoints or to distinguish among different speakers, which may be a means to control content. The Government may also commit a constitutional wrong when by law it identifies certain preferred speakers. There is no basis for the proposition that, in the political speech context, the Government may impose restrictions on certain disfavored speakers. Both history and logic lead to this conclusion. Pp. 20–25.

[midnight]

6. I hope the ACLU is able to stop this NDAA...

&feature=player_embedded

[Armin-A]

7. kind of ironic

[Justice wanted]

9. And so it begins... Freedom of speech basically Jan 3rd 2012

Died.

[MrMickeysMom]

10. Dear Senator Lindsey Graham:

SHUT UP, SIT DOWN AND READ THE CONSTITUTION, YOU SUBVERSIVE, IGNORAMUS.

With evidence of this NDAA illegal piece of shit in your filthy hand, you should be henceforth perp walked and guided into a long vacation a la Gitmo for being such an anti-American. I mean, since President Obama hasn't closed it yet, there must be some cell open there for the likes of your sorry ass.

When is this piece of shit running for office again? Oh... IS HE running? And, IS THIS WHY he needs the drones of SC to give him another 6 years?

Talk about, "shame!, shame!, shame!"