Under the new rules, groups must notify the DOA of a gathering of 12 or more people two business days before the event takes place. The notification may be sent by phone, email, in person or by a state form, according to the statement. There is no limit on the number of notifications groups and individuals can submit.That's a good resolution of the problem. There's a long tradition of spontaneous protests in the Wisconsin Capitol building, and the permit requirement interfered with it. Yeah, sometimes the protests get way out of hand, and the building does require security that varies when a lot of people show up at once, but focus on those real issues. Don't have a policy that's designed — or seems to be designed — to suppress spontaneity.
October 9, 2013
Scott Walker gives up fighting for the permit requirement for protests in the Capitol.
Under pressure from an ACLU lawsuit.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
13 comments:
Seems like a legitimate compromise.
It Seems to Make Sense: Something Must Be Wrong.
It's still two days, so not completely spontaneous. However it's an improvement from the supression expression altogether. If a person wears a shirt or hat with a protest slogan without a permit, will that still be considered illegal, I wonder.
Naked Park Ranger Robot Says:
Under the new rules, groups must notify the Federal Park System of a gathering of 2 or more people in a Federal Park two business days before the event takes place. The notification may be sent by phone, email, in person or by a state form. There is no limit on the number of notifications groups and individuals can submit. You Will Be Notified Within Ten Business days if Your Gathering is Accepted.
Supression OF expression.
All of the anti-Walker protest worked out so well for Wisconsin, I can see why you would want some more (/sarc off). What did it cost to restore the capitol after all of that? A pretty penny I'm sure. But it was sure worth it. Otherwise, those folks would have been working, studying, or engaged in other productive pursuits.
It seems to me that a lot of discouragement of spontaneity is in order.
"It's still two days, so not completely spontaneous."
Good point, but I think the challenged policy was only to things that were, in fact, planned. I'd like to see the text of the settlement.
Couldn't he have just reduced the require to shoes? That would have kept a quarter of those dirtysmellyhippies away :)
I'm wondering too, if wearing clothing with protest slogans in groups of people more than 12 need such a permit. As I understand it, people were getting arrested for wearing such clothing while remaining silent. Is clothing the same as holding a sign?
"Supression OF expression" = compression repression
This turn of events should be termed the "Kohl-Riggs full employment act"
So happy to hear the shenanigans are over. The arrest policy was a giant mistake - one that cost $88,000 in this case alone. The Damon Terrell case could be expensive, too.
The settlement can be found here:
http://www.thewheelerreport.com/wheeler_docs/files/1008doaacluagreement_02.pdf
The arrest policy was a giant mistake
Understatement.
This seems like a good compromise, but like others, I'm curious how a truly spontaneous event would work. Legislative hearings sometimes have very short notice. It would be nice to tie the two things together.
Post a Comment