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Liar's Poker: Rahm's Minor Concessions Leave Gaping Holes In Our Civil LibertiesIn response to a firestorm of protest, the Emanuel administration has dropped some of the more widely-publicized repressive measures of its proposed anti-protester ordinances, but has vastly misrepresented the magnitude of its concessions, say protest organizers. Here's why: 1. While the administration has made much of its dropping of increased penalties for resisting arrest, left unaddressed was Chicago's unique interpretation of "resisting" which makes many forms of non-violent civil disobedience subject to punishment under the statute. This would be in addition to more conventional charges, like trespassing, that one would be likely to get for such non-violent protest. 2. The minimum fine for violation of the City's parade permit ordinance would jump four-fold, from $50 to $200. A "concession" rolled out yesterday by the administration would keep the maximum penalty at "only" $1000 and/or 10 days in jail. However, given that the new version of the ordinance offers so many new ways to violate it, this "victory" for protesters may be illusory. * [Beachwood Addendum From Martin Luther King's "Letter From a Birmingham Jail": Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.] 4. The no-bid contracts provision for G8/NATO activities, an invitation to rampant graft and contract favoritism, remains intact. 5. The provision allowing deputizing of "law enforcement" by the Chicago Police Department remains intact. After listing a bunch of different bodies that would be subject to deputizing, like the DEA, the FBI and the Illinois State Police, Emanuel's latest proposal also includes "and other law enforcement agencies as determined by the superintendent of police to be necessary for the fulfillment of law enforcement functions." In other words, anyone he wants. For a city that has had great problems keeping its directly sworn officers in check, this looser authority is an even greater license for abuse. * [Beachwood Addendum: In fact, according to the Tribune, "Posner blasted the 'idiocy' of the city's protest rules . . . ["Posner said the city's puzzling permit rules and poor decision-making by police led to mass confusion during the demonstration on March 20, 2003, with police informally deciding to let the march take over Lake Shore Drive with no firm understanding of where it would end. [But when police drew a hard line at preventing access to Michigan Avenue, hundreds of confused demonstrators who were unclear about the order became trapped at the intersection with Chicago Avenue. Although most told police they just wanted to go home, more than 800 people were detained for hours, with more than 500 of them arrested, held overnight and charged with crimes, Posner noted. All of the charges were dismissed in court, he wrote. [Posner said the evidence suggests that police "perhaps in some panic, resorted to mass arrests without justification."] * [Additional Beachwood Addendum. From the Trib: [But some on the City Council say that though they support improving the permit rules, they are concerned that higher fines and other changes will do little more than antagonize demonstrators. ["If people come here to break windows and commit crimes, we have laws right now on the books that deal with that," said Ald.Proco "Joe" Moreno, 1st, who was himself an activist on death penalty issues before he was appointed to the council. "I would rather err on the side of allowing people to freely assemble and protest rather than err on the side of moving toward a lockdown." [The restrictions risk creating more problems than they solve by taking the wrong tone with demonstrators, he said. ["I don't get it, because this mayor is a pragmatist," Moreno said. "The thing about protests, the more you antagonize (protesters), the more they're going to want to push back."] Memo To Moreno: 1. He's not a "pragmatist," he's a cynic. 2. He's not only a cynic, he's a control freak. None of this should come as a surprise, except to the naive. Just look at his record. He's Rahm Emanuel! * See, among much else in the record: Reading Rahm Part 1: The Master Media Manipulator. * See also: The Rest Of Chicago Fights For Its Rights. - Posted on January 18, 2012 |
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