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Can the Secret Service tell you to shut up? Another illegal Obama law gets signed.
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Abolish The Obamanation
Mar 17, 2012, 7:33:35 PM3/17/12
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http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/03/15/can-secret-service-
tell-to-shut-up/?intcmp=obnetwork
The First Amendment to the Constitution prohibits the government
from infringing upon the freedom of speech, the freedom of
association and the freedom to petition the government for a
redress of grievances. Speech is language and other forms of
expression; and association and petition connote physical
presence in reasonable proximity to those of like mind and to
government officials, so as to make your opinions known to them.
The Declaration of Independence recognizes all three freedoms as
stemming from our humanity. So, what happens if you can speak
freely, but the government officials at whom your speech is
aimed refuse to hear you? And what happens if your right to
associate and to petition the government is confined to areas
where those of like mind and the government are not present?
This is coming to a street corner near you.
Certain rights, like thought and privacy and travel, can be
exercised on their own. You don�t need the government to
cooperate with you; you just need to be left alone. Other
rights, like those intended to influence the political process,
require that the government not resist your exercise of them.
Remember the old one-liner from Philosophy 101: If a tree falls
in a forest and no one is there, does it make any noise? Here�s
the contemporary version of that: If you can criticize the
government, but it refuses to hear you, does your exercise of
the freedom of speech have any value?
When the Framers of the Constitution wrote the First Amendment,
they lived in a society in which anyone could walk up to George
Washington or John Adams or Thomas Jefferson on a public street
and say directly to them whatever one wished. They never dreamed
of a regal-like force of armed agents keeping public officials
away from the public, as we have today. And they never imagined
that it could be a felony for anyone to congregate in public
within earshot or eyesight of certain government officials. And
yet, today in America, it is.
Last week, President Obama signed into law the Federal
Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011. This
law permits Secret Service agents to designate any place they
wish as a place where free speech, association and petition of
the government are prohibited. And it permits the Secret Service
to make these determinations based on the content of speech.
Thus, federal agents whose work is to protect public officials
and their friends may prohibit the speech and the gatherings of
folks who disagree with those officials or permit the speech and
the gatherings of those who would praise them, even though the
First Amendment condemns content-based speech discrimination by
the government.
The new law also provides that anyone who gathers in a
�restricted� area may be prosecuted. And because the statute
does not require the government to prove intent, a person
accidentally in a restricted area can be charged and prosecuted,
as well.
Permitting people to express publicly their opinions to the
president only at a time and in a place and manner such that he
cannot hear them violates the First Amendment because it
guarantees the right to useful speech; and unheard political
speech is politically useless. The same may be said of the
rights to associate and to petition. If peaceful public assembly
and public expression of political demands on the government can
be restricted to places where government officials cannot be
confronted, then those rights, too, have been neutered.
Political speech is in the highest category of protected speech.
This is not about drowning out the president in the Oval Office.
This is about letting him know what we think of his work when he
leaves the White House. This is speech intended to influence the
political process.
This abominable legislation enjoyed overwhelming support from
both political parties in Congress because the establishment
loves power, fears dissent and hates inconvenience, and it
doesn�t give a damn about the Constitution. It passed the Senate
by unanimous consent, and only three members of the House voted
against it. And the president signed it in secret. It is more
typical of contemporary China than America. It is more George
III than George Washington.
The whole purpose of the First Amendment is to assure open,
wide, robust, uninhibited political debate, debate that can be
seen and heard by those it seeks to challenge and influence,
whether it is convenient for them or not. Anything short of that
turns the First Amendment into a mirage.
Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of
New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel.
Judge Napolitano has written six books on the U.S. Constitution.
The most recent is "It Is Dangerous To Be Right When the
Government Is Wrong: The Case for Personal Freedom." This column
is distributed by Creators Syndicate. For more information visit
Creators.com.
tell-to-shut-up/?intcmp=obnetwork
The First Amendment to the Constitution prohibits the government
from infringing upon the freedom of speech, the freedom of
association and the freedom to petition the government for a
redress of grievances. Speech is language and other forms of
expression; and association and petition connote physical
presence in reasonable proximity to those of like mind and to
government officials, so as to make your opinions known to them.
The Declaration of Independence recognizes all three freedoms as
stemming from our humanity. So, what happens if you can speak
freely, but the government officials at whom your speech is
aimed refuse to hear you? And what happens if your right to
associate and to petition the government is confined to areas
where those of like mind and the government are not present?
This is coming to a street corner near you.
Certain rights, like thought and privacy and travel, can be
exercised on their own. You don�t need the government to
cooperate with you; you just need to be left alone. Other
rights, like those intended to influence the political process,
require that the government not resist your exercise of them.
Remember the old one-liner from Philosophy 101: If a tree falls
in a forest and no one is there, does it make any noise? Here�s
the contemporary version of that: If you can criticize the
government, but it refuses to hear you, does your exercise of
the freedom of speech have any value?
When the Framers of the Constitution wrote the First Amendment,
they lived in a society in which anyone could walk up to George
Washington or John Adams or Thomas Jefferson on a public street
and say directly to them whatever one wished. They never dreamed
of a regal-like force of armed agents keeping public officials
away from the public, as we have today. And they never imagined
that it could be a felony for anyone to congregate in public
within earshot or eyesight of certain government officials. And
yet, today in America, it is.
Last week, President Obama signed into law the Federal
Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011. This
law permits Secret Service agents to designate any place they
wish as a place where free speech, association and petition of
the government are prohibited. And it permits the Secret Service
to make these determinations based on the content of speech.
Thus, federal agents whose work is to protect public officials
and their friends may prohibit the speech and the gatherings of
folks who disagree with those officials or permit the speech and
the gatherings of those who would praise them, even though the
First Amendment condemns content-based speech discrimination by
the government.
The new law also provides that anyone who gathers in a
�restricted� area may be prosecuted. And because the statute
does not require the government to prove intent, a person
accidentally in a restricted area can be charged and prosecuted,
as well.
Permitting people to express publicly their opinions to the
president only at a time and in a place and manner such that he
cannot hear them violates the First Amendment because it
guarantees the right to useful speech; and unheard political
speech is politically useless. The same may be said of the
rights to associate and to petition. If peaceful public assembly
and public expression of political demands on the government can
be restricted to places where government officials cannot be
confronted, then those rights, too, have been neutered.
Political speech is in the highest category of protected speech.
This is not about drowning out the president in the Oval Office.
This is about letting him know what we think of his work when he
leaves the White House. This is speech intended to influence the
political process.
This abominable legislation enjoyed overwhelming support from
both political parties in Congress because the establishment
loves power, fears dissent and hates inconvenience, and it
doesn�t give a damn about the Constitution. It passed the Senate
by unanimous consent, and only three members of the House voted
against it. And the president signed it in secret. It is more
typical of contemporary China than America. It is more George
III than George Washington.
The whole purpose of the First Amendment is to assure open,
wide, robust, uninhibited political debate, debate that can be
seen and heard by those it seeks to challenge and influence,
whether it is convenient for them or not. Anything short of that
turns the First Amendment into a mirage.
Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of
New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel.
Judge Napolitano has written six books on the U.S. Constitution.
The most recent is "It Is Dangerous To Be Right When the
Government Is Wrong: The Case for Personal Freedom." This column
is distributed by Creators Syndicate. For more information visit
Creators.com.
Peter Franks
Mar 18, 2012, 12:12:06 AM3/18/12
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