Civil Liberties – RI Future

August 18, 2015

RI ACLU calls behavior detection testing at T.F. Green ‘junk science’

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The Rhode Island chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has come out in opposition to the behavioral testing conducted at T.F. Green Airport by the Department of Homeland Security. The field test is for a “behavior detection” program that is meant to determine whether or not passengers have “mal-intent.”

Steven Brown, the executive director of the RI ACLU, issued a letter to Kelly J. Fredericks, the President of the RI Airport Corporation, asking that they cease their involvement in the program, and not support any such programs in the future.

“I am writing to express the ACLU of Rhode Island’s deep concerns about the Rhode Island Airport Corporation’s apparent decision last month, with no public input, to work with the Department of Homeland Security’s Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in field testing the expansion of a largely discredited program that attempts to identify travelers who might pose a potential security risk through questionable “behavior detection” techniques,” Brown wrote.

The field test, which is called “Centralized Hostile Intent,” will use actors to mimic behaviors that the TSA should be able to screen and identify. They will be asked to identify these behaviors through a video feed, rather than in person. Because actors will be used during the field test, the ACLU recognized that the effect on travelers’ privacy will be minimal, but they still opposed the overall intent of the study.

“But one cannot ignore what the ultimate goal of this project is- to make it easier and more routine to target innocent travelers for intrusive incursions on their privacy, all based on what have thus far been largely discredited “behavior detection” activities,” Brown wrote.

Brown also wrote that the current “behavior detection” patterns that officers look for are arbitrary and random at best, such as being late for a flight, excessive clock watching, strong body odor, sweaty palms, among other signs. These monitoring activities have been criticized since a 2013 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office recommended that the TSA limit their funding for behavior detection, since there was no scientific evidence to prove whether or not these activities actually work. According to the report, “the human ability to accurately identify deceptive behavior based on behavioral indicators is the same or slightly better than chance.”

The program being tested at T.F. Green also seeks to develop a tracking algorithm so officers can follow on-camera anyone they believe to be suspicious, and identify those with them as well.

“The anticipated future applications of this project are disturbing, as they promise to be just as ineffective as TSA’s existing efforts. At bottom, this effort is junk science, but one with serious civil liberties and privacy implications,” Brown said. “We all want to ensure proper security measures are in place at our airports, but it is time to end, not expand, ineffective programs like this that use up limited resources, and that open the door to more intrusive privacy invasions and increased racial profiling, while doing little to keep us safe.”

April 8, 2015April 9, 2015

ACLU president Susan Herman on civil liberties, South Carolina and Black Lives Matter

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Susan Herman, president of the American Civil Liberties Union who is in Rhode Island today to speak at a panel discussion on policing, said she is not surprised to learn that a white police officer shot a Black man in South Carolina.

“I wish I could say I was surprised,” she told me. “Unfortunately it’s not news that a Black man was shot by a white police officer. That’s happened 100 times since March. What is news is that the system actually responded and the officer will be charged.”

A constitutional law professor who has headed the ACLU since 2008, Herman said the response in South Carolina compared to the response in Ferguson is encouraging.

“It’s a sign that an awareness has been sparked by the troubling events in Ferguson, and that awareness is starting to bear fruit,” she said. “It’s possible that South Carolina is being so responsive because the American people have woken up to the fact that Black lives do matter.”

Herman said more and more of the ACLU’s work is being focused on racial issues, such as those related to the Black Lives Matter movement, because people of color much more frequently have their civil liberties curtailed. “Ever since Ferguson there has been tremendous interest in stories like this,” she said. “I think prior to Ferguson, a lot of people thought there wasn’t a problem.”

Nationally, she said, the ACLU is focusing attention on mass incarceration and voter suppression laws, both of which disproportionately adversely affect people of color. “What’s special about the ACLU is we connect the dots,” she said, invoking the famous ACLU catch phrase – ‘defend everybody.'”

She termed the amount of money the United States invests incarcerating its citizens as “staggering,” adding, “We’re stripping money from schools so that we can lock people up. It’s a great big societal mistake.”

And Herman referred to voter ID laws as “voter suppression laws,” saying, “if our public servants are not accountable to the people, there’s no limit on what they can do.” I asked her if she was surprised that a nominally liberal state like Rhode Island has such a law and she said, “It’s really just a political tool and there’s not just one party that tries to give itself an advantage.”

I asked her to give the Ocean State a grade on defending Rhode Islanders civil liberties, and she declined saying instead, “If even one person in Rhode Island is searched because of their race, that’s bad.”

February 23, 2015

EG mulls moratorium on medical marijuana compassion centers

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The East Greenwich Town Council is considering implementing a moratorium on medical marijuana compassion centers at a meeting tonight to which Steve Brown, executive director of the RI ACLU, said “I do not believe municipalities have the authority to essentially halt the implementation of the law at their borders.”

The formal Town Council agenda is broadly worded. It says under new business, “A moratorium on marijuana compassion centers, hookah bars and the growth, sale or distribution of marijuana.” But Council President Michael Isaacs said in an interview that a moratorium is only intended to apply to medical marijuana dispensaries, where patients can legally obtain medical marijuana.

“It was supposed to be narrowly focused,” Isaacs said, noting he hasn’t yet seen the language – but he said he expects the council will vote on it tonight. The Council decided to consider this because of “articles in law review journals about potential zoning conflicts,” he said. “Zoning has to do with the appropriateness of an activity in the community or in a particular part of a community.”

Brown, longtime director of the RI ACLU, said the town can’t decide which state laws it wants to follow. “State law establishes a very detailed scheme for the medical marijuana program and compassion centers,” he said. “It completely undermines state policy as reflected in the Medical Marijuana Act.”

Brown said there exists procedures for municipalities to weigh in if a compassion center applies to locate there, which none have done, according to the state Department of Health.

“Regarding compassion centers,” Brown said, “it is important to note that exclusive jurisdiction is vested in the Department of Health to issue compassion center permits. One of the criteria to be used by the Department is to consider is “the interests of the city or town where the dispensary would be located.” Other than providing that input, a municipality should not be able to then undermine the detailed regulatory analysis the Department has undertaken, in accordance with the law, in making its decision as to whom — and where — to grant a compassion center license.”

Brown said there are different issues if the Council were to try to ban individual care providers who grow medical marijuana.

“The problem is just as acute for medical marijuana users,” Brown said, “They have the right under state law to cultivate medical marijuana for their own use. A municipal attempt to bar medical marijuana users from growing the medicine is a direct attack on the right the Medical Marijuana Act gives them and cannot be lawfully imposed. As a practical matter, a moratorium would have the ironic effect of actually encouraging legitimate medical marijuana users to obtain their marijuana illegally.”

Jared Moffat, director of Regulate RI, a group pushing to tax and regulate marijuana in Rhode Island, echoed Brown’s concerns.

“Banning state-sanctioned compassion centers and licensed caregivers from cultivating marijuana will only reduce access to an important medicine for chronically ill patients and might force more patients to turn to the illicit market,” he said. “Outright prohibition is the worst possible policy for marijuana, and it is disappointing to see East Greenwich potentially going down that road.”

January 23, 2015January 24, 2015

Homeless, civil liberty defenders decry anti-highway blocking bill

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Supporters of civil liberties and marginalized people are criticizing Coventry Sen. Lou Raptakis’ bill that would make it a felony, punishable by at least a year in jail, to block a highway.

Raptakis, a conservative who owns a pizza place in Coventry, submitted the controversial bill yesterday. It is a direct response, he has said, to the highway protests, in Providence and across the country, led by Black Lives Matter activists, who organized to counter racial injustice and police violence against Black people in America.

The bill says: “A person commits the crime of unlawful interference with traffic if he or she intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly: (1) Stands, sits, kneels, or otherwise loiters on any federal or state highway under such circumstances that said conduct could reasonably be construed as interfering with the lawful movement of traffic.” It was co-signed by Senators Frank Lombardo, of Johnston, Frank Lombardi, of Crnaston, Michael McCaffrey, of Warwick, and Paul Jabour, of Providence.

Raptakis’ bill has drawn a sharp rebuke from civil libertarians, homelessness advocates as well as groups promoting an end to racism.

The Rhode Island Homeless Advocacy Project and the RI ACLU released a joint statement yesterday.

“Legislation introduced by Senator Raptakis today, ostensibly to deal with protesters creating a public safety hazard by blocking roadways, is both short-sighted and unnecessary. The bill, S-129, would make it a felony to cause the ‘interruption, obstruction, distraction, or delay of any motorist,’ punishable by between one and three years in prison for a first offense. On its face, this legislation is unnecessary because there are already statutes under which individuals can be charged for this conduct, as happened to several protesters involved in the I-95 demonstration in November.

Apparently feeling that the punishment isn’t severe enough, the Senator would like to give these mostly young people a felony record, potentially impacting severely their future employment, housing and other opportunities for the rest of their lives. The introduction of the bill this week is particularly ironic, considering that we just celebrated the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., whose historic Selma-to-Montgomery march had to have been one of the country’s greatest “obstruction, distraction or delay” of motorists ever. Do we really want to reserve a prison cell for three years to hold his successor?

“The bill also has the potential to curtail the civil liberties not only of lawful protesters but also of individuals experiencing homelessness and living in poverty. The legislation’s broadly-worded and ambiguous language leaves open the possibility that individuals panhandling on sidewalks or medians – a means of survival and a legal exercise of one’s First Amendment rights – could be accused of distracting motorists and jailed under the proposed law.

“Such use of this legislation has negative consequences both for the individual charged and for our state more broadly. To charge an individual attempting to meet his or her basic needs in a legal manner with a felony is both cruel and illogical. Both the court proceedings and the subsequent incarceration of the individual are extremely costly to the state. Furthermore, because of a felony conviction’s impact on employment and housing, the charge could also lengthen bouts of homelessness, which are expensive to taxpayers.

“If Senator Raptakis’ intention is to ensure public safety, this end could better be achieved by fostering constructive dialogue between the police and marginalized communities – whether communities of color protesting unequal treatment or the homeless community securing basic needs – about collaborative solutions to the injustices they face daily. Filling the prisons even more is not the answer.”

December 15, 2014December 16, 2014

Racial disparity in discretionary searches is up among PVD, state police

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Racial disparities in Rhode Island traffic searches that don’t end in arrest increased have steadily increased for Providence and state police, according to an ACLU analysis of traffic stop data released earlier this year.

“This most recent analysis indicates that the racial disparities in discretionary searches are not only continuing, but in many cases increasing,” according to an ACLU press release. “Of the ten Rhode Island police departments that stopped more than 2,000 individuals and/or engaged in more than 100 discretionary searches in 2004-2005, the data indicates that nine have seen a subsequent increase in the racial disparity of such searches.”

The ACLU analysis is based from a comprehensive study of every traffic stop in Rhode Island in 2013. You can read the entire report here. The ACLU focused this time on discretionary searches, or police searches of vehicles that do not lead to arrest.

“Ten years since racial profiling was prohibited by law, this data is both alarming and disheartening. Black and Hispanic drivers remain disproportionately searched by law enforcement, even though Northeastern University’s analysis demonstrates that white drivers are more likely to be found with contraband when searched,” said ACLU policy analyst Hillary Davis in the press release. “As a result, these searches are both discriminatory and ineffective. A decade’s worth of conversations between law enforcement and the community have not resolved these disparities, and it is time for law enforcement to employ new means to ensure Rhode Islanders receive equal treatment in their interactions with the police.”

April 15, 2014April 17, 2014

Pro-convention reasons against a constitutional convention: The ‘unlimited’ convention

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One of the major stumbling blocks to supporting a constitutional convention is the fact that it’s an “unlimited” convention.

It’s important, as Prof. Robert Williams of Rutgers University told the March 29 Conference, to remember that state constitutions don’t function like the US Constitution. The US Constitution grants power to the federal government, whereas state constitutions restrict the powers of the state governments.

But all constitutions also lay out the civil liberties their citizens can expect. And both functions of the constitution are up for review. Of the 14 amendments to come out of the 1986 convention, about six pertained to civil liberties in some manner.

This is an important reason to fear the risk of the convention. Even if all the delegates campaign solely on the structural part of constitutional change, there’s nothing stopping them from throwing in civil liberties amendments as well. In all likelihood, these amendments won’t increase civil liberties, but rather weaken them for non-dominant groups; women, recent immigrants, racial/ethnic minorities, and the incarcerated.

One suggestion offered by Prof. Williams was to have a “limited” convention. It’s possible to write an amendment to the state constitution that allows a convention to be called that can only focus on structural issues of government. However, that would require a popular, grassroots effort to force the General Assembly to do so. Engaging in that effort would demonstrate good faith that Pro-convention side is responsive to the concerns of the Anti-covention side. That could do a lot to win support for a future convention.

Part 1: Pro-convention reasons against a constitutional convention ‘Why now?’
Tomorrow: The status quo bias

October 31, 2013October 31, 2013

Shout down at Brown: what would John Lewis do?

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Speaking of civil disobedience, Congressman John Lewis will be in Providence on Friday and I can hardly wait to ask the this living legend of the struggle for civil rights what he thinks of the instantly infamous Shout Down at Brown.

Lewis, like those who prevented Ray Kelly from lecturing on his controversial and currently unconstitutional “stop and frisk” policing style, broke the rules of civil society in an effort to force our nation to have a conversation about racism. He was arrested 40 times during the 60’s, and here’s what I heard him say at the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington:

“…we used what we had to bring about a nonviolent revolution (applause) And I say to all of the young people that you have to push and to pull to make America what America should be for all of us.”

It’s really worth listening to what this icon said just a few weeks ago about civil disobedience:

There are both obvious similarities and differences in how Lewis pushed and pulled for change during the Civil Rights era compared to the direct action successfully coordinated by a surprisingly organized coalition of Brown students and local community organizers. For one, Lewis broke rules he felt were unjust. And when he did interrupt civil society he did so merely with his presence, or his blackness, as the case was.

It’s worth noting that Gandhi’s world-changing Salt March was in tactic more akin to refusing to pay a bridge toll than shouting down an invited guest. But it’s also worth noting that Nelson Mandella was best known for leading a known-terrorist organization, Spear of the Nation, before doing 27 years hard time for other reasons.

There’s no doubt in my mind that nonviolent resistance is a more effective change agent than its morally inferior cousin civil disobedience. But there is also little doubt in my mind that if local activists want Rhode Island to have a discussion about civil rights, playing by the rules will not work. The left has lost serious ground on important issues that smack of latent racism in recent years, such as voter ID and high stakes testing. Both initiatives, like “stop and frisk,” target minority populations and these angles don’t get a fair share of attention in our marketplace of ideas.

Perhaps it’s telling that the Providence Journal’s day 2 story on this Shout Down at Brown does not offer insight from DARE, the Olneyville Neighborhood Association or Fuerza Laboral but it does have perspectives from both the Heritage Foundation and the CATO Institute – two groups that advocate for low taxes and small government, not civil rights or free speech.

In a way, there is a connection between austerity and what Ray Kelly calls “proactive policing.” It places a higher value on efficiency than individual liberty. When that starts happening, and information gatekeepers like the media and academia, don’t want to talk about it, it’s worth forcing the conversation a little bit.

July 11, 2013July 11, 2013

ACLU analyzes the legislative session

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The bad news is civil liberties weren’t more of a legislative priority this session. But the silver lining is that the RI ACLU did an excellent job of documenting their wins and losses in this end of the session recap on their recently revamped website.

“The passage of marriage equality legislation was not only the highlight of this year’s General Assembly session, it was about the only light,” it reads. Bills to restrict sex discrimination and racial profiling were ignored while “the legislature instead approved in the closing hours of the session a diverse anti-civil liberties agenda, which included bills promoting sex discrimination in school extracurricular activities, providing funding to an anti-abortion religious organization, weakening the state’s open records law, and subjecting teenagers to felony penalties for committing graffiti offenses.”

There’s tons more information on the RI ACLU’s new website – including an analysis of bills relating to abortion, open government, free speech, immigrant rights and many others…

May 8, 2013May 8, 2013

In defense of my niece Jessica Ahlquist

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My niece, Jessica Ahlquist, has received dozens of awards for her brave stance in challenging the constitutionality of a Christian prayer affixed to the wall of her Cranston high school. In the wake of winning her case, the outcome of which was never in doubt given the strong, 50 years of legal precedent, she faced death threats and rape threats and abhorrent treatment from the media, her mayor, her state representative, school department officials, teachers, fellow students and complete strangers.

Online, in comments and in news articles, Jessica has been accused of doing it for the money, even though she only asked for damages amounting to five dollars. On the radio, John DePetro and his callers have been particularly nasty, and DePetro does nothing to discourage the trivialization and sexualization of my niece on his show. DePetro’s unhealthy obsession with my niece began with him tweeting her when she was just 16 years old, odd behavior for a man with children her age.

Recently news broke that Jessica will be receiving another award, this one from Playboy Magazine founder Hugh Hefner. This has led to another round of hyperbolic media and accusations that this is all some sort of money grab on her part, even though the award she’s winning did not even exist when she began her case.

But reason was never something Jessica’s critics made use of.

Last year the same award was given to Zack Kopplin, another high school atheist, this time from from Louisiana, who fought against the teaching of Biblically based and oxymoronically entitled “creation science” in his schools. No hue and cry was raised when this young man went to California to receive his award.

But Jessica is an attractive young woman. Critics seem unable to avoid the sexualization of my niece, never mind that she is not even eighteen years old. Callers on John DePetro’s show practically salivate as they create lurid fantasies about my niece visiting the Playboy Mansion to receive the Hugh Hefner First Amendment Award for Education. Their religious repression and inability to articulate sentences with meaning are on full display.

This is all the more ironic considering the fact that even now John DePetro is fighting off accusations that he made inappropriate sexual advances towards an employee. For a man of DePetro’s low character and reputation to call into question the dignity and honor of my niece is a sad stain on Rhode Island media. If DePetro were capable of shame, he would become a cave hermit, permanently removing himself from the sight of his fellow humans. Unfortunately for us all, DePetro continues his endless assault on public decency with my niece as his target.

And let’s be clear about what Jessica did to earn Depetro’s wrath:

She stood up for the Constitution of the United States, the same document public officials swear to uphold and for which our young soldiers die every week in two ongoing foreign wars. Not only did she stand up for what she believed in, but she had the temerity to win her case, with a judge’s decision that was unequivocally in her favor.

Jessica was right.

And for that, to this day, she is the target of those who don’t understand or don’t care that this is a nation that protects religious conviction from government intrusion and protects government from theocratic laws.

Those who attack my niece display the worst excesses and ugliness of religion in America today. They are beneath contempt.

June 23, 2012June 24, 2012

Chafee Should Veto Woonsocket Cross Bills

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At 2:30 AM on the morning of June 13th, an hour before adjourning for the year, the General Assembly approved two outlandish companion bills, H-8143A and S 3035 as amended. In direct contrast to the principles that animated the founding of our state, these bills establish a government commission with the blatantly inappropriate and unconstitutional role of deciding for religious faiths which symbols of theirs are religious and which ones aren’t. As a long-time and staunch supporter of separation of church and state, Governor Chafee should veto this ill- advised legislation.

The bills were prompted by the on-going controversy surrounding a town-maintained Latin cross in front of a Woonsocket fire station. But whatever one’s views of that monument’s constitutional validity, this legislation crosses a line that the First Amendment cannot tolerate. It not only extensively entangles government in religious matters, it epitomizes the worst fears of the founders of the Constitution, who believed that separation of church and state was needed as much, if not more, to protect religion from the state as to protect the state from religion. This bill would allow government officials to declare that even a sacred religious symbol, icon, inscription, or statue has attained a secular value. Thus, government could attack religion in the guise of protecting it, by degrading, minimizing and politicizing the sacred nature of religious symbols in order to “protect” them from those advocating separation of church and state. No government commission should be permitted to decree that a religious symbol no longer has a religious meaning or that it has become predominantly secular.

Further, rather than resolve disputes over government sponsorship of religious symbols, the establishment of a commission like this will only magnify them and politicize religion to an extremely uncomfortable degree. It is ironic that those who claim a desire to protect religion would promote a bill that essentially gives a state commission the power to strip religious symbols of their sectarian meaning.

Passage of this bill is even more ironic when one considers the attacks that Governor Chafee was subjected to from the right last December when, in line with his Republican predecessor, he referred to the State House “holiday tree” instead of calling it a Christmas tree. Yet many of those same people have rallied around a bill that now establishes a government commission whose stated purpose is to declare religious symbols secular! We are hopeful that Governor Chafee will see this legislation for the politically mischievous and constitutionally problematic bill it is and give it a well-deserved veto.

April 24, 2012April 24, 2012

ACLU Sues Over Wrongful Detention of US Citizen

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Ada Morales, of North Providence, is a US citizen. But twice she has been detained by law enforcement officials who didn’t realize she she had become naturalized in 1995.

In an effort to ensure the same thing doesn’t happen to her a third time – or someone else for the first time – the RI ACLU is suing state and federal officials saying they violated her constitutional rights.

Here’s the press release from the ACLU:

The ACLU today filed a lawsuit in federal district court on behalf of a North Providence resident who has twice been detained as a deportable “alien” even though she is a U.S. citizen. The lawsuit alleges that federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials and Rhode Island officials often bypass Constitutional requirements and safeguards when they detain individuals on immigration grounds.

In May 2009, Ms. Ada Morales, who was born in Guatemala and who naturalized as a United States citizen in 1995, was taken into custody on unrelated criminal charges. While she was being held at the ACI, an ICE “immigration detainer” was lodged against her. Even though a judge ordered Ms. Morales released, the R.I. Department of Corrections held her in custody for an additional 24 hours because of the ICE detainer. “When I found out that I was being detained for immigration reasons, I was shocked,” said Ms. Morales. “I told the Rhode Island officials that I’m a U.S. citizen, and I offered to show them my naturalization certificate and passport, but no one would listen. They just assumed they could hold me because of my Guatemalan background and the color of my skin.” An ICE official later apologized to Ms. Morales for her wrongful detention, but acknowledged that it could happen again. In fact, she had been unlawfully detained in virtually identical circumstances once before, in 2004.

“Ms. Morales’s ordeal is another example of how ICE’s detainer practices lead to wrongful detention,” said Kate Desormeau, staff attorney at the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project. “ICE has no business detaining U.S. citizens. Yet because of ICE’s practice of issuing detainers first and asking questions later, we’ve seen U.S. citizens unlawfully detained all across the country.” Rhode Island ACLU executive director Steven Brown added: “This case is an important reminder of the collateral damage that harsh immigration policies can cause, and provides a compelling reason why Rhode Island should not be in the business of assisting with federal immigration enforcement.”

An ICE detainer is a document that advises law enforcement officials that ICE may seek to take an individual into custody for deportation purposes once state or local custody ends. The suit alleges that ICE officials issue detainers “without a sufficient investigation to determine whether arrestees who are perceived to be ‘foreign’ (based on their place of birth, race or ethnicity, foreign-sounding last names, and/or English language ability) are in fact U.S. citizens.”

The suit also claims that ICE has been deliberately misleading about the legal effect of immigration detainers, prompting local and state officials to believe that they are required to continue holding individuals on the basis of detainers even though detainers are only requests that a person be held.

ICE agents and state and local officials typically treat a detainer as authorizing continued imprisonment, even if no state or federal charges are pending and no deportation proceedings have been brought. Unlike a criminal warrant, immigration detainers are issued by ICE itself, and are not based upon a probable cause determination by a neutral judicial officer.

The lawsuit claims that federal and state officials violated Ms. Morales’s constitutional rights to due process, equal protection of the laws, and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, and seeks injunctive relief and damages for violation of her rights.

The suit is being handled by RI ACLU volunteer attorneys Mark Freel and Erika Lindberg from the law firm of Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP, and National ACLU attorneys Omar Jadwat and Kate Desormeau.

March 8, 2012March 8, 2012

Rep Medina Says He Was Profiled by Police

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At a hearing on a bill that would protect people from being profiled by police based on their race, Rep. Leo Medina, D- Providence, no stranger to law enforcement, told the story of the time he was pulled over late at night and essentially harassed by an East Providence police officer.

Then Chairman of the Rhode Island Human Rights Commission Michael Evora testified about why some of law enforcement’s objections to the bill contradict best practices used by police in Rhode Island. “I respectfully submit,” he said, “that in some instances the term officer safety is used as a subterfuge.”

February 6, 2012February 6, 2012

Occupy Providence and the Right’s Selective Support of the 1st Amendment

Occupy Providence has the fringe-right all in a tizzy over an incident in which condoms were dropped on a anti-choice rally at the State House, spawning not one but two diaries calling for criminal charges to protect the religious right from the inconvenience of being confronted with opposing views. Here’s Justin nearly hyperventilating over a list of “possible charges” and the need to criminalize exercising one’s First Amendment rights:

11-45-1 Disorderly conduct. — (a) A person commits disorderly conduct if he or she intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly: … (1) Engages in fighting or threatening, or in violent or tumultuous behavior; … (3) Directs at another person in a public place offensive words which are likely to provoke a violent reaction on the part of the average person so addressed; … (5) Engages in conduct which obstructs or interferes physically with a lawful meeting, procession, or gathering

Clearly, there’s room to suggest that throwing objects during a political assault on such a gathering as the pro-life rally is illegal… unless, of course, the judiciary has effectively nullified these sections of the law or the AG’s office just wants pesky right-leaning bloggers to go away like the mainstream reporters do.

Among the other grievances was a “hair assault” on Rep. Costa. We can only hope the Representative gets the counseling she so desperately needs after her ordeal.

What’s funny is how different the fringe right views these protests depending on whether or not they agree with the sentiment. Who can forget the “disorderly conduct” of the religious right this past holiday season, who interrupted a children’s concert to protest it not being Christian enough. But don’t bother looking over at that other blog for the calls to have those folks arrested. Those laws only apply if they disagree with you.