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Giving the First Amendment a Beating at the G-20(Originally posted in Jurist.) Law enforcement officials have, over the past decade, used gatherings of national and international leaders as license to suspend civil liberties. During the recent G-20 Summit, Pittsburgh proved to be no exception. The city was transformed into a police state where our most cherished freedoms, especially the freedom to dissent, were subject to the martial law-type tactics I witnessed behind the Iron Curtain. While world leaders were quietly secluded behind closed doors, 8-foot-high steel and mesh fences lined most downtown streets. Six thousand police and National Guard troops manned checkpoints, roamed the streets in armored humvees, and were visible everywhere in large groups. In this militarized ghost town, neither common folk nor demonstrators ever got close to the dignitaries. Before the Summit, local officials paid lip service to the First Amendment. But just as in Poland under martial law in the early 1980's, where only carefully controlled demonstrations sanctioned by communist-party bosses were allowed, protesters who lacked political ties to the establishment in Pittsburgh last week were threatened, harassed, and outright prohibited from peacefully expressing their opposition to G-20 policies. The gamesmanship began early. Initially resistant to allowing any demonstrations during the Summit, the City eventually relented and permitted several mainstream groups, including former Vice President Al Gore’s climate group, to hold events in a local park. But when two less politically-connected groups, Codepink and Three Rivers Climate Convergence (3RCC), renewed their requests to use the same park, the City refused. The rich and powerful were welcome in Pittsburgh, but those with edgier critical messages were not. A federal judge eventually ordered the City to issue permits to Codepink and 3RCC, ruling that no good reason existed for precluding them. Unfortunately, the mistreatment and harassment of 3RCC and other protesters didn’t end with the judge’s order. Police vehicles blocked 3RCC’s educational and food buses, preventing them from going to the demonstration. City officials permitted the group to leave its tent, artwork, and literature in the park overnight, but would not allow anyone to stand guard- claiming that standing guard would constitute illegal camping. The next day everything was gone. In a moment of surprising candor, the City’s spokeswoman admitted to a local reporter that the Public Works department had confiscated 3RCC’s property. With all necessary props gone, the climate-justice demonstrations never materialized. Despite this intensive scrutiny, which included dozens of warrantless raids on activists’ homes and meeting places and countless pretextual traffic stops, only one person was arrested prior to the Summit – for giving a nickname instead of her birth name. In the eeriest parallel to my experiences in martial law Poland, on two consecutive evenings the police inexplicably deemed assemblies of people peacefully gathered in a large, grassy University of Pittsburgh plaza to be “unlawful” and ordered everyone to disperse immediately. Police used an “LRAD” (first-ever civilian use of a military sonic weapon that can cause permanent hearing loss), shot pepper spray into dormitory stairwells, and fired rubber bullets and beanbags at fleeing students and curiosity seekers. When those assembled tried to follow dispersal orders, many ran into the nearly 1000 riot police that encircled the group. The 100-plus arrestees included many curious, non-participating Pitt students and a few journalists. In this police state, apparently, government-sanctioned assemblies are allowed, but spontaneous demonstrations or gatherings, even peaceful ones, are not. During the Summit, as expected, a few out-of-town kids broke a dozen windows. Police presence at the crime scenes were minimal, primarily because just a few blocks away the massive manpower surge was suppressing the peaceful gathering at the University. If a few of those police officers had simply stood on street corners around the area, even that little damage would have been minimized, Officers who happened to be standing in front of a targeted coffee shop during the two-person rampage discouraged any vandalism. Pittsburgh’s use of harassment, intimidation, trickery, and indiscriminate arrests against demonstrators was fairly typical of the recent handling of other large important gatherings at the hands of various groups of law enforcement officials. At times when the imperative to allow freedom of speech and assembly is greatest – when national and international leaders convene – we impose martial law. Surely a more balanced model that provides security and respects civil liberties is possible.
Just for JesusWhen people toss out the accusation that the ACLU is anti-religious or, specifically, anti-Christian, I react somewhere between being bemused and annoyed, depending on the day's stress level. Bemused because they'd flunk Constitutional Law 101; and annoyed because it's so not true. If it were, why do we regularly help Christians when the government intrudes on their activities? You can read more about some of these cases at /defendingreligion. As the ACLU's Legal Director for Pennsylvania, I've been responsible for many cases helping religious believers exercise their constitutional rights. Last week the ACLU of Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit on behalf of the "Just for Jesus Challenge Homeless Outreach," a ministry of the First Apostles' Doctrine Church in Brookville, Pennsylvania, which was founded a few years ago to bring shelter and Jesus Christ to homeless people in this rural area, about 80 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. The ministry aids pretty much anyone in need. When I last visited, the group included disabled military veterans, teenagers forced from their homes, senior citizens who couldn't afford their personal care homes, recently released low-level offenders, people referred by county mental health agencies, and people evicted from their homes and apartments.
This past summer Brookville shut down the ministry, falsely charging that the ministry had violated local zoning codes. Then on September 4, Brookville zoning officials and police officers, thinking they would catch people sleeping in the church, forced their way inside by climbing through a window, without a warrant or consent. The minister sought help from "Christian" public-interest groups, but was turned down. As so often happens in these situations, when rights are violated and no one else will help, the ACLU rides to the rescue. Sort of like the Just for Jesus ministry, the ACLU helps pretty much anyone — why else do you think we do cases for the KKK, sex offenders, death row inmates and anyone who may not be popular with other Americans. Believe me, it's not because we necessarily agree with their messages or beliefs. As I tell my new student interns every semester, screening complaints is easy. The ACLU doesn't care what the person looks like, i.e., race, gender, ethnicity, disability, etc., how much money they have, for whom they vote, whom they love, or to whom they pray. The only thing that matters is whether the person's rights are being violated. There is no big sign in the office saying "Only ____ need apply."
The Pennsylvania ACLU handles — and always has handled — lots of religious-liberty cases. The cases that attract people's attention are the ones where we challenge government sponsorship of religion — freedom from government-promoted religion. We're well-known for the school prayer case in the 60's (Abington v. Schempp), the courthouse crèche case in the late 80's (Allegheny County v. ACLU), and the Dover Intelligent Design case in this decade (Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District). There's a whole lot more. People who understand the First Amendment's twin pillars of protection for religious liberty — freedom from government-promoted religion and freedom of religion to be free from governmental restraints — know that preventing government from sponsoring or promoting religion actually enhances religious liberty. But we do an almost equal number of cases on behalf of religious people or groups fighting against government interference — the freedom of religion stuff. And we do a lot of cases for Christians, especially considering there are so many public-interest groups that do cases only for Christians (think of the ACLJ, Alliance Defense Fund, Christian Legal Society, Thomas More Law Center, etc.). While those groups favor only these cases, ACLU still represents Christians and everyone else, and we are always happy to help. The case for the Just for Jesus homeless ministry is part of a steady flow of cases we handle for churches and Christians. In the past 18 months, we went to court to reopen a soup kitchen in a McKeesport Church and a shelter for mental-health court referrals and homeless at Cleft of the Rock Church in Munhall. We negotiated a variance to allow a predominantly African-American church to open in Turtle Creek. We helped the Warren County Amish with government utilities regulations, and helped non-denominational Christians get self-uniting marriage licenses that Allegheny County had restricted to Bahai's and Quakers. And we successfully defended a Pennsylvania branch of Pax Christi from a defamation suit over an important report they issued on lousy medical care at the Lackawanna County (Scranton) Prison. These freedom-of-religion cases are a regular part of our docket, but as with the most recent case, our one-sided attackers — for reasons only their conscience knows — ignore them.
Within two days of filing suit for the "Just for Jesus Challenge Homeless Outreach," we got a court order allowing our Christian clients to resume operations. This was a particularly gratifying win. The Reverend Jack Wisor, the church's founder and bishop, is serving a huge and, unfortunately, growing need. Sitting in his small church two weeks ago, listening to him preach the gospel to the guests, hearing their mostly sad stories about how life had taken a nasty turn and how the church was helping them regain their bearing, I was impressed and inspired. Glad we could help. All part of the ACLU's rights-defending mission. Rights of everyone, that is. No exceptions. To learn more about this case, go to http://www.aclupa.org/legal/legaldocket/justforjesuschallengehomel. |
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