ANSWER in Court Monday Morning Battling for Right to Protest at Trump Inauguration

Only one week after the election of Trump a news about a second intervention on our fundamental rights  (the first "Medien Trumps erstes Opfer") occured:

The ANSWER Coalition is in Court this Monday as part of the ongoing legal battle to preserve the right to protest along the Presidential Inaugural Route on Pennsylvania Ave. We have been represented by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, whose email about the case we have published below. We encourage all our supporters to share this article widely and come to Court if possible.

Government Asserts Free Speech Exclusion Zones are Outside the First Amendment’s Protections

Trump is elected and Free Speech rights are already at stake starting Day 1 – Inauguration Day, January 20, 2017.

We are going to court on Monday. We know that you share our sense of urgency and we are counting on you and others to support this fight. http://www.justiceonline.org/donate

The government has announced that on Inauguration Day space alongside the Pennsylvania Avenue inaugural parade route including Freedom Plaza and the area in front of the Trump Hotel will be free speech exclusion zones reserved for Trump supporters and funders.

On Monday morning, November 14th, at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the PCJF will defend the First Amendment rights of the people.

In an unprecedented court filing, the U.S. Government and its Justice Department argue that the government may take the public parklands, sidewalks and streets of America at the central moment of their use by the people for assembly, speech and debate, and petitioning of the government and redesignate our public spaces into exclusive “government speech” or No Free Speech Zones. There is no limitation to the scope of these zones.

The government has argued in its brief to the Court that with respect to these exclusion zones “the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment is not implicated” – that Free Speech rights under the First Amendment do not apply to demonstrations on public space if the government chooses to support a pro-government or favored viewpoint instead.

This is a new constitutional doctrine — carving a massive hole into the First Amendment — that the Justice Department is for the very first time in history arguing exists.

You can imagine what this means for democracy in America.

If the government wins court approval of this radical evisceration of First Amendment rights, you can expect that President Trump (or any mayor or governor) will be able to prevent or displace protest on public space at will simply by declaring that public forums like our sidewalks and parks are reserved for private organizations espousing a pro-government viewpoint. If they can do it on Pennsylvania Avenue, “America’s Main Street,” on Inauguration Day, they will do it everywhere they wish.

At Monday’s hearing, the PCJF will demand that Freedom Plaza — so named in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King’s leadership of a civil rights movement that spoke truth to power and which so profoundly benefited our society — be made available to dissent, and that the buffer zone around Trump Hotel reserved for Trump supporters be disallowed.

The extreme danger posed to the Bill of Rights and the right to protest by the actions of the government cannot be overstated.

The PCJF has fought for the right to protest along the Inaugural route for 16 years regardless of administration. This case alone has been litigated since 2005.

As people come to Washington, D.C. to demand justice and equality, you can count on the PCJF to remain a staunch defender of Free Speech rights in the nation’s capital.

We need your support to defend fundamental rights that are under attack. To support the organizing efforts to bring tens of thousands of people to Washington, D.C. to protest Trump's Inauguration, please make a tax-deductible donation today. http://www.answercoalition.org/donate

ANSWER Coalition
http://www.answercoalition.org/

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Kommentar: RE: 20161115 First Amendment bei Trumps Amtseinführung bedroht

Dr. Rainer,

I'm seriously concerned about your online privacy and freedom of expression after last week's election. 

Soon, president-elect Donald Trump will have full control of the NSA – the most powerful state surveillance system on earth. With his authoritarian streak, growing list of enemies, and desire to implement widespread censorship on the Web, this is far from a distant threat. 

Trump's values are not our values. He wants to dramatically expand the NSA to spy on each of us, he's called for "closing parts of the Internet," and he has a complete disdain for the most fundamental safeguard for an open Internet: Net Neutrality.

Once inaugurated, Trump will inherit the power to severely harm our rights in the digital age. The results would be felt worldwide.

Laura Tribe, Executive Director - OpenMedia, 18.11.2016 17:21

RE: 20161115 First Amendment bei Trumps Amtseinführung bedroht

Fight for Your Right of Resistance! So many of you have reached out to let us know of your commitment to stand up against the incoming Trump administration's promised war on civil rights, women's rights and environmental protections. We are sending out this recent message because we know how important it is that we all stand together.  

So when we discovered that the Trump Presidential Inaugural Committee was already being allowed to suppress organizing and dissent for protests to Stop the Trump Agenda we mobilized. We are not waiting for Trump to take office. Action starts now.

PCJF, 16.12.2016 10:08

RE: 20161115 First Amendment bei Trumps Amtseinführung bedroht

Dear Dr. Rainer,

We never thought a Trump presidency would be easy, but things are shaping up
even worse than we imagined.

Trump’s nominations to his presidential cabinet are a horrifying mix of
racists, xenophobes, sexists, Wall Street insiders, and corporate cronies.

Trump’s cabinet picks expose the real Trump agenda: harnessing hateful ideology
to gain power and using it to enrich Trump, his cronies, and huge corporations.

Tell the Senate: Use your confirmation power to block Trump’s cabinet of hate
and Wall Street greed.

It wasn’t long ago that Donald Trump promised to be a “president for all
Americans” and to make the economy work for ordinary people instead of wealthy
elites.

Maybe he thought we’d forget, because it’s clear as day that those promises were
nothing more than a way to grab power. Just look at who he’s nominating:

Foreclosure profiteer Steve Mnuchin (Treasury Secretary) – This former Goldman
Sachs executive got rich running a “foreclosure machine,” kicking working
Americans out of their homes using techniques a federal judge called “harsh,
repugnant, shocking and repulsive.” He foreclosed on well over 36,000 homes.
Mnuchin’s “number one priority on the regulatory side"? Attacking the Dodd-Frank
reforms reining in Wall
Street.

Wall Street billionaire Wilbur Ross (Secretary of Commerce) – Wilbur Ross is a
Wall Street billionaire who made his money as a notorious "vulture investor."
The so-called "king of bankruptcy," he offshored American textile jobs to China
and Mexico and 12 coal workers controversially died at his mine in West
Virginia. But he complains that “the 1 percent is being picked on for political
reasons.

Anti-woman racist Jeff Sessions (Attorney General) – A Republican-led
Judiciary Committee deemed him too racist to confirm as a federal judge… /in
1986/. Sessions would be responsible for enforcing the nation’s civil rights
laws – despite a history of calling a black subordinate "boy," "joking" about
supporting the Ku Klux Klan, and calling the ACLU and NAACP "un-American." His
anti-woman agenda is so extreme he voted against reauthorizing the Violence
Against Women Act and said "I don't characterize" grabbing women by the genitals
"as sexual
assault."

We can win here. The Senate can block these unacceptable picks if we make a
loud enough outcry.

P.S. After you sign, our tool makes it easy to call your senators and Senate leadership, a super-effective way to make your voice heard.

Thank you,
The Team at Watchdog.net , 31.12.2016 21:21

 RE: 20161115 First Amendment bei Trumps Amtseinführung bedroht

Faced with imminent litigation, National Park Service is releasing permits for Ellipse and other Inaugural protest spaces.  NPS releases the Ellipse next to White House on January 21st for permitted assembly, made available to the Women's March for closing activities

 ANSWER Coalition issued January 20th Inauguration Day Permit to hold rally with stage and sound alongside Trump's Inaugural Parade route.

We are pleased to tell you and all those who have been supporting the fight to defend free speech at the Inauguration that we have prevailed in this long, hard-fought battle to secure the Ellipse and other spaces in Washington, D.C. so that they are available for mass assembly gatherings and protest on January 20th and January 21st.

 The National Park Service only relented in releasing permits for protest on public space after the PCJF made clear that we would be filing for a preliminary injunction to force the release of permits.

 On Jan. 5, the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund notified the National Park Service that litigation was imminent and that permits, including for the Ellipse and other locations, had to be released immediately. We advised them that their withholding of space from the required permitting process, and their giving the Trump Presidential Inaugural Committee the discretion to hold these spaces and keep demonstrators from receiving permits, was in violation of the permanent injunction obtained by the PCJF and entered against the NPS in 2008 in federal court.

After being notified of imminent litigation, the NPS and the Trump PIC reversed course and the NPS issued a statement that they would release the Ellipse and other public spaces for permitted protests.

Permits are now being issued. The Ellipse is being made available to the Women's March, which will now have the opportunity to march into the Ellipse and hold its closing activities adjacent to the Trump White House on January 21st.

For Friday, January 20th, the ANSWER Coalition has been issued a permit for the Navy Memorial plaza space directly abutting the Inaugural Parade route and will set up a 28-foot-long stage and have a sound system. They will now be able to maintain a rally going throughout the day featuring nationally known leaders, grassroots activists and musicians. None of this could have happened without the issuance of a permit. Pacifica Network and other media will now be covering the rally and demonstration live from the Navy Memorial.

The release of these permits is a significant victory for free speech, and we continue to challenge the NPS's unconstitutional operation that is denying full and fair access to our public lands for protests at the Inauguration. It is shameful that the NPS stonewalled, and allowed the Trump PIC to stonewall, the ability of groups to obtain permits to exercise fundamental First Amendment rights until faced with legal action.  The PCJF has been fighting for the issuance of these permits for months and we have been in court for more than 15 years challenging the efforts of the government to suppress dissent at the inauguration. Please help us continue this fight.

As the Trump era begins we are entering a period of extreme political turbulence.  The agenda of the incoming Trump administration is to roll back or eviscerate fundamental civil, social, economic and political rights that the vast majority of the country holds dear.  He plans to put this country's infrastructure, schools and environment up for sale to corporations, banks and hedge funds.

This is a time when grassroots political action, including the exercise of dissent and free speech, is of the gravest importance. The PCJF is committed to the efforts necessary to defend the right to stand up and speak out. Your support made this victory possible, and we hope we can count on you to do everything you can to strengthen this critical defense of the right to free speech. We can only do it together.

Partnership for Civil Justice Fund - United States, 13.01.2016 22:42

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