Re: Bikes in Political Demonstrations: Paris June 5th - Cycling Mob: Road Cycling, Mountain Biking and More

07-14-2004, 11:20 AM

Parade permits are denied for unconstitutional reasons all the time and
in those cases the rights of indivuals are violated. Just because the
Supreme Court has decided that in some circumstances some permits can
be denied does not automatically mean that governments on any level
have the right to decide when to grant permits and when not to.
Likewise, obcenity laws to do not mean that free speech can be
selectively disallowed.

A demonstration is not automatically illegal because a permit is not
granted. Judge's decisions to grant injunctions against demonstrations
are almost always in the name of order over rights and are thus usually
made to comply with the political context of the march... when such a
demonstration is a political one it would be hard to argue (in my
delusional mind) that the decision to not allow a group of citizens to
assemble is honoring the language of the Constitution.

In any case, in the modern era, if a gathering of people is spontaneous
and has not been sponsered or organized by an established group what
right do the Police act upon when they do what I have described above?
If 10,000 show up in from of Toys R Us in Times Square to get a Furby
on sale is there any authority for the police to detain them and
threaten arrest if they do not disperse? I feel that this 'bike
resistence' action for the RNC convention is very similar to this
scenario. There are hundreds of thousands of autos and bikes of the
streets of Manhattan all day -- what would give the cops the right to
detain and arrest bikers on this day? Would they be within their
authority to assume that all bikers are a part of this 'illegal
assembly?' And, failiing that, how could they assert than *anyone* was
a
part of it?