The Assault on Free Speech, Public Assembly, and Dissent

A National Lawyers Guild Report 47
foot-high fencing encased in concrete around a two-mile section of
downtown Washington.
In response, lawyers from the Partnership for Civil Justice, also
litigating on behalf of the National Lawyers Guild, filed a lawsuit on
August 20, 2001 in federal court seeking to stop D.C. police and
federal authorities from cordoning off and prohibiting free speech in
large sections of downtown Washington for the September
demonstrations against the World Bank and IMF, asserting that such
measures would infringe on organizers’ First Amendment rights. 127
<strong>The</strong> suit sought an injunction to bar the police from setting up what
lawyers have called “exclusion zones” that prohibit free-speech
activities from taking place on the sidewalks, streets, and public
parks within the designated area. <strong>The</strong> suit named D.C. police chief
Charles H. Ramsey, the District, the director of the National Park
Service, and the federal government as defendants. According to
National Lawyers Guild member Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, of the
Partnership for Civil Justice, the exclusion zones run counter to the
established rights of members of social justice movements to march
freely for what they believe in. “It’s the way to speak to each other,
to speak to the world,” she said. “When the government begins to
create these artificial areas to deny full access to our public land, it
infringes on people’s First Amendment rights.” 128
Demonstrators hoping to be within sight and sound of the delegates
entering and leaving the Democratic National Convention at the
Fleet Center in Boston in late July 2004 were forced to protest in a
special “demonstration zone” adjacent to the terminal where buses
carrying the delegates arrived. 129 <strong>The</strong> zone, which was surrounded by
two chain-link fences separated by concrete highway barriers, was
only large enough for around 1,000 persons to congregate safely. Its
outermost fence was covered with black mesh designed to repel
liquids, and much of the area was under an abandoned elevated-train
line. Another black net, topped by razor wire, covered the zone.
Tables and chairs were not permitted, there were no sanitary
facilities, and there was no way for demonstrators to pass written
materials to convention delegates. 130 <strong>The</strong> federal judge who heard a
challenge to the demonstration zone by the National Lawyers Guild
on behalf of protest groups on July 22 said in open court, “I, at first,
thought before taking the view [of the site] that the characterizations
of the space as being like an internment camp were litigation
hyperbole. I now believe that it’s an understatement. One cannot
conceive of what other elements you would put in place to make a