Do we have the right to assemble and petition our government?

Occupy Wall Street protesters were arrested in Philadelphia, New York, Chicago and multiple other US cities this weekend. After her release, a protester arrested in Denver explained how their protest was only given a permit to gather on the sidewalk in front of a bank. She went to the protest, where a police officer ordered her to get off of the sidewalk, then arrested her when she refused to violate the conditions of the permit. Apparently, you can be arrested for assembling in a way a permit doesn’t allow, and you can be arrested for refusing to violate the permit as well. You can’t use a bullhorn at many protests, but the police can. The Denver police informed the aforementioned woman that there are a shadowy set of rules about protests that are prohibited by the Homeland Security Act, but they said they could not even tell her what those rules are. For public safety reasons, they must be kept secret

You can’t demonstrate on the Washington Mall, or in an ever growing number of public places, because authorities will not give you a permit. Since when do we need a permit to exercise our constitutional rights to peacefully assemble and to petition the government? If we who aren’t protesting just sit by and let this constitutional right be stripped away by an ever expanding set of confusing and impossible to comply with rules, how long till you need a permit to exercise free speech? Would even writing an application for such a permit be illegal because you didn’t have a permit to write the request?

Sure, we want our government to protect us from terrorism. But how many nations have been defeated and lost their liberties when terrorists overwhelmed them? How many have lost their liberties when their own government usurped its rightful powers, began jailing people for their political views, and acting as a tyrant? Which poses the greater threat to liberty? Remember the words of Benjamin Franklin, “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

Do you plan to do anything to ensure we keep our constitutional rights? Would you rather someone else took care of that? Or do you feel like George W Bush who so famously said, “Stop throwing the Constitution in my face. It’s just a goddamned piece of paper! ”