The DeJonge v. Oregon Supreme Court case ruled that freedom of Assembly, as guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Constitution, argues that as long as assembly is peaceful, it is protected by the Constitution. But what if it causes a public disturbance?
Events such as parades and protests are not necessarily as protected as they may seem, given that people are regularly arrested for entirely peaceful protests. One such set of protests, from the Occupy Wall Street movement, shows this. One hundred and eighty-five people were arrested for peacefully speaking out against economic inequalities and lobbying in government. Under DeJonge, this is entirely legal given the following:
1. No threats are made.
Brandenburg v. Ohio illustrates that free speech dedicated to incitement, or encouraging illegal action to occur, is not protected under the Constitution. That is, if the protestors began shouting "Death to Wall Street!", they are absolutely legal to arrest.
The report doesn't show that this occurred, and in fact depicts the crowd as overwhelmingly passive-aggressive in their stance.
2. No libel of specific persons occurred.
New York Times Co. v. Sullivan shows that libel is illegal, given that the statements put forth are untrue and given that there was malicious intent involved. "Malicious" is particularly hard-pressed under New York Times Co.; emotional insults are not enough to deem it illegal.
Again, the report doesn't seem to show reports of libel from the crowd, and even if specific insults were lobbed, it's unlikely that they would have caused much damage.
Hence, it's possible that this was an unconstitutional arrest that was simply never brought to court.
OH NO SCALE: Somewhat
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