Are the Occupy Wal Street Protests Covered by the First Amendment?

From Slate, a contemplation of the conflict between First Amendment rights to assemble and protest and the rights of government to secure health and safety:

You cannot fault Bloomberg for his goals; they embrace the fundamental tension at the heart of the First Amendment and public protest. Case law dealt the Occupy movement some fairly heavy cards. Their speech, on matters of core political concerns, sits at the top of the pantheon of what the First Amendment protects. And while Zuccotti Park is technically private, it functions as a public park, and was dedicated under local zoning laws for round-the-clock public enjoyment in 1968. Public parks enjoy an exalted status in the geography of the First Amendment, enshrined in the sort of language men like the first Justice Roberts used to conjure images of the Periclean agora:

Wherever the title of streets and parks may rest, they have immemorially been held in trust for the use of the public and, time out of mind, have been used for purposes of assembly, communicating thoughts between citizens, and discussing public questions. Such use of the streets and public places has, from ancient times, been a part of the privileges, immunities, rights, and liberties of citizens.

But practice First Amendment law long enough, and you learn that for every uplifting paragraph like that, there are a thousand cases bending an abstract right to the prosaic realities of protest.

From Slate: Occupying the First Amendment What the actions over Zuccotti Park teach us about public spaces and citizen protest.

Some musings on the extent of the right of assembly.

From the NYT: Public Opinion and the Occupy Movement

The New York Times has an interactive feature designed to dig into attitudes about the movement. 

From Roll Call: Members of Congress are getting richer

The top 1% in the nation make up almost half of Congress. Does this inhibit their ability to represent the American population?

Members of Congress had a collective net worth of more than $2 billion in 2010, a nearly 25 percent increase over the 2008 total, according to a Roll Call analysis of Members' financial disclosure forms.

Nearly 90 percent of that increase is concentrated in the 50 richest Members of Congress.

Two years ago, Roll Call found that the minimum net worth of House Members was slightly more than $1 billion; Senators had a combined minimum worth of $651 million for a Congressional total of $1.65 billion.

Andrew Sullivan says this makes us an oligarchy.

The media is trying to figure what to make of OWS

From Slate:

The mainstream media thrives on simple solutions. It has no idea whatsoever of how to report on a story that isn’t about easy fixes so much as it is about anguished human frustration and fear. The media prides itself on its ability to tell you how to clear your clutter, regrout your shower, or purge your closet of anything that makes you look fat—in 24 minutes or less. It is bound to be flummoxed by a protest that offers up no happy endings

Why is the top 1% so powerful?

They are the ones who contribute to lobbyists:

If you want to understand how the top 1 percent have accumulated such power in American politics, look no further than Washington’s K Street lobbying corridor. Wall Street has long been the dominant player in the capital. “The banks,” Senator Dick Durbin said in 2009, “are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.”

The financial sector has spent more money on campaign contributions and lobbying than any other sector of the economy—$4.6 billion on lobbying since 1998, according to Open Secrets. This year, commercial banks and securities and investment firms have spent over $82 million on lobbying, employing over 1,000 lobbyists.

Tea Party v. OWS

A fun - if flip - comparison.

Will OWS be sustained

As with the Tea Party protests, the real test of the Occupy Wall Street movement will be its longevity, but both movements helped crystallize what had been loose, disjointed opinions. The Tea Partiers were able to convert theirs into an effective political movement - which had an impact on an election. The OWS hasn't yet, but this author thinks they've had an impact already:

It has already altered our political debate, changed the agenda, shifted the discussion in newspapers, on cable TV, and even around the water cooler. And that is wonderful.

Suddenly, the issues of equity, fairness, justice, income distribution, and accountability for the economic cataclysm–issues all but ignored for a generation—are front and center. We have moved beyond the one-dimensional conversation about how much and where to cut the deficit. Questions more central to the social fabric of our nation have returned to the heart of the political debate. By forcing this new discussion, OWS has made most of the other participants in our politics—who either didn’t want to have this conversation or weren’t able to make it happen—look pretty small.

. . . But until these protests, no political figure or movement had made Americans pay attention to these facts in a meaningful way. Indeed, over the long hot summer, as poverty rose and unemployment stagnated, the entire discussion was about cutting our deficit.

And then OWS showed up. They brought something that had been in short supply: passion—the necessary ingredient that powers citizen activism. The tempered, carefully modulated, and finely nuanced statements of Beltway politicians and policy wonks do not alter the debate.