'Onerous' protest laws anger G-8 activists
By PAUL KAPLAN
Cox News Service

ATLANTA -- Brad Brown is the mayor of Brunswick, and this is his nightmare:

Thousands of angry protesters arrive for the G-8 summit of world leaders at nearby Sea Island in June. They create a paralyzing three-day traffic jam, spend virtually no money, damage public property and force businesses to close. Already mired in an economic slump, the coastal Georgia town spends a fortune on security, then has to dig even deeper for the cleanup.

Nobody is publicly predicting such a scenario, but a lot of people around here think some of it is likely. With that in mind, the city enacted a strict "public conduct" ordinance that gives Brunswick control over who can congregate where, and requires hefty deposits for protest permits and insurance coverage.

Savannah, the other likely hot spot for protesters during the G-8 summit, has enacted a similarly restrictive ordinance -- and activists are crying foul. They say the local laws infringe on their constitutional rights to free speech and assembly, and the fees discriminate against the poor.

"They make it prohibitively difficult to apply for a permit, much less get one," said Robert Randall of Brunswick, who said he is trying to organize a G-8 festival that brings activist groups together peacefully. "They require money up front from anybody who wants to carry out free speech on public property. That's another version of the old poll tax that basically denied rights to people who didn't have money."

The American Civil Liberties Union is studying the ordinances -- and similar laws adopted by Glynn and Chatham counties -- to decide whether to challenge them in court, said Gerry Weber, the ACLU's legal director in Atlanta.

With the summit 10 weeks away, no protest permits have yet been issued in Brunswick or Savannah, largely because of the financial requirements, activists say.

In Savannah, obtaining a permit for a gathering of more than 200 people requires a deposit of $1.50 per person. For Kellie Gasink and William Pleasant, who are seeking a permit for a three-day festival for 5,000 people at Forsyth Park in Savannah's historic district, that translates into a $7,500 outlay -- money they say they don't have.

If the local ordinances are allowed to stand, there could be trouble, activists predicted.

Pleasant said "onerous fees" and regulations that let local governments decide who can gather and who can't might force his group to drop their plans.

"If the city doesn't cooperate with us, we'll pull out," Pleasant said. "Then they'll be left with 5,000 to 10,000 activists who are real angry, and their precious little downtown could go up in flames. The less organization and planning you have, the more likelihood of that scenario."

By requiring a permit for public gatherings of more than five people, the local governments will be playing right into the hands of troublemakers, Randall suggested.

"The ordinances make everything that's peaceful almost impossible, and leave untouched the one thing that anarchists are telling people to do -- come in small groups and remain dispersed," the Brunswick activist said. "That is the anarchist strategy: tiny groups running around looking for ways to vent their frustration. The ordinances will force that to be the only thing that can happen."

That is not their intent, city and county officials say, but they contend that communities have to protect themselves.

"Here's a situation where we could have 10,000 people wanting to gather, and with the financial condition that Brunswick is in, it technically could break the bank," said Mayor Brown.

After the unrest and acts of violence that accompanied meetings of world leaders in Seattle and Miami, some residents and business owners on Georgia's coast are worried.

"That is why we felt we had to make it very clear that while everyone is welcome, we want [protesters] to come and behave themselves," Savannah Mayor Otis Johnson said.

Miami adopted a tough ordinance before the Free Trade of the Americas meeting last November, but a federal judge gutted many of its key provisions before the gathering took place. The Miami City Council killed it altogether this month.

In some ways, the local ordinances in Georgia are more restrictive. In Miami, public gatherings did not require a permit unless the group was larger than eight, compared to five in Georgia. And Miami required a permit only if people planned to gather for more than 30 minutes; in Georgia there is no latitude on time.

Some legal experts say the ordinances are ripe for court challenges.

Charles Marvin, a constitutional law professor at Georgia State University, said the fees and deposits required of groups wishing to march or assemble can, in effect, prevent poor people from speaking out. He also thinks a court will note that all four governments -- Brunswick, Savannah, Glynn County and Chatham County -- wrote or toughened their laws shortly before the G-8 summit.

When laws are "put in place suddenly and appear to be targeting certain groups and certain periods of time, they don't pass the smell test," Marvin said.

James Ponsoldt, a constitutional law professor at the University of Georgia, said the trend is to allow governments to set fees for gatherings to recoup costs. Unless a community profits from such a fee, "it's going to be hard to make an equal-protection case" based on a heavier burden on the poor, he said.

Ponsoldt thinks the ACLU might have more success with a freedom of assembly argument because "this sounds more like the kind of licensing that could be considered prior restraint on speech."

Paul Kaplan writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.