Philly's Free-Speech Face-Off
By Lise Funderburg
TIME magazine
July 24, 2002
URL: http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/2000/07/17/philly.html
For Philadelphia, playing host to the Republican National Convention is a high-stakes
venture, and last week's videotaped arrest of a suspected carjacker has intensified
the national spotlight on the City of Brotherly Love. No one wants to see a repeat
of the mass arrests, property destruction and wanton use of tear gas that occurred
during demonstrations against Seattle's World Trade Organization meetings last
year. Now Philadelphia police will not only be under pressure to be firm if street
chaos erupts while the G.O.P. is in town but must also be civil at the same time.
To help the police, local politicians passed a law targeting masked demonstrators.
But what they see as a step toward public safety has been criticized as
an attempt to put democracy up for sale. The ordinance, which sets a fine
of at least $75, allows police to arrest mask wearers who evidence "the
specific intent to intimidate or threaten another person."
While no-mask laws exist in at least 18 states, most were designed to
deal with secret societies like the Ku Klux Klan, whose intimidation factor
was heightened by members' concealed identities. Philadelphia's law, in
language derived from hate-crime legislation, signals a new target: political
activists, particularly self-described or suspected anarchists. Ironically,
the people protected by the first laws--religious, racial, sexual and political
minorities--are potentially the focus of the second wave.
Among local activists, there's concern that the "known troublemakers" and "infiltrators" that
the law's sponsor, Councilman Richard Mariano, hopes to guard against will
be confused with nonviolent street-theater performers and demonstrators
who have taken a cautionary lesson from the Seattle and Washington protests. "Particularly
in Seattle," says a labor organizer who attended both, "just
being out on the street meant you were subject to chemical warfare."
Civil rights advocates argue that the law, aside from requiring ESP to
recognize "specific intent," quashes free speech and is a thinly
veiled crowd-control mechanism, and not necessarily one that works. Seattle
had passed an emergency two-day gas-mask ban to little effect. Detroit
passed one too, anticipating trouble at a June meeting of the Organization
of American States, but the law was never used. "How in heaven's name
can the average officer know what the 'intent' of the masked individual
is?" asks Stefan Presser of Pennsylvania's A.C.L.U. "What the
officers are going to do is equate masked faces with permission to remove
these individuals from the streets."
Protesters fear that the ambiguously worded law is so likely to be misunderstood that any attempt to enforce it will erupt in violence. Perhaps this is why, even before last week's police beating, Police Commissioner John Timoney decided that only he and his two deputy commissioners will have the power to order its use. Like beauty, intent is in the eye of the beholder. One thing no one questions: Los Angeles, home to August's Democratic Convention, will be watching.