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Pittsburgh to cite G-20 demonstrators for intending illegal use of protest items

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] The Pittsburgh City Council on Wednesday passed an ordinance in anticipation of the upcoming Group of 20 (G-20) summit that will allow police to cite people in possession of certain items if they intend to use them unlawfully. The temporary ordinance, passed in anticipation of protests at the summit scheduled for September 24 and 25, expires at the end of the month. It prohibits the possession of tools or other items such as handcuffs, padlocks, and pipes with an intent to use those items to block access to streets, sidewalks, and public buildings or to defeat crowd control orders. Pittsburgh Public Safety Director Mike Huss said that the ordinance will help to protect the public. Councilman William Peduto, the only member of council to vote against the ordinance, said that laws prohibiting protesters from blocking access to streets and sidewalks and requiring them to obey dispersal orders already exist and that the ordinance allows officers "to make a judgment call not on an act but on an assumption of an act," exposing the city to federal lawsuits. Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit claiming that the US Secret Service, the City of Pittsburgh, and the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources are acting illegally by failing to issue protest permits for the summit. The ACLU claims that the failure to issue protest permits for certain areas of the city is a violation of the First Amendment right to peaceful protest. In its complaint, the rights group argued for injunctive and declaratory relief claiming that only two protest permits have been issued so far for the G-20, and those two permits were far away from downtown Pittsburgh. A federal judge heard arguments in the suit Wednesday. A proposal to ban masks and hoods during the summit was voted down by the City Council last week.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on September 16, 2009 (boomark / email).